Saturday, March 31, 2012

Free Flags of the World Match Game


My family and I currently live in France.  It's been a running family joke that my daughter, who is now 6, lived in 4 countries before she was 1 year old (USA, Canada, Ireland and France).  Because of our travels and life style my children became very interested in different flags of the world.  Me and my husband created this matching game so that our children and others could learn about different flags and also they can sort the countries into different continents.  Click on the picture above to grab your own free copy of this matching game.
 
Have a great weekend,



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Allow Me To Introduce Myself...Michelle Lundy


My name is Michelle Lundy from Making It As A Middle School Teacher.

I have been teaching for 5 years.  I've taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.  Most of my teaching time has been spent in 7th grade teaching math.  However, this year I'm teaching 7th grade Science and Social Studies.  At this time, the plan for next year will be 7th grade Math and Social Studies.

I'm from the United States.  I teach in a rural, low socio-economic school where about 80% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch.  I deal with many, many issues each day that stem from the environment in which I teach....lack of care of home, living with other relatives, not enough to eat, few clothing items, dirty clothing items, parents in jail, broken homes, etc. Such problems and constant social and household conflicts have a negative impact on children's education and their adaptation in educational institutions. Therefore, I try to help everyone both in solving extracurricular issues and answering such requests as write my persuasive essay for me, in this way I help such teenagers to avoid unnecessary stress.

My heart often breaks over what my students are going through.  However, I still expect them to be successful and overcome their surroundings!

I wanted to join up with Heidi at Global Teacher Connect after teaching Social Studies this year.  My eyes were really opened to what is going on in our world in a whole different way.  Thinking about global issues enough to teach them to 7th graders and to see their enthusiasm and hear their questions has been a wonderful experience!

I hope to share a little slice of life from my classroom located in the Southeastern US.  




I hope to gain more knowledge about how to better teach my students!



I look forward to getting to know each of you much better!


Making It {and smiling},


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What is Everyone Teaching


Who’s writing this blog? Lots of people – each from a different place and with a different story. So, each week, there will be a Getting to Know you question posted that teacher-authors will answer. This will help all of you get to know all of us just a little bit better.

Do you have a question about us you would like answered? Feel free to email you question to us at heidiraki @ gmail . com.

gtc2


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Friday, March 30, 2012

What Word is This?


I teach first graders who are just learning to read.  The problem is they are learning to read in a language they have not quite mastered speaking yet – so a lot of times they can sound out a word, but they have no idea what that word means.  One way I combat this in my classroom is through my word family products.  I use word wall cards, making words centers and self correcting puzzles for each word family that my class studies, and all of the pieces contain the same picture for the same word.  This consistency helps my students remember what those words mean. 

ack2   ackcards     ackpuzzle

Feel free to grab any of the ACK family products for FREE at my TPT store.

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Technorati Tags: word family,self correcting puzzle,word wall cards,making words centers,raki's rad resources

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Tolerance in the Classroom


I taught ESL in an Anchorage, Alaska Elementary school for 9 years. It is hard for people to imagine that there are over 100 languages spoken in Anchorage and over 18 cultures and languages were represented at my school. Not only was 50% of the school population bilingual but 90% of the school was on free and reduced lunch. There were cultural gang wars in the neighborhood between my students older brothers and sisters and so many of my students were already intolerant of other cultures before they entered school. In my learning center where I worked with the most limited English proficient students I had "be" rules.
Be respectful
Be kind
Be responsible
Be helpful.
We had a community meeting where we sat in a circle and talked about being respectful to each other, to me and also my being respectful to each of them. Everyone signed the contract and it also went home to parents for them to sign. Believe it or not every contract was signed!!! I also decided to teach ESL classes to my parents at night and I was amazed at how many showed up. I did lots of activities where they would have to practice conversations or "polling" with different partners and soon we were one big family. We all worked together to have a Multicultural Night and they shared food, flags, special clothing and dances. It was amazing to watch how they interacted and ate each other's native dishes and even danced together. From then on we held  a Multicultural night every year and more and more parents participated. It truly changed the climate of the school. It may not have ended the gang wars but the ESL students and their parents felt welcomed and respected at our school.
Arlene- LMN Tree

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Tolerance in the classroom


After reading Heidi's previous post, I decided to write my own about tolerance in the classroom.
I live in Spain, we have lots of diversity in my school.
Just the other day a kid asked another: 'Are you friends with Jesus?' 'No I'm not' said the other one. The first kid came to me almost in tears to tell me about it with the other one chasing him and asking: 'But is he in first grade?'
I couldn't help laughing. Of course he didn't know Jesus, he is Muslim and just came from Morocco. Then we had that little talk about different families and respect.
How I love first grade! 


  Lita Lita 

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Culture Clash–1st Grade Style


At the International school that I teach at, about half of my students are Moroccan and half of my students come from somewhere else, but happen to be living in Morocco.  ( I have students from Spain, Libya, Congo, the Philipeans and the US).  Because of this, I have the unique opportunity to teach many non-Muslims who are living in a mainly Muslim country.  This leads to some very interesting conversations – especially when they come out in first grade terminology. 

Today, one little boy in my class told another little boy “You’re going to the fire because you eat pig.”  (Translation out of 1st grade terms – You’re going to hell because you eat pork.)image

Well, needless to say this meant time for a class conversation.  Now, one of my Social Studies standards is teaching Muslim holidays, so my class has had many conversations about how different people can be of different religions and celebrate different holidays.  Today, however, we decided to do a quick lesson in tolerance that can be summed up in this line, (which we decided would be the response in our class if anyone said something not nice) – Different families do things differently, my family is different than your family, and that’s okay!

How do you address tolerance in your class?

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Technorati Tags: cultural clash,religion,tolerance,raki's rad resources



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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Substitute Teachers


I have two days this week that I will be out of the classroom for different reasons.  One on Tuesday and one on Friday.  It got me thinking and wondering how others around the world work out being out of the classroom.  In the states, there is usually a pool of people that have been hired as substitute teachers.  They are called upon, now by automated services, to accept the "job" of taking over the class for the time needed.  They rotate to various schools throughout the school district and accept as much or as little work as they desire.  I do have the option to request people who have been great in my classroom, which is great if they are available.  Who takes over for you if you have to be out of the classroom?

DillyDabbles


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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Getting to Know Global Connect Teacher Authors


Who’s writing this blog?  Lots of people – each from a different place and with a different story.  So, each week, there will be a Getting to Know you question posted that teacher-authors will answer.  This will help all of you get to know all of us just a little bit better. 

Do you have a question about us you would like answered?  Feel free to email you question to us at heidiraki @ gmail . com.

 

question1


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Monday, March 19, 2012

Do you Have Blood?


One of my favorite things to do in the evening is share with my husband all the “interesting” phrases that my students say.  The majority of my students are English Language Learners.  (I teach at an international school in Casablanca, Morocco.)  They are learning to speak a language that they rarely hear, in a country where English is not the language of the streets, and they have some “unique” phrasing that is part of their learning process.  Here are a few of my favorite “heard in my classroom” phrases:

- Ms. Raki, I have blood!  (Translation – I’m bleeding.)

- Can I go in the toilet?  (I have fun explaining why we don’t go inside a toilet – Smile)

- My paper is cut!  (No scissors needed, cut generally means torn or ripped to my students.)

- Today is the happy birthday of my brother.  (Translation – It’s my brother’s birthday today.)

- Take.  (Said as they are handing you something. Translation – Here you go.)


 


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Technorati Tags: english language learners,raki's rad resources

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Welcome to Global Teacher Connect


Global Teacher Connect has been designed to be a collaborative blog for Global Teachers - teachers who are in the classrooms all around the globe creating global learners.

We would love to have teachers from around the globe sharing their experiences, their classrooms, and their resources here on Global Teacher Connect. If you would like to sign up to be an author on Global Teacher Connect - please contact Heidi Raki at [email protected]. Please note, in an effort to represent all of the countries of the globe, we will take no more than 5 teachers from any one country of residence.


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