Teacher Appreciation Week

NIE loves teachers! And what better time to prove it than Teacher Appreciation week? Every day this week (May 7-11) we will have a drawing for prizes that include tickets to see The Charlie Daniels Band (4 ticket packs!), Tampa Bay Storm and the Devil Rays. Drawings will also be held for Florida Holocaust Museum tickets, Times goodies and a gift certificate to Inkwood Books.

To enter the drawing, click on the comments button below to share a tip for using NIE in your classroom, give us an idea to improve our services or tell us why you use the St Petersburg Times as a part of your teaching practice. Be sure to leave your name, school and email!

Comments

[ponchee lhs 9]

i hate teachers they bother me so much, well only computer clas.

[Donna Johnson, Osceola Middle School, Sixth Grade]

I teach Geography to sixth graders, so using the Times opens the whole world up to us to explore what occurred just the day before. Sometimes the newspapers can be used for current events or as an up-to-date history book. Sometimes we use the articles to look ahead, into the future in order to predict the future. The students have thought about the fact that, by reading the newspaper, we are literally seeing and experiencing how history develops right in front of our very eyes! This way these tweenagers see that the world does not revolve around each of them :-) It certainly broadens their horizons!

[Donna Johnson, Osceola Middle School, Sixth Grade]

I have used many of the NIE materials that are available for teachers. Some of them worked great for us just the way they were written. I changed some of the others to meet students and my needs. The students are always totally engaged when we do the activities I carefully choose.

[Jessica Meek]

I teach Intensive Reading at the high school level. I implement many CRISS and LFS strategies, particularly graphic organizers using the newspaper. These struggling readers prefer using the newspaper to practice identifying main idea, cause and effect, author's purpose, etc.

[Lorraine Concilio]

I teach EMH so we have used the paper for a variety uses. One use is the students search the paper to complete an ABC Book. They find the alphabet first, and then they find 2 words for each letter. Next, they find or draw a picture for that word. Sometimes we tie it in with the dictionary to locate the meaning. Higher functioning students write a sentence for that word.
Another use is to use the paper with the learning materials we receive from the St. Pete Times such as the Garfield pages. They love Garfield!

[Athena Binikos-Brom]

As the Literacy Specialist I am often called upon to support Substitute Teachers in the classroom. The newspaper is a useful tool that provides content information and up-to-date material to enhance instruction in various content areas. The lesson plan ideas that NIE provides have been priceless!

[Derrick Lyons Seminole Middle School]

I used the Seperate but Equal newspapers in my classroom for a reading activity. It turned out to be a great lesson. The students said that they did not realize how far our society still has to go with equality in society.
I was really impressed with the way that the students handled the different situations and stories that were told in the newspaper.
The students particularly enjoyed relating the newspaper articles to things we learned in class- such as the holocaust and religious persecution in Europe.

[Kathy Nalbach]

I use the newspapers in my classroom to help my students keep up on what is going on in the world and to help find jobs. Our students live in a residential rehabilitation facility and are very limited in access to life outside of here. They really appreciate the Times subscriber and the Newspapers In Education Program.

[Belinda Pope]

I use the Times everyday with our school news crew! We use it for weather, sports, and trivia questions. We love having the newspapers available for this purpose. Our 3-5 graders are learning so much by using the papers!

[Liza Durand]

I use the St. Petersburg Times for the silent sustained reading in the classroom. The St. Petersburg Times is a great way to allow the students to learn about the area that they live and work in. I use the St. Petersburg Times for homework assignments. I also have students summarize articals that I put together for them on environmental issues. The St. Petersburg Times is important for me to teach reading. The students can pick out an artical that they are interested in and READ it! This is so important. At times my goal is just to get them to read! The St. Petersburg Times allowes the students a choice of what to read.

[Liza Durand]

I use the St. Petersburg Times for the silent sustained reading in the classroom. The St. Petersburg Times is a great way to allow the students to learn about the area that they live and work in. I use the St. Petersburg Times for homework assignments. I also have students summarize articals that I put together for them on environmental issues. The St. Petersburg Times is important for me to teach reading. The students can pick out an artical that they are interested in and READ it! This is so important. At times my goal is just to get them to read! The St. Petersburg Times allowes the students a choice of what to read.

[Paul Vassak, Hudson High School]

NIE in the classroom is a true blessing for vocabulary instruction. One helpful strategy that my students practiced all year was to read a current event article together and highlight unfamiliar words in the paper. After the article was finished, we would look up the words. This process really helped us create our own vocabulary lists and was fun!

[Vanessa Moon]

I get the newspaper in my math classes every Monday. We use them for SSR, which stands for Sustained Silent Reading. The students look foward to the newspaper arriving in our classroom, and it is my goal next year to incorporate the news paper even more. I am interested in Amy's shopping spree, and would like to modify it to make it work for my high school math kids!!

[Jan Lepow]

My students use the paper daily. My learning strategies and self determination classes complete the Jumble as their do nows and my reading class is creating a Newspaper Journal. They are to find 2 articles a week and write a summary paragraph and opinion paragraph for each.

I teach EMH primary students at Pasco Elementary School. My students are still learning their alphabet. We use the Times to find the letter of the week. How many "e's" can you find in five minutes.

When we are done doing that the students usually find a picture that they want to know what is happening and I read the story to them. Usually it is something about sports as most of my students are boys this year.

[Lynn Turner]

As Media Specialists, we are often called upon to support classroom instruction with resources. We utilize and share several of the teaching guides that have been provided over the last few years as fresh ideas to share with teachers. The variety of subject areas covered, templates and Graphic Organizers included fit well with our District's Learning Focused Strategies (LFS) initiative! Thank you NIE!

[Amy McNab Pasco High School]

I use the St. Petersburg Times for our S.T.A.R. program (Stop Talking And Read) each Wednesday. I have also used it for various lessons throughout the year. One such lesson for my economics class was meant to teach students that the media can influence the economy. The assignment was to find an article which did not necessarily need to be economy-related and discuss its impact on various parts of the American economy. For instance, an article about "red tide" on Clearwater Beach might keep visitors away, which might make the tourist attractions in that area suffer lower profits. The kids had fun with it!

[Carolyn Kuzniewski, Marchman Technical Education Center]

We use the newspapers as a tool to teach reading to struggling readers. The students search for new words, fill out graphic organizers for main idea, cause/effect, sequencing, and who-what-where-when-why-how, and blog each other on the contents. The students would rather use the newspaper than other texts.

[Amy Van Wormer]

I LOVE using the newspaper in my class. I have the Sunday edition delivered on Mondays and there alone is a wealth of information! Shopping Spree is my class's favorite activity. I have the class work on budgets using the advertisements, not to mention using the business section to follow the stock market. The St. Pete Times is a fabulous way to bring real world issues into our students' lives and they know it!

[Linda Muentener]

As a review or extension for vocabulary activities, I ask students to find pictures that represent a synonym or antonym of words we have studied. Students clip out the picture, paste it on paper, and write a brief explanation. For example, imagine "myriad" is a word we studied. Students might clip out a picture of the beach and write that it takes myriad grains of sand to create a beach. If students chose a picture to show an antonym of "myriad," they might choose a picture of a small group of people at a table and explain that a few is opposite to the incredibly large number required for a myriad of people.

[Ms. J. Canfield - English]

This is a suggestion:
The one thing that I do not like is that in order to get the paper for my class, I have to order 30 for each day. I don't want 30 papers everyday. Many times we use the same paper -Tuesday or Wednesday - for several days. I also use the entire paper, so my students share the sections. Many times, I just find this wasteful. I would like to sculpt the subscription to my classes. 25 papers two days a week would work for the 1st semester. The 2nd semester would be less because of the activities we complete.
Sharing with another teacher is difficult because we always want them on the same day and that causes us to not have enough papers.
This is only my thought, so if the ordering system has changed, I would love to hear about it.

[Janet Canfield]

One thing we do in the first semester is to read for accuracy. Each student takes a section and looks for spelling, typing, or grammatical errors. They write the incorrect information and then the correct information. The student then presents the issue to the class.
In the second semester we use the pictures and headlines. Students see only the basic information and they have to write the story. When they are finished, they compare their story to the actual story. They are trying to find the "key points" for each of the stories.

[Louise Boyd - Bay Point M.S.]

As we study different regions in the world, I ask my students to look for newspaper articles relating to that area. We cut the article out and discuss it. I keep a large wall map up and we will put the article up near by and connect it to the location on the map with yarn for a visual.

[Cheryl Pejack, Azalea Middle School]

My 6th grade math students at Azalea Middle School have created "wish lists" using advertisements. They cut out and paste ads on a poster and then figure totals, tax and discounts.

My gifted students especially like Jeff Klinkenberg's columns. I saved the 4/22 article "The Uninvited Guest" and we will be reading and discussing the Florida panther tomorrow.

[Marti Clayton]

One way I use the St. Petersburg Times is homework assignments for students who are sick and do not have their classroom book with them. Students may select an article to summarize.