A Little Light Reading: Blogs and Books to Check Out

There are some blogs I read that I feel make me a better teacher, and specifically some articles on these blogs that I find very useful.  Here are some of my favorites lately, that I hope others will like too.

Teacher Tom: Natural Consequences

Not Just Cute: The Disembodied Mind

Let the Children Play: The Importance of Roughhousing

If you are looking for ideas for your classroom there are HUNDREDS of ideas at the website  below.  I have done several of the activities found on this blog in only the few months I have been following it.
Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning

For anyone who is interested in some reading that isn't so "light" here are some books I have recently read that I highly recommend.

Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives by Mem Fox

Play: The Foundation that Supports the House of Higher Learning by Lisa Murphy

Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children Susan Neuman, Carol Copple, Sue Bredekamp

Book Hospital

Not very long ago in  our classroom we started putting books in need of a little "TLC," in our book hospital, at first I was a little pessimistic about this idea- after all if they liked having books in the book hospital mightn't they intentionally rip or tear books to get them in the hospital?  Turns out not.  Somehow they have a hyper- vigilant sense of the importance of books now.  They say to each other things like "you shouldn't bend the book like that, it will get broken!"  They put books with the slightest rip, tear, or slightly frayed binding.

Our book hospital is made from a simple small cardboard box and contains clear packaging tape and scotch tape.  On my shopping list is also more gum erasers to clean off any crayon marks that might pop up.