Story Hat Map for March 2nd

Even upper elementary and middle school teachers enjoy an occasional holiday activity if they can connect it to their teaching objectives. This Dr. Seuss Story Hat Map is perfect for March 2nd, a day when many classrooms celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss's birthday. Why not read one of Dr. Seuss's more advanced books aloud such as Yertle the Turtle, and use it to teach story elements like characters, setting, conflict, resolution, and theme? Then allow your students to select from a collection of other Dr. Seuss books to read and map out on their own. You can download this freebie from the Seasonal page on Teaching Resources.

If you like this hat map but would like a blank template to create your own, you can find it in my March Activities Mini Pack. You'll find lots of other great graphic organizers in my newest book, Graphic Organizers for Reading: Teaching Tools Aligned with the Common Core.

By the way, one reason I love this graphic organizer is that my daughter Wendy drew it for me. I have to say, it's wonderful having an artist in the family!

Win with Spelling City!

If you love SpellingCity.com, you'll want to read this blog post to learn about a fun cooperative learning freebie and a chance to win a premium membership there! If you don't know about Spelling City, prepare to be amazed!

Spelling City has tons of terrific free resources, but I'll bet you don't know about all they have to offer! Yes, the program is set up to allow you to enter your own words for students to practice and use in games, but there's so much more available on the site as well! In fact, this year the site was officially renamed VocabularySpellingCity.com to show the full range of their features and services.

Cooperative Learning Meets Technology! (Freebie)
Many teachers are already aware of the free spelling activities, but did you know that they have a sentence-writing activity, too? This feature allows your students to use your own spelling words to create  sentences and paragraphs online. I thought this activity was such a nice feature that I created a cooperative learning lesson to use as a prewriting activity before your students get on the computer. We've all experienced temporary brain freeze when sitting in front of a blank computer screen. The Spell & Write Sentences activity combats this problem by having them create sentences orally with a cooperative learning team before they ever sit down to type. The packet includes step-by-step directions for the computer part of the activity, too, so you can use it in a literacy center. The directions are different depending on whether or not you have a free account or a premium account, so I created two different sets of directions accordingly. Download this activity packet from my Spelling and Vocabulary page on Teaching Resources.

Premium Accounts on Spelling City
Speaking of their premium account, you might want to check out all the features they have to offer. Teachers can set up passwords so that students log in under their own names and the system tracks their data for you to access later. You can see who is practicing at home and how they are scoring on tests. Spelling City has graciously allowed me to give away one of their premium memberships here on Corkboard Connections, and the directions for entering are below.

Premium Membership Contest ($49.99 Value)

Are you ready to enter the Spelling City Premium Membership contest? Here's all you need to do:

1. Follow the Corkboard Connections blog by RSS feed or by email. I'll announce the winner here, so you'll need to follow this blog to know if you win!
2. Leave a comment below in which you share the word or words that are most frequently misspelled or misused in writing by your students.

Easy, right?  The contest will end on Leap Day, February 29th, at 8 p.m. EST. Don't miss out on your chance to win! If you don't win, you can take a look at a list of options for funding sources on the Spelling City site. Also, if you sign up for a premium account now and use code LCCC, you'll have your subscription extended through June 30, 2013. That's 4 extra months free! You can't beat that!

Do You Have Permission to Pin?

Or maybe the more important question is, "Did you know that you need permission to pin?" What? If you're on Pinterest, you need to read this blog post!

Recently, I read a disturbing article, Pinterest Users Need to Read the Fine Print, and I learned that when we signed up for Pinterest, we actually agreed to the following terms:

• We own the rights to images we are pinning. 
• We grant full rights to Pinterest to use those images in any fashion! 

Don't believe it? You can read the Pinterest Terms here. Seems like a site that's set up for sharing and collaborating would make these terms more obvious when someone signs up. Am I going to take down all my Pinterest boards? No way! But because I'm now aware of these terms, I have changed how I'm going to use Pinterest. I'm no longer going to pin images directly from someone's site or blog unless I have permission. If you have a blog, be sure to read the whole article to find out how you can give me and others permission to pin.

Permission to Pin Granted!
Yes, you have my permission to pin! You may pin any image from Corkboard Connections, from Teaching Resources, or from my TeachersPayTeachers.com store. Please follow my Pinterest boards and repin anything you like to your own boards!

Unless you are a blogger or site owner, that's all you need to know! Just pin away to your heart's content! But if you are a blogger, keep reading ....

 

Information for Bloggers and Educational Site Owners Only

As I said earlier, I'm no longer going to pin from anyone else's site without permission. How will I know that I have your permission? I'm hoping you'll join my Permission to Pin link up to show that your site welcomes pinning.

Link Up Directions

1. Add this red Permission to Pin badge to your website or blog by copying and pasting the HTML code below into your blog post or sidebar. Placing it on the sidebar will serve as a permanent symbol that you are giving permission to pin. Link the image back to this exact blog post so others will know what is going on.
   <center><a href="http://corkboardconnections.blogspot.com/2012/02/do-you-have-permission-to-pin.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.lauracandler.com/images/pinRed.jpg" border="0" /></a></center>
2. Create a blog post that briefly explains this issue and describes your permissions. Don't forget to include a link to your Pinterest page, too!
3. Join the Link Up at the bottom of this blog post by adding your URL and the name of your blog or website to the link up area below. The URL you enter should go to your blog post giving visitors permission to pin, and the image should clearly identify your blog.

Bloggers, please link up if you want to grant "pinning permissions" to your site visitors. Be sure to include the "Permission to Pin" badge on your own site and link it to this page. If you don't have a blog but you love Pinterest, visit these sites and blogs and pin away to your heart's content!

P.S. A few thanks are in order ... Last year I signed up for a course called Teaching Blog Traffic School that consists of 30 social marketing videos for teachers, and we have a super online support group. Thanks to Angela Watson of The Cornerstone for Teachers for sharing the Technorati article with the group. Thanks to Charity Preston of the Organized Classroom Blog who created the course! Finally, thanks to Denise Boehm of Sunny Days in Second Grade for her help with designing the Permission to Pin badge above. If you're interested in learning about the course, you can read about it on my Teacherpreneur page.