October has become notorious among educators for being a particularly challenging month. If you tend to feel that way, you're not alone. So we wanted to give a list of titles that will keep you inspired and motivated, while engaging your young learners. And you can apply any of these ideas to in-person, remote, or hybrid instruction! Take a look.
How to Create a Socially, Emotionally, and Intellectually Healthy Classroom Culture
Ten years ago, Peter Johnston and six colleagues embarked on a journey to discover how to create classrooms that thrive intellectually while being both socially and emotionally healthy. Engaging Literate Minds: Developing Children’s Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Lives is the culmination of their work and the stories of how their teaching has evolved by using Peter’s best-selling books Opening Minds and Choice Words.
The group collected their experiences and cast them into one voice to create this exciting new professional learning resource. Let it inspire and encourage you to gather with your colleagues in a collective effort to make children’s (and your own) lives and futures brighter.
How to Use Engaging Read-Alouds to Create a Caring Community of Learners
Incorporate social-emotional learning into your instruction using books you read aloud every day, and create a caring community in your classroom with Layers of Learning: Using Read-Alouds to Connect Literacy and Caring Conversations by JoEllen McCarthy.
Kwame Alexander wrote, “If JoEllen McCarthy were a chef, then Layers of Learning would be her cookbook. These carefully selected recipes for read-alouds are inventive and engaging.” This friendly, hands-on new book has over 200 picture-book suggestions, along with clear and concise strategies on how to incorporate social-emotional learning into your instruction using those books you read aloud every day. “Come on in her kitchen, the results are delicious.”
How to Make Math Learning Joyful for Your Young Students
Joyful Math: Invitations to Play and Explore in the Early Childhood Classroom by Deanna McLennan is about creating invitations for young children to engage with math ideas through art, literacy, and outdoor play. Inside you'll learn how to build spaces in early childhood classrooms where children see themselves as mathematical thinkers with valuable ideas from the very start.
Supported by her experiences exploring math with young children, Deanna’s methods will inspire educators to be curious about math, take risks, try different approaches, observe carefully, and collaborate with children as co-learners.
How to Practice Self-Care to Keep Your Spirits Up and Stay Focused Throughout the School Year
When teachers care for themselves deeply and deliberately, they are better able to care for the people that matter most in their lives—their students, friends, and families. Lisa Lucas wrote Practicing Presence: Simple Self-Care Strategies for Teachers to help you more successfully manage the frustration of feeling overwhelmed. Inside you'll find ideas, exercises, checklists, personal anecdotes, and practices you can use to reframe and establish a mindset that will enhance your focus and engagement in the classroom.
Each chapter includes self-care strategies to explore how to self-regulate, nurture self-acceptance, and promote compassion. This book will give readers the feeling of having a personal coach who provides suggestions and routines so that they not only can deal with being overwhelmed but rise above it.
How to Facilitate Fun and Meaningful Math Conversations with Students
How Many? is not like other counting books. Students might count one pair of shoes, or two shoes, or four corners of a shoebox. They might discuss whether two shoes have two shoelaces, or four. They might notice surprising patterns and relationships, and they will want to talk about them.
Christopher Danielson explores what deep mathematical ideas will bubble up in a How Many? conversation, such as counting, number language, units, grouping, partitioning, place value, and vocabulary. Throughout, he shares stories and excerpts from real classrooms where he facilitated How Many? discussions. Danielson helps teachers anticipate what students might notice and gives practical suggestions for facilitating rich conversations with students. Danielson's interest in students' ideas is infectious, and readers will soon find themselves seeking out opportunities to ask young mathematicians, "How Many?"
For more high-quality resources written by teachers, for teachers, go to Stenhouse.com and find more inspirational titles!
