Homeschool Educators Invited to Teacher Workshops at the Brandywine Zoo!

Brandywine Zoo Supports Home Educators!

All Teacher Workshops opportunities are extended to adult Home School Educators!

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~ ~ October ~ ~

Teacher In Service Day
Friday the 9th 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Enjoy an in-service program at the zoo! Learn all about the Brandywine Zoo and how to use it to enhance and enrich your classroom activities. You’ll also become certified to borrow our Cargo for Conservation, a suitcase loan kit chock full of endangered species products.
Fee
Free for teachers
$5 for others.
Pre-registration required.
For more information or to register contact the Delaware Teacher Center
800-282-8770

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Take a Local Walk on the WILD Side!
Saturday the 17th
1:00-4:00 p.m.
Teacher Workshop
Focus: Indigenous/Exotic Plants and Animals
Learn about what’s in our own backyards! Begin this fascinating program by taking a walk through Wilmington State Parks and learning how to identify indigenous plants and animals. Then move to the zoo to take a walk on the wild side and learn about exotic animals and why they matter to us here in Delaware.
Teachers will learn some valuable teaching tools to educate their classroom children on indigenous and exotic plant and animal species.
Fee
$5 per person
pre-registration required.
Visit Website
or
302-571-7850 ext. 208

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Cargo for Conservation
A Loan Kit at the Brandywine Zoo
Thursday the 29th 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Teacher Workshop
Bring Wildlife Conservation to life with the Brandywine Zoo’s Cargo for Conservation Loan Kit. Topics of discussion will include: Being a wise consumer, making a good choice when choosing a pet, being knowledgeable about the wildlife trade and how it affects each of us. We’ll explore the contents of the kit which includes wildlife conservation activities and confiscated endangered wildlife biofacts such as an elephant tusk, python skin, crocodile purse, and much more! At the end of the workshop, teachers will be certified to use the Cargo for Conservation and best of all they can schedule the kit for use during the school year! Program takes place in the Brandywine Zoo’s Education Building.
Fee
$5 per person
pre-registration required.
Visit Website
or
302-571-7850 ext. 208

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~ ~ November ~ ~

Exploring the Brandywine Zoo!
Sunday the 8th 1:00-4:00 p.m
Teacher Workshop
Public, Private, and Home School Educators are welcome to attend this special workshop that showcases the Brandywine Zoo as a fabulous teacher resource. Get to know the Brandywine Zoo up close and personal, learn how to use it as part of your student’s curriculum!
Fee
$5 per person
pre-registration required
Visit Website
or
302-571-7850 ext. 208

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Color Your Classroom GREEN!
Tuesday the 17th 5:30p.m. - 8:30p.m.
Teacher Workshop
This workshop is designed to help teachers learn better “green” practices for themselves and their students. Teachers can use this knowledge in the classroom during animal, habitat, conservation, biology, ecology, social studies, math, and language arts related units. It will also provide them with a field trip resource and an on-site zoo program resource that enhances their standards based units, particularly science.
Fee
$5 per person
pre-registration required
Visit Website
or
302-571-7850 ext. 208

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Nicole Goodsell
Education Outreach Coordinator
Brandywine Zoo
1001 N. Park Drive
Wilmington, DE 19802
phone: 302-571-7850 x224
fax: 302-577-7480
Website

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Literature Lesson Plans

In my endless search for lesson plans for books the kids are reading, I just came across another decent resource. The Discover Education website offers free lesson plans. The literature lesson plans are offered for limited selection of novels and some lesson plans include suggestions for adaptations for older or younger audiences. This is actually a good resource site for various lesson plans and supplementary teaching materials. I am going to book mark it!

Website

October is National Popcorn Popping Month!

Popcorn growers have been unofficially celebrating Popcorn Popping Month for more than 25 years. In 1999, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman made it official, proclaiming October as National Popcorn Popping Month because October is when the popcorn harvest takes place each fall in the Midwest.

Popcorn is one of the oldest American foods. In 1948 archaeologists exploring a cave in west central New Mexico discovered ears of corn dated back roughly 4,000 years! 1,000 year old popcorn kernels found in burial grounds in the coastal deserts of North Chile would still pop!

So maybe it is time to pop a bowl, have fun, and learn more about this favorite American treat!

* Here's a lesson plan from the Education World Website.
* About.com has a number of crafts, games and activities to explore.
* The National Popcorn Board's site contains a whole slew of recipes.

Sputnik: Zome's October Model of the Month!

Sputnik is a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age, with Russia's successful launch of the first human-built satellite on October 4th, 1957. "Sputnik" literally means "one who travels along [with the earth]."

I know my kids are going to build this one!

Zometool is your travelling companion for exploring the structure of space, whether in 1, 2, 3 or higher dimensions! To get just the parts you need to build Sputnik, click here.

More Curriculm Connections:
* Watch the movie The Iron Giant!
* Watch the movie, October Sky.
* Read the book, The Iron Giant.
* Check out Sputnik on Nasa's website.
* All Things Considered Story on NPR: Science Education Legacy.
* NPR: Shock of the Century.
* NPR: Sputnik Deisgners Did Not Fathom Its Impact.
* NPR: Sputnik in Space and Song.
* Read about Laika the First Dog in Space on Space.com

Web English Teacher

Here's another site that links to reading and discussion guides for children's literature. This site lists materials by the author's name: Web English Teacher

The resources offered on this site are not limited to reading discussion guides and not just to fiction. Web English Teacher is the brainchild of teacher Carla Beard who urges visitors to think of her website... "as the faculty library and faculty workroom on a global scale." Carla is based in Indiana and specializes in effective technology integration in education. Her site is truly a gem!

This is how Web English Teacher describes itself: "Web English Teacher presents the best of K-12 English / Language Arts teaching resources: lesson plans, WebQuests, videos, biography, e-texts, criticism, jokes, puzzles, and classroom activities. "

Site Map

Literature Links

I am always searching for good, free, lesson plans and book discussion materials tied to the books the kids are currently reading. During one of my recent searches I came across this web site: Literature Links

This is not the most up to date site, many of the links no longer function, but the site still contains plenty of good resources making it worth bookmarking.

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan

"Find your Joy..." so says Zedediah Applewhite to the troubled youth whose very last, last chance is surviving Creative Academy, a homeschool, and its very eccentric extended family of artists and odd balls and a girl named E.D..

Lesson plans for Surviving the Applewhites:
Harper Collins - pdf file
Author Bio
Web Quest

Synopsis from the Harpers Collins Website:

Surviving the Applewhites
by Stephanie S. Tolan


Jake Semple is a scary kid. Word has it that he burned down his old school and then was kicked out of every other school in his home state. Only weeks into September, the middle school in Traybridge, North Carolina, has thrown him out, too.

Now there's only one place left that will take him -- a home school run by the most outrageous, forgetful, chaotic, quarrelsome family you'll ever meet. Each and every Applewhite is an artist through and through -- except E.D., the smart, scruffy girl with a deep longing for order and predictability. E.D. and Jake, so nearly the same age, are quickly paired in the family's first experiment in "cooperative education."

The two clash immediately, of course. The only thing they have in common is the determination to survive the family's eccentricities.

In Stephanie S. Tolan's hilarious tale, a local production of The Sound of Music directed, stagecrafted, choreographed, and costumed by Apple-whites -- brings the family together and shows E.D. and Jake the value of the special gifts they've had all along.

2003 Newbery Honor Book