Teachers Have Class! Issue #6/March 2010 March Teaching Resources and Ideas
Welcome to the sixth newsletter of Teachers Have Class from Unique Teaching Resources!
If you read my February newsletter, you will recall that February was going to be a busy month for me. During the second and third week of February, I went to Tanzania with a few goals in mind.
First, I wanted to visit a local school in Tanzania and donate school supplies to that school from Unique Teaching Resources. I used the money that I made during the month of December 2009 on my website and bought classroom supplies for a needy school. It is the first volunteer effort that I have done through my website, and I hope that this is just the beginning of the many ways that I want use my website to help children who are less fortunate.
I brought 30 sets of lined writing notebooks, color pencil sets, color marker sets, pens, boxes of pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, scissors, tape, glue, and construction paper. I also brought 3 soccer balls and a basketball for the students to play with at recess time. If you bought anything from my website during the month of December, I used 100% of those fees to buy school supplies.
I flew from Bahrain to Tanzania on Ethiopian Airlines. I arranged ahead of time with the airlines that I was bringing two big boxes of school supplies with me to donate to a local school. Ethiopian Airlines was kind enough to ship these two boxes for free. Unfortunately, the customs officials at the airport in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania did not have the same mentality. Upon opening up my boxes, they decided that I needed to be charged an import duty on these items. I explained that they were donations to a local school in their country, but this did not seem to change their mind, and all that they wanted was to see was some cash from me. After giving them $300 for the duty taxes that they charged, I finally had my two boxes back in my possession.
I was traveling with two girlfriends and we were taken to Seronera Primary School, which has about 35 students aged 6 – 12.
We drove up to their school to find a 6 room school house with broken windows and peeling cement.
I was prepared for the classrooms to be sparse, but it was sad to find that there was nothing in the classrooms except for old wooden desks, benches, and an ancient chalkboard. The paint was peeling off of the walls and there was not a single decoration or poster on any of the walls of the classrooms.
Children had a bottle of water, a writing pad, and a pencil… and that was it.
If you’ve ever complained about your working area or the teacher’s staff room, you would greatly appreciate it after seeing the area that these three teachers do their planning in. Below are the three teachers that work at this school and I am signing their guest book inside their staff room in the second photograph. This small staff room is where they do all their planning and have all of their reference materials.
The teachers and students were so excited and appreciative of our visit and the classroom supplies that we donated to their school.
Below is a picture of me with some students at the Seronara Primary School in their classroom.
The students were eager to show me their only playground equipment, a small climbing area with a tiny slide.
Before we left, the students lined up in their courtyard area and sang a beautiful song about Tanzania and the Serengeti for us.
If you are interested in hearing the children singing this song, I took a video of it and you will find it below.
When we finally had to leave, the students wanted to take a group photograph of us altogether. They wanted to have the soccer balls in the picture because they were so excited to have something to play with at recess time.
Visiting the school was the highlight of my two week trip to Tanzania. It immediately made me want to go back there. Although the school was very poor and lacking in every resource imaginable, the students were beautiful, delightful, inquisitive, appreciate, and full of smiles.
The next part of my trip was a 6 day hike to climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Each day we hiked about 7-8 hours, and each day got harder as the terrain got rougher, the altitude increased, and it became harder to breathe.
During this trek, my friends and I were raising donations and awareness for a British woman who lives in Bahrain with us. Her son was kidnapped by her husband's family and taken to Qatar without her permission. She is trying desperately to fight in the courts there to get her son back, but it is not an easy thing for a woman to do in that part of the world. We raised about $2,000 from people who live in Bahrain to help her with her legal bills, as she fights desperately to get back custody of her son.
In the photo below, we are on day 3 of our hike and wearing our t-shirts that have her son's picture on them. We are each holding our national flags, one of my friends is from Sweden, and the other is from the UK.
During the whole 6 days of our hike, we were with a local Tanzanian guide and a crew to help with carrying the supplies for our food and sleeping.
For the last 8 hours of the climb to reach the summit, we had to start off at midnight. It was well below zero, and pitch black except for the most amazing stars that I have ever seen. We each had flashlights on our heads to show us the way. After about 2 hours into our hike, I noticed that one of my friends was beginning to get a bit wobbly. We stopped and ate, and she wanted to continue. An hour later, her nose started to bleed and she was getting dizzier. Our guide told us that she had a case of altitude sickness and that she shouldn't continue. We had previously said that if anything happened to one of us, that we would all stick together no matter what. My other friend and I finally talked our sick friend into agreeing that she had to go down and get to a lower altitude. My friend recovered quickly once we got her down to a lower altitude.
So, I almost made it to the summit, but not quite there. It was an amazing adventure though, and I was glad that at 43 years of age, that I was able to make it as far as I did.
After a grueling 6 days of hiking (and not taking a shower), we were very happy to go to a lodge in the Serengeti and spend three days on a Safari!
I hope that I have not bored you with the tales of my trip, but I received many letters from teachers asking about the school that I visited and if I would post pictures that they could see, so I decided to share this in my newsletter.
And now, for the March part of my newsletter....
Special Reminder:
Reminder: The links to the free teaching resources that you find in this edition of Teachers Have Class will only be made available for the first 5 days after this newsletter was sent.
After 5 days time, I will take these free teaching resource links off and they will not be available for free. You will find them for purchase on my website instead. My newsletters will be available later to all of the visitors of my website so that teachers are able to read old editions of Teachers Have Class! I want to provide these free downloads only to the teachers who have subscribed to my newletter, so that is why those links will be taken off. The free resources that I provide for my valued subscribers are my way of thanking them for their support and interest.
So, be sure to download your free monthly resources promptly!
The first thing that teachers do each month is change their calendar. Below is my March St. Patrick's Day Calendar Set and the link to download it. The March title is a 2 page banner that should fit in most standardized monthly pocket charts that many teachers use. I have designed large March days of the week that you may find useful. The calendar number dates also fit in pocket charts, and I have included a blank square and a birthday square to use. There are 11 pages in this free PDF March Calendar Set.
Next, teachers need thematic worksheets for each month, especially for creative writing. Below is my St. Patrick's Day Stationary Set and the link to download it. The title banner is 5 pages long, which you can assemble and use on your bulletin board display. There are color and black and white copies of the stationary for you to choose from. There are 7 pages in this free PDF St. Patrick's Day and March Stationary Set.
Below is my St. Patrick's Day Poetry Writing Set and the link to download it. The title banner is 5 pages long, which you can assemble and use on your bulletin board display. There are color and black and white copies of the poem template for you to choose from. There are 7 pages in this free PDF St. Patrick's Day Stationary Set.
Below is my St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold Sticker Chart Set and the link to download it.
"My Pot of Gold" is a sticker chart set that you can use to motivate and reward your students during the month of March. These St. Patrick's Day teaching resources contain 11 pages of printable resources.
This set of sticker charts does not have a goal (ex. reading 20 books, completing homework), so you can choose the goal to set for your students for this sticker chart set.
This "My Pot of Gold" sticker chart set contains the following components:
two black and white sticker chart templates
two color sticker chart templates
a 5 page bulletin board banner (above)
student award certificate in color and black and white
You can cut out these sticker charts along the thick black lines to have uniquely shaped sticker charts.
Below are the two color sticker chart templates. One set has clover leaves inside the gold coins where you place the students' stickers, and the other one has plain gold coins. There are also black and white versions of each template in this set.
Below: This set includes a matching Golden Achievement Award certificate that you can present to your students when they have completed the goal that you have set for them. A black and white copy of this award certificate is also included in this set.
During the past month, I was not able to add as many new resources to my website because I was away for two weeks. I added two more resources to my web page on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I am currently working on additional resources to this page and have about 5 more projects that I will complete for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I have posted my March/St. Patrick's Day web page, and I will be adding a few more resources to that page in the next few days, including some powerpoint activities.
Thank you for your interest in subscribing to my newletter. Remember to download your free resources within 5 days of the date that it was sent.
Please be sure to check out the other pages on my website for a large variety of other teaching resources that will engage your students in learning and save you valuable time.
Sincerely, Heidi McDonald
Creator and Site Manager Unique Teaching Resources
Welcome to the sixth newsletter of Teachers Have Class from Unique Teaching Resources!
