Gifts for the Classroom
By Patricia Broderick and Allen Raymond

World Class Learning
These clever people have teamed some of their wood-board puzzles and quality puppet-glove friends in exciting new sets.

Old favorites like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty and more have puppets designed just for little fingers.

Puppets are "cheerleaders" for kids as they work the puzzles. The puppets then become tools of the storyteller as the child retells the story of their puppet and puzzle. Very nice.

The prices for the sets vary from $19.99 to $35.99, depending on the number of puppets provided.
World Class Learning
www.WCLM.com

It's Arrived!
Regie Routman's newest book is here and it's a smasher. Writing Essentials: Raising Expectations and Results While Simplifying Teaching (Heinemann, 2005) is all about teaching kids how to write, and providing those invaluable (but trademark Regie) suggestions and activities that tie in reading growth with writing proficiency.

Teachers struggling with writing never seem to feel that they're doing the job they should do. In this book, Regie steps in and demonstrates exactly what she's thinking while she's conducting writing lessons, and how the kids react. And, you can rest assured these are real kids on whom she's reporting. Her voice is totally authentic, no matter what the lesson.

Providing a blueprint for teachers makes this book priceless. One of Regie's main purposes in writing this book "is to make teaching writing easier, more manageable, and more fun." She continues, "Teaching writing is a serious problem in many schools. We are overfocused on procedures, processes, genres, and testing and underfocused on thinking, communicating, inquiring and exploring language." Amen to that.

The book has five parts: 1) The Essential Writing Life, 2) Teaching Essentials, 3) The Essential Writing Day, 4) Advocacy is Also Essential and 5) Teaching in Action: Lesson Essentials.

In the first part – The Essential Writing Life – Regie identifies the essential elements of teaching writing, models manageable procedures being explicit about what good writers do. She introduces the 12 Writing Essentials that are applicable from kindergarten through high school (and beyond), changing only in the level of support writers require and the complexity of their texts.

Regie also shares her own "Top Five Things I Do to Ensure Students Become Excellent Writers." A goldmine. No small part of this is how Regie starts with celebration. She advises teachers to start with stories…family stories, stories that build trust and community. To build trust, Regie tells her own stories. She introduces the optimal learning model, a central feature of her work which consists of demonstration, shared demonstration, guided practice, independent practice, celebration and sharing.

Teaching Essentials covers raising expectations, including more shared writing and capitalizing on the reading-writing connection.

The Essential Writing Day does a beautiful job on integrating basic skills, organizing for daily writing and conferencing with students. This is a bugaboo for many teachers, but again Regie tells you just what to do and say during a conference and what issues inevitably arise in professional discussions. Regie talks about making assessment count and discusses the distinction between the assessment of learning and assessment for learning.

The Advocacy portion of the book is vintage Routman: Regie explores the need for teachers to be leaders, not followers. She promotes courage to override directives when a teacher's professional knowledge and experience tells him or her there's a better way. This section is worth the price of the whole book.

Part five of this book provides five-day lesson plans for five special areas; heart poems, procedural writing, hero writing, teaching persuasive writing and secrets of second graders.

There's a wonderful appendix that provides tons of professional development along with enrichment writing activities for the classroom.

There's a super DVD with clips of Regie's conferences and student writing examples. There's so much in the book we feel guilty not being able to tell you ALL about it. Do visit www.heinemann.com for a more comprehensive look at the best $32 you'll ever spend.

If you can't have Regie in your classroom, this book is the next best thing.
Heinemann Publishers
www.heinemann.com

What A Neat Idea!
Stories in Music™ is a read-along audio series for symphony orchestra and narrator, designed for children ages five and up and produced by Simon & Simon.

Okay, many of us know Peter and the Wolf, so what's new? What's new is that the works selected are much-loved children's tales. The first entry is Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Others to come are Casey at the Bat, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Tortoise and the Hare and a not-so-well-known but delightful, Juanita and the Lobster.

The 51-minute CD is accompanied by a 24-page booklet which provides information about the conductor, the singing stars and includes in this case, "The Mike Mulligan Song."

The CD itself helps develop listening skills. The story is first told in full, then there's information about the author and his or her story. The composer gives listeners the inside scoop on techniques composers use, how he or she selects the instruments and musical styles to help tell the stories and what special musical devices he or she uses. Listeners, armed with this knowledge listen to the story a second time. There's even an instrumental track included for kids to try The Mike Mulligan song a la Karaoke. $16.98 for the package.

These treats can be ordered online.
Simon & Simon
www.MagicMaestroMusic.com

Judge for Yourself!
A new book from Teachers Ideas Press spotlights famous American Trials for readers theatre. Kids in grades 6 and up will love reading the facts about nine historic trials and one hearing. The trials span from the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial through Susan B. Anthony, Lizzie Borden, The White Sox Scandal of 1919, the trial of John Thomas Scopes (the Scopes Monkey trial) and four others.

The Introduction to Judge for Yourself discusses why these particular trials were chosen, and the parallels are drawn between incidents in those trials and incidents in today's news. It's chilling.

The comprehensive scripts make it easy for teachers to enhance history, social studies or the humanities. Critical thinking skills are improved through the deliberation process. There are extensive references for each trial including a website address for complete transcripts of the trials.

The author has drawn on her extensive teaching background and included invaluable information on how to use readers theatre, as well as providing ideas for extending the benefits of using this strategy. She holds a teacher's hand every step of the way, reminding us that the primary purpose of readers theatre is to enhance the curriculum. An added perk is that for all its impact, readers theatre is inexpensive. This book is just $27.00.

The Lucky Subscriber will receive a copy of the book autographed by the author – Suzanne Barchers.
Teachers Ideas Press
www.teacherideaspress.com

It's Critical!
The need to teach critical thinking in today's world is, well, critical. And there's one company that can help you to this superbly well. it's name is, surprise, surprise, Critical Thinking Books & Software. We just love this company's products. They provide the opportunity to prepare your students for assessment, without teaching to the test. That's our kind of material.

We've seen so many of the company's products it's hard to select just a few to tell you about. Maybe we'll try some of their newest titles and you can find more information on their web site www.CriticalThinking.com First, there are Math Detective™ Books for grades 3 - 6. There are two levels. Students read short lessons that include charts, tables or graphs. Next, they answer critical thinking questions to develop their reading comprehension and deductive thinking skills. This is a lot more complicated than it sounds. It requires analysis and synthesis on the part of the student. These books are $18.99 each.

For grades two - 10 there are three levels of Dr. Funster's Quick Thinks Math. These are brain teasers that kids love, not necessarily realizing they're building basic math ability to compute, estimate and create tables and charts.

To whet your appetite there are also Red Herrings Science Mysteries, Think Analogies, Editor in Chief® Software, Dr. Funster's Word Benders (three levels), and Dr. Funster's Creative Thinking Puzzles (three levels). Almost all of the books have reproducible sheets.

The Reading Detective software features 51 activities, based on accompanying books, which require higher-order thinking skills to solve. The accompanying books include selections from Maniac Magee, Owls in the Family, the Jungle Book, Where the Red Fern Grows and lots more favorites. The company has provided a wonderful selection of books and software for our Lucky Subscriber.

This company has a long list of great products for you and the prices are good, well within most budgets – so be sure to check the website for those that interest you. You won't be sorry.
Critical Thinking Books & Software
www.CriticalThinking.com

It's that time again.
Open House, Parent's Night, Science Fair, Reading Buddies visits, holiday field trips – all events crying out for name tags. Then there are reading award buttons, recognition buttons, self-esteem and motivational buttons. When thinking of any of these, your next thought should be of Badge-A-Minit, a company with 30 years of service to education.

This company has stock designs as well as the machine and supplies to create your own buttons. They also have wonderfully unique ideas for using buttons. Would you have thought of having students find flowers and leaves during a nature walk, press them and turn them into buttons? Or of having kids make specialty buttons to be sold as fundraisers? Very nice ideas.

Visit Badge-A-Minit's website for prices and details and let the ideas roll!
Badge-A-Minit
www.badgeaminit.com