News for August, 2009

Is the summer really nearly over? If you're feeling the heat and humidity that we are feeling in the northeastern portion of the country, then you must be nearly as eager as we are for fall to finally arrive!

This upcoming school year looks to be full of collaborative opportunities to work on contributions to this site. As we pursue the idea of teacher-created materials to accompany standard junior and senior high school textbooks, we will add many more to our current listings. Keep your eyes peeled!

News for July, 2009

We hope that you are enjoying your summer vacation as much as we are. The textbook handouts, begun last month, are about one-third complete. If they are not completed by the end of summer, they will definitely be completed during the course of the school year (in time to keep up with course pacing).

We were saddened by the death of entertainer Michael Jackson. Despite the controversies surrounding his life and death, there is no doubt that he was extremely talented. We had the privilege of attending the vigil held in his honor at the old "Hitsville, U.S.A." Motown Museum in downtown Detroit, Michigan, and are sharing some of our photographs here.

News for June, 2009

School's out for summer! There are a lot of things that we are working on, including creating handouts to accompany the latest Prentice Hall history textbooks. We are first working on United States History: Reconstruction to the Present (2008). These are terrific textbooks for use in the classroom, with a lot of nice interactive features on their CD-roms, but we like having something a bit more practical--even "simple"--when working with students. Our first batch of handouts for this book, available here, are one-sided sheets containing the section checkpoints and terms. These are ideal for guided reading use in the classroom or at home.

News for May

Spring is all around! Our eyes love it, but our allergies hate it.

This past month, we finally got around to fixing up our blog. We hope to update it regularly with thoughts, personal stories, etc., in a way that educators may find useful.

The newest feature is the Calendar section. We created a new weekly planner for the 2009-2010 school year (it'll be here before you know it), dated monthly calendars through December, 2010, and a "What's so important about today?" feature. The "What's So Important " pages feature each month, at a glance, with recurring holidays and today-in-history anecdotes. The pages are not fully up yet, but we have created a lot of interesting, educational links for each posted event. For example, the anniversary of the Bataan Death March links to additional information on the tragedy.

Please keep emailing us with your requests and suggestions, as we take them very seriously. We will be very busy this summer uploading materials! Okay, so we'll spend some time relaxing around the pool. But on those rainy days, you can bet that we'll be at our computers.

Great Blogging Info from a Great Blog

Learning with Impact has posted great advice on teacher blogging, much more technical and in-depth than that posted here. Check it out.

http://learningwithimpact.blogspot.com/2009/04/techno-tuesday-starting-class-blog.html

Sample Classroom Blog Now Posted

http://studenthandoutssampleblog.blogspot.com/

We have posted a sample classroom blog to explain how you can take your classroom into the new millennium using this free and simple tool.

Giggles Post: Packer's Tar Soap

This ad from circa 1921 just cracks me up. Well, most old ads crack me up, to be honest.