Groovy Educator

YouTube Video Teaching Writing Skills and Vocabulary Through Conversation In this relatively short video, I model how you can use conversations to build your child's vocabulary.  Through questioning and rephrasing, you are modeling appropriate language skills.  This in turn improves your child's ability to write because usually if a child can say it, he/she can write it (even if words are sounded out). In the video, I begin by asking what my daughter wants to talk about and she replies "fans."  Then she goes on to say "So today we will be talking about fans."  She automatically went into an introduction without even realizing she was stating the topic (probably because her mom's a teacher).  By giving her a choice on the topic, she is more interested in the conversation.  This builds engagement. A little while later in the video, I state "Apparently my daughter is a fan of fans."  I am intentionally modeling another way to use ...

I've been home sick these last TWO days!  It's so frustrating!  I did sneak in my classroom at 6:30am Monday to make sure the leprechaun visited and make sure plans were in order. Can you believe I had over a 100 degree fever Saturday, Sunday, and Monday?  Today I woke up drenched (luckily no fever) with a straggling sore throat that will not go away .  Luckily my husband was off and he took care of our soon to be one year old sweetie pie. I slept and I slept and I slept.  I forgot what that felt like because it's been so long!  In the moments that I wasn't sleeping, when my teeth were chattering, I looked up ideas for my baby's first birthday.  It is sneaking up so quickly. I feel so guilty that I wasn't grading papers!!!  It's so hard to find balance now that I am a mom.  I feel guilty when I am doing school work because I want to give my daughter 100% and I feel guilty when I am doing mommy jobs because I feel my other babies nee...