“Blue jeans are as American as it gets, but do you know who invented them, how they became fashionable, or how they are made? The Story of Jeans answers these questions, taking the reader from the San Francisco Gold Rush to modern-day closets.”

Download The Story of Jeans (pdf)

Lesson Plan for Story of Jeans

More resources including worksheets and quiz (must give email address)

This is a great book for students. I’ve used it with older students as non-fictional filler material. They enjoyed learning a bit of history.

Image via Wikipedia

Pogoplug Cloud provides users with a secure online space to store personal content and instantly share and stream it to your mobile devices. For 3 days only, CNET users will get double the storage–10GB–free for life. CNET membership is free.

Offer Ends Nov 16 @ 11:59PM

See the Pogoplug Cloud Walk-Through

Related articles

• Pogoplug Cloud Floats Free Online Storage [Storage] (gizmodo.com)
• PogoPlug Cloud targets Dropbox with hybrid storage (gigaom.com)
• Pogoplug Mobile: Cloud Free Media Streaming for iPhones, iPads, and Androids (macstories.net)

Visual Instruction Plans

VIPs are a way to present new information to students who don’t seem to understand what to do after you have just finished explaining the material.

VIPs present instructions to a student in “picture” format one step at a time.

The purpose of a VIP is to reduce the amount of time you (the teacher) spends in one-on-one “tutoring” mode. It also helps students to become more independent workers.

First read Weaning the Helpless Handraisers, Part 1 . This will prepare you for the Visual Instruction piece Weaning the Helpless Handraisers, Part 2

And finally, read A More Detailed Article on VIPs with Sample Lesson Plans.

• Save 20% off your total purchase
• Saturday & Sunday Aug 13 & 14

Take your ID from your school, your contract, or pay stub. You will also have to show some ID, like a driver’s license.

Home Schoolers
Home schoolers have to provide either an affidavit to home school, a letter from your district, or a membership number from either HSLDA (pricey), or PEAH. You  can get free PEAH cards by submitting a curriculum review HERE. And, you can get free PEAH home educator access code to get the JoAnns card. You must sign up online for the access code and for JoAnns discount card. The present your driver’s license in the store.

Teacher Rewards Program
Enroll in the reward program is free. Go HERE to register online. Then take all your IDs (given above) to the store to finish the process.

• You get
  20% off your next purchase bonus coupon
  15% discount off every purchase you make online and in the store

While you have a little bit of time this summer, develop and finalize a welcome back. Not sure how to do this? Here are a few ideas:

• Hold a First Day of School celebration
• Go out and greet them when they arrive at school/homeschool
• Be visible in hallways
• Mark your classroom clearly with your name and room number
• Assign hallway guides and hang directional signs
• Hang a welcome banner in the classroom –
• Banner Tutorials:
• Welcome Back Banner
•  Welcome Back Garland

Harry Wong, author of The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher,  says that effective teachers (and schools) welcome students back after their summer breaks. And that everyone –teachers, parents, school administrators, principals, janitors, business people, and the community at large– need to be involved in this.

If schools do not begin with the proper, positive expectations, there may not be a Graduation Day for a student.

Find free bowling in your city here www.kidsbowlfree.com/. Click on the state of interest. Also valid in Canada

All coupon notifications are sent via email to the parent or guardian on file. Please enter a valid email address otherwise notifications cannot be delivered.

Hammermill 500-sheet Copy Plus Paper Pay $6.79
Submit for $5.79 Rebate
Final Cost $1!
Use the 20% coupon to possibly get this free.

Limit 2 rebates per household/business.

Rebate forms print at the register.

Bring your stamp and envelope to the store with you. Fill out that rebate form in the car and stick it in the mail.

Save 20% off One Item Thru June 4th
Get the coupon in the flyer in the store.
Or go to OfficeDepot.com enter your zip to pull up the current sales ad. Click on the coupon image. Then select “Print Item” from the list below the image.

Hammermill 500-sheet Copy Plus Paper Pay $6.79
Submit for $5.79 Rebate
Final Cost $1!
Use with the 20% coupon to possibly get this free.

Limit 2 rebates per household/business.

Rebate forms print at the register.

Protect your confidential data from hackers and thieves.

PC Lock secures your privacy and protects your data files with AES 256 bit encryption. Encryption this strong is an essential layer of protection and complements your existing antivirus solutions.

Take advantage of this FREE offer and get Laplink PC Lock today!

This offer expires Saturday, May 21st, 2011 at 8:00 AM PDT.

Reading Comprehension

English Basics

Math Problem Solving

Research Skills

Math Computation

29¢ color copies

Print coupon here

Click Here to See This Week’s Samples

By the way, the samples don’t stay on the site for more than a couple of weeks so print or save to your computer or flash drive asap.

p.s. The Dover Sampler is a free sampling of coloring and activity pages.

This week’s sample of actual Dover coloring and activity books is good. Save them to your hard drive, USB, or the Cloud. They are not on Dover’s site for long.

Little Gardner’s Activity Book
Flower Gardens to Paint or Color
The Language of Flowers Stained Glass Coloring Book
Favorite Flowers Clip Art
Garden Party!: Flower Designs to Color
How to Draw Flowers
and more.

Access Dover Sampler Here

It’s quite easy to implement the double-entry journal in the classroom. A piece of paper is folded in half to form two columns. Students write a passage in one column. Then they are asked to think about the passage and write their thoughts, feelings, reactions, etc to the passage in the other column.

Some ideas for passages can be a line from a poem, a sentence or paragraph, or some other type of text. Students can even paste a picture, an article from a newspaper, magazine, or something printed from the Internet into the first column.

Click here for the Double Entry Journal Reading Response lesson plan.

See THESE POSTS on how to set up a home wireless network and save money on toner.

• How to set up home wireless printing

• Laser Toner trick