Susan Ohanian – författare

This title arms parents with everything they need to know to fight the pro-standards movements. Parents all across the political spectrum have united on one issue: when it comes to standardized testing, they all lean toward some kind of educational reform. Drawing on her 20 years of classroom experience and enriched by real-life anecdotes, Susan Ohanian's "What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?" explains the misguided mania for testing children, why a child's success or failure is currently determined by a set of tests, and what parents are doing to change public policy on education. Even children who are able test takers are hurt by the politics surrounding testing. Ohanian's moving insider's view imparts a sense of urgency about the situation of individual children caught on the front line of our treacherous education system. This beacon will inspire parents who are confused, angered, or intimidated by the forces that control their children's education to take action.

Keep students happily focused on learning during two of the most exciting holidays of the year for the elementary classroom-Halloween and Valentine's Day. Poems and excerpts are used as launching points for such projects as writing spooky tongue twisters or designing animal valentine cartoons. Reproducible language arts strategies teach word play, interviewing, letter writing, research skills, problem solving, and metaphorical language while encouraging divergent thinking. Grades 1-5.