Teacher

Hello Friends!  Do you ever wonder at the amount of time you spend researching and planning lessons to teach your students?  Do you find yourself going down the internet rabbit hole looking for appropriate resources with no end in sight?  If this is you, then read on! 

This was me for many, many years.  I gave up exercise, I gave up weekends, I passed on social gatherings, and my time at home as a parent suffered because I always had work on my mind.  I was fed up.  I was frustrated.  I was tired.  As a public-school educator, I used my district mandated curricula, but I never felt it was quite enough. I didn’t want my students reading excerpts of books or snippets of anthologies.  I wanted to give my students, especially my struggling students, more.  I wanted them to engage with literature, enhance their background knowledge about various topics and histories, increase their vocabularies, and participate in rich discourse and dialogue.   In order to do this, I decided to write my own novels and develop curricula to enhance understandings. 

The result????  Ms. Fox in Room 9.  Ms. Fox in Room 9 offers educators and parents of elementary and middle school students real books paired with lesson plans.  Many of the plans are aligned to common core state standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and History.  Embedded within the lessons are vocabulary, reading strategy, and writing practice.  In addition, my books are written in two reading levels – Regular and Differentiated (DL).  The DL books have the struggling learner in mind.  The texts are typically shorter, have modified vocabulary, and less sophisticated sentence structures. In addition, readers can enjoy the same story plot and engage with the same endearing characters.

However, if that’s not your thing—(teaching standards, that is)…… then the books can be used as stand-alone texts for the pure joy of reading.  The books include themes relating to tween/teen friendships, kindness, helping others, and social justice experiences.  The goal of reading, among other things, is to escape reality, learn from characters, visit faraway places, and build one’s background knowledge about the world (or schema – as the reading teacher might say  ). In the Em & Jules series, read about two best friends who embark on solving one mystery after another at their middle school.  Also — Find out if Em can finally get together with her crush!  In the Turn Back Time series, visit Colonial Boston and Pre-Civil War Charleston with Claire & Sam as they time travel to “lend helping hands” to their new friends! 

Feedback from the paired novels and curricula has been nothing but positive!  From an ESOL educator: “The Em & Jules books really motivated my students to read, and the peardeck curriculum companion kept them engaged as learners.  My students wanted to read ahead – even my more reluctant readers!”  Another middle school educator noted: “The Revolution, from the Turn Back Time series, was great!  My students can understand some of the events leading up to the American Revolution with more clarity.  Great teaching tool!”  A fifth grade elementary classroom teacher stated: “Thank you!  The Turn Back Time series is just what my students needed in order to help them understand U.S. History.  The peardecks are an added bonus!”

Are you ready to get your kids reading?  Are you ready to teach using resources and materials curated for the purpose of helping busy people like you enjoy life more and work less?  Then hit the subscribe button now!  Check out what’s currently available, and also be the first to find out about new releases. 

Read on!!

~Mavin