In recent months, I had proposed that we look more carefully at the issue of whether or not social skills should be taught in school.  I’ve discussed a few strategies for working with the younger set, and I have since spent time exploring social skills training for older elementary and middle school students, kids who …

    In my last post, I mentioned the importance of teaching social skills in the classroom, and promised to share some ideas.  I’d like to begin with my favorite group of students…..the little guys!  Given that the majority of my teaching experience has been with preschoolers and Kindergartners  I have a tendency to feel strongly …

 For as long as I can remember, people have commented to me about how wonderful my children are because they are so polite.  Parents often told me how they loved having my kids over to play.  Teachers never failed to comment about what “great” kids I have, and somehow the word polite came across in …

I recently had a student tell me that he had carefully chosen his classes so that he only took one writing class in all of his undergrad and graduate work.  My class was the second (and unfortunately for him the unavoidable one).  When I heard this I thought, “Wow, what a lot of work that …

Prepping Your Bag of Tricks for a New Year A couple of months ago, I addressed the need to directly teach study skills in the classroom, so that students could develop skills necessary for success in school, and in higher education settings in particular.  With improved study skills comes a greater retention of material and …

I just took a short summer break from teaching one of my favorite classes, a mix of ethics and business law.  Next week I’m back at it again.  Sometimes stepping away like that gives you a little time to reflect on how it’s all going.  I’ve taught this class about 5 times now, so my …

 Tips & Tricks to help children with maintaining learned skills from the school year  when it’s summer?     For many students, maintaining learned skills from one school year to the next can be a bit of a challenge.  For some students with special needs, this challenge may be significantly magnified.  Although there may be summer …

Each summer I do something special with my kids as they are home for the 12 or 13 week break.   June 1st  I create a list of challenges to complete for prizes.   I got the idea from the book, Super Summer Challenge by Linda Wicks.    I started this project when they were in kindergarten, and …