Kaulbach's Modern World

Every Sunday my husband and I sit with our daughter after breakfast in front of our woodstove and read or listen to the NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz.  Most of the time we make fun of the program and award the person who yells out the most random and wrong answers to his questions.  But once in awhile, we get one right. Or we conquer the weekly puzzle and enter the drawing to be on the show. It is very exciting even though we have yet to win. I do worry about the influence this has had on our daughter since she now follows Rachel on Twitter and requested Will's puzzle books as Xmas gifts.  However, because of she obsession with radio voices and puzzles I have become enlightened once again in the field of education. I'm in love with anagrams. Scramble letters that turn into memorable phrases or names of countries or words with a "q" sound like cupid, or cubical have helped stimulate my brain during car rides, dinner dishes or right before bedti...

Cold War Studies- links to worksheets My students just finished a unit on WWII and a subunit on the use of the atomic bomb. While my colleagues were able to rush forward into another large and content rich unit on Cold War I chose to slow down the pace and let students alleviate concerns developed about nuclear war, unfinished studies of Japan's role in Korea and interest about Korea resulting from recent inflammatory rhetoric in the news. North Korea seems on the verge of attack so knowledge of what we don't understand seems relevant. Combined with a need to improve writing skills, vocabulary and reading, my hands are full. And I need to cater to the specific needs of these students. Their needs and interests are different from students I taught last year. When to find the time? Aha! April break. Many mumble that teachers have more breaks than other professions. But I concur that many waking hours, dreams and strolls on a beach are cut short by my mad scramble to write down ...