This is my 7th year in education. It is my second year teaching at Dennett Elementary in Plympton, Massachusetts. I couldn’t be happier to be a part of this school!
Getting ready to start a new year!
Even though I haven’t been teaching that long, I’ve already had the opportunity to teach in many different cities. I started out teaching in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Then I moved to Savannah, Georgia which is over 1,000 miles away! It was much different than Massachusetts. We never got snow and the summers were so hot! After Georgia, I taught in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus reminded me a lot of Boston but instead of everyone rooting for the Red Sox and the Patriots, everyone would root for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Now those are my three favorite teams! Finally, I decided to move back to Massachusetts which is where I am now, teaching in Plympton!
All the places I have taught!
Last year I was lucky enough to be named as a Rookie of the Year by the Plymouth County Educators Association. That’s definitely thanks to my other wonderful fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Reynold’s. She was such a great help last year. I hope to be able to take everything I’ve learned from her to continue to grow as an educator!
2009-2010 Rookie of the Year
I love trying to find new ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. I look forward to exploring the use of the green screen in our classroom this year. I can’t wait to create new projects with the students that we can share on our blog. I look forward to everything that this year has to bring!
Dear Mr. Avery,
I wanted to let you know that I think you are the best teacher ever!
Sincerely,
Alyxandra
@Alyxandra – Thank you so much! Of course you know I couldn’t be a great teacher without great students though. You worked so hard last year. I hope you’re continuing to do the same thing again this year!
Dear Mr. Avery,
I am writing here because I don’t know where to write for this subject. I think having kids write a comment on the blog every week for homework as well as doing math and spelling is a great idea! I think it will help their keyboarding skills and it will help them in the future as well. Guess what? Im doing my weekly blog comment as I am writing this to you. This is my weekly blog comment! Hope you have a nice week and Happy New Year!
From,
Amanda
Dear Mr. Avery,
In the picture, you look so different with your hair cut! I hope you have a great day tomorrow with no school!
Sincerely,
Alexus
Dear Mr. Avery,
Your such a great teacher you make every thing fun! It must feel cool that you won rookie of the year. It’s also cool you’ve taught in so many different places. I might see you in school tomorrow depending upon whether or not we have a snow day.
From,
Ariel
Hi Mr. Avery,
Remember me from second grade in Mrs. Lyons’ class? Mrs. Lyons retired though.
Sincerely,
Caroline
Caroline,
Of course I remember you! I really enjoyed teaching all of you that year! I had heard that Mrs. Lyons retired as well as another one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Watson.
I know Mrs. Crogan very well. When I saw that she was starting a blog, I was hoping to be able to see some of your work! Hopefully we’ll be able to work together in the future!
Mr. Avery
I hope we get to meet up with your class. I saw your pictures and videos. I love the blog. If you go on our blog, you will see what I wrote ;0
Caroline
I hope we get to meet up with your class sometime.
Dear Mr. Avery,
It’s amazing you won Rookie of the Year. You must be proud. And you’ve taught in a lot of places. I have a question, every time I move up a year will you move up too? I hope you have a great vacation. See you next Monday!
From,
Ariel
Dear Mr. Avery,
How cool that the class will be skyping with Mr. Lemanowicz from
Fox 25. I can’t wait to hear all about it.
Amanda’s mom
Dear Mr. Avery,
I can’t wait untill we do the quad blogging its going to be awesome getting to meet new people. It can’t come soon enough!
From,
Amanda
Dedar Amanda,
Do you like quad blogging? Isn’t Mr. Avery the best teacher ever? He’s so fun.
From,
Ariel D. ♥
Dear Mr. Avery,
I couldn’t be happier to be in your class. You are the best teacher ever. You let us do everything, well not everything, but you let us do a lot of stuff. I hope I get a great teacher next year. Even though they’re all great. You stand above all the teachers I have had before.
From,
Jenna
Dear Mr. Avery,
I hope you are having a great time at the wedding! I’ll see you Monday and tell me all about it!
sincerely,
Alexus
Dear Mr. Avery,
Your the BEST TEACHER EVER! You make everything so much fun! You have taught in many places. It must be very cool to be rookie of the year.
I will miss you over the summer. But I will still write during the summer and through the years.
From,
Ariel
P.S
Can you move up every year?
Dear Mr. Avery,
You are awesome, one of the best teachers I’ve had!
Sincerely,
HannahK.
Dear Mr Avery,
I think it’s great that you got Rookie of the year!
How do you feel getting a reward on your first year of teaching at that school?
From Bailey
Mr. Avery,
You seem like a awesome teacher. I like how you try to use technology in the class. Our teacher is exactly the same!
Hi Mr. Avery.
I think you are an awesome educator and the exciting learning that goes on in your classroom is inspiring. Your award is very well deserved.
I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction in terms of how you made some of your videos. For example the boys watching the TV on percentages. Is there a web-site or software needed for this type of work?
Many thanks again for being such an inspiration.
Warm regards,
Jos Dudley
Hi Everyone,
Wow Mr Avery. It’s great how you have done lots of wonderful things. I hope you do more!
Sincerely,
Claudia
Dear Mr. Avery & Class,
I have thoroughly enjoyed looking through your classroom blog (I have yet to see everything). The bloopers made my day!!!
You all have inspired me to bring my own classroom to a new level!!! Now that I have found this blog, thanks to Mrs. Yollis, I will be visiting often.
Mr. Avery, keep up the great work!!!!
Mrs. Murphy
Renaissance Academy, Virginia Beach, VA
http://www.renacademy.vbschools.com/
6th & 7th Grade Social Studies
Hello,
My name is Steve Reifman, and I’m an elementary school teacher and writer in Santa Monica, CA. I discovered your terrific blog through another teacher with whom I’m connected on Twitter. I want to share an idea with you that I think you and your students will really like. First, here’s a little background. I’m the author of the Chase Manning Mystery Series for readers 8-12 years of age, and Chase Against Time, the series debut, is coming out March 15th. Chase Against Time features a single-day, real-time mystery thriller that occurs on an elementary school campus.
As a teacher, the cause of literacy is near and dear to my heart, and I am confident the book’s fast-paced, suspenseful nature will resonate with both boys and girls, while the kid-friendly, positive tone will appeal to teachers and parents. It is my understanding that many 4th and 5th grade students often have difficulty finding appealing books at their levels, and I believe that this book can help fill the void. Children as young as 2nd and 3rd grade have also read and enjoyed the book. Chase Against Time is a 5.2 level book on the Accelerated Reader scale and a level Q on the Fountas and Pinnell scale. A plot synopsis, endorsement quotes, and other details about the series can also be found on my website, http://stevereifman.com.
Recently, I have started corresponding with students who are reading the book in class and blogging about it. In Mt. Washington, KY, for example, one fifth grade class is posting their answers to the discussion questions I included in my Chase Against Time Teaching Guide on edmodo.com, and I’m responding to them. If your students blog about the books they read in class, I’d love to correspond with them, as well. Whether they use edmodo or some other site or service, I would just need to be sent a link whenever they blog, and I’d be delighted to respond. Kids don’t often have the opportunity to communicate with the authors of the books they read, and I think they’d get quite a kick out of it. Plus, as a National Board Certified Teacher, I could offer valuable feedback on their comments and reinforce any teaching points you may wish to emphasize.
Currently, the book is available for purchase on my website, and it is available for pre-order on amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. If you’re interested in the books, and you buy them on my site, I can personally sign them to you and your students. In addition, I can arrange a quantity discount and determine the most reasonable shipping rate. [The Paypal module on my site is unable to adjust the shipping rate for multiple orders, but we could easily figure this out via e-mail.] Finally, if you purchase the book on my site, I’ll gladly send you a free copy of the aforementioned teaching guide. I created the guide to help educators incorporate Chase Against Time into their language arts programs. The guide contains word lists from every chapter of the book to improve students’ spelling and vocabulary development, discussion questions from every chapter to address reading comprehension, and Reading and Writing Workshop mini-lessons, featuring examples from the book, that teachers can incorporate into any type of Mystery or Fiction Unit. Many of the story planning and vocabulary-building strategies, instructional tips, and graphic organizers featured in the guide are designed to be highly generalizable so that teachers can use them throughout the school year.
Please let me know what you think and please feel free to forward this message to any colleagues who might be interested in the book or in my blogging idea. Thanks so much for your time.
Best,
Steve
Hi Mr Avery,
I’m Libby from 4KM and 4KJ.
I love reading, writing and also reading stratigies.
You new friend,
Libby
Hi Mr. Avery–
How were you able to do the Brady Bunch movie? I know that you use a green screen. But, what software do you use?
Love the movie!
Meredith Daniels
Dear Mrs. Daniels,
We had a ton of fun making that video! We used a combination of different software. I started with Photoshop to create the black borders between all the pictures. Then, after figuring out the location of all the students, we filmed each student individually. I used Sony Vegas to import all the borders and videos and then resized each video to make them fit. Finally, we recorded our song and put that into our video! It was a lot of work but definitely worth it.
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery