// Langwitches Blog

I am guest blogging on My Wonderful World Blog (National Geographic Education Foundation) in honor of Geography Awareness Week 2009 the week of November 15 – 21!
This year’s theme is “Get Lost in Mapping: Find Your Place in the World”.

I wanted to share a successful geography lesson that continues to grow throughout the school year.  [...]

I’ll be joining bloggers around the Web for the 2009 Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon, hosted by National Geographic’s My Wonderful World Campaign.
Tune in to the My Wonderful World Blog November 15-21 for a daily dose of geographic news and jottings, photos, calls to action, a mystery location quiz, and more…

The Teddy Bears Around the World blog has moved domains! Please update your RSS, links and bookmarks. Please point to the new address: http://www.langwitches.org/blog/travel/teddybearsaroundtheworld/

If you are looking to participate in an easy and cute global project, that your students, school and parents will absolutely love, then this project is for you!!
Are you in higher education [...]

Last week I posted a lesson with the Middle School social studies students, “News Events Assignments with a Twitst“.
Students and their teacher have really taken to this assignment with incredible enthusiasm and creativity. Since each grade level has started entering current events onto their map, they have discussed, edited, and revised their entries. The printed- [...]

I wanted to add my reflection to the lesson, as a follow up to my post” Map skills and the SmartBoard” with 2nd graders from a few days ago.
As one of the activities for their maps and globe unit, 2nd graders worked collaboratively by creating an imaginary island according to specific directions.
Directions were:

Draw a Compass [...]

Over the years (from Elementary to High School) , I cannot tell you HOW many times each of my own daughters had to find news articles to bring in to class to share. These assignments came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they were required to write a summary, print out a representative image and [...]

2nd Grade is off to a great start in the school year. They are exploring maps and globes. Why are maps useful? When do you use a globe instead of a map? What is a map key and how does it help us?
More and more students are becoming familiar with their families’ GPS systems too, [...]

I have been blogging for over three years now. I use my blog to:

document my thoughts about educational technology and my journey as a connected teacher
share  educational resources, lesson plans, How-To guides, web 2.0 tools, experiences in the classroom
develop professional development workshops
sprinkle awareness about cultural, country and language specific differences among us

This blog is [...]

Having written a few days ago about What is in a Field Trip?, it was time to put the theory to practice.
Gail Lovely ‘ s quote about “framing a field trip” resonated with me
framing the event in learning before and after – & give them something to do while there!
Our third graders go on an [...]

Kindergarten teachers at my school proved this past week that they are a team of AMAZING teachers. I am in awe the way they :

worked as a team
were enthusiastic about the topic/content that they were teaching
taught with excellence in mind
did not use excuses why their students could not do this or that (Ex. they are [...]