Unlocking Success: A Guide to Building Strong Parent-Teacher Connections with Our First-Day Surveys

Hi, teachers! Are you putting together the resources you need for your classroom? Don't forget to set yourself up for success by communicating with the parents and guardians of your students on day one of the school year. Enhance parent-teacher communication with comprehensive surveys from Stones of Erasmus. Tailored for English Language Arts, these surveys foster meaningful relationships.

Download a Suite of Print and Digital Tools on TpT.

Connecting with your students' parents or guardians is vital for a successful school year. Our specially designed parent surveys, tailored for the first day of school, are here to help. Created with secondary students in mind, these surveys include sections on general information, student learning attitudes, and additional insights. Whether you choose to send the survey home via email, print it out, or make it available at your school's first parent-teacher conference, it's good to know you have a tool to make a positive impression (and all of the forms are editable to suit your community's needs).

Yellow Day: A Series of Portraits in Yellow and Pink (Plucked from the Multiverse)

Today is Yellow Day, a day to celebrate optimism, happiness, and warmth. In honor of the occasion, I used DALL-E-2 to create several versions of myself in yellow and pink, embodying the spirit of the day. 

Which version of me plucked from the multi-verse do you like the best? Let me know with a like and a comment.

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How Kahoot! Can Engage Students In The Classroom (Written by a Kahoot! Certified Educator with Examples)

In this post, I write about how teachers, specifically high school English and Humanities teachers, can use the Kahoot! platform to enhance their lessons and engage students.

I use Kahoot! in the high school classroom as a formative assessment. It's a fun way to start a lesson, end a lesson, review for a test, or drum up a bit of healthy competition. Find my Kahoot! profile here! 

What is Kahoot!?

Engaging students in the classroom can be challenging in a world where educational content is increasingly delivered online. Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, play, and share learning games.

Kahoot! is a gamified quiz platform — it can be used for any purpose where there is a question and an answer, making it perfect for teachers and trivia masters at your local pub or family trivia nights.

Who Started Kahoot!

Kahoot! was created by Johan Brand, Jamie Brooker, and Morten Versvik in Oslo, Norway. The quiz is based on research by Professor Alf Inge Wang and his colleagues at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). 

What makes Kahoot! so enticing is that it's fun to use — and people can join Kahoot! with any device connected to the Internet. The platform takes the power of the question and couples it with competition, points, sound effects — and more.

How Van Kahoot! Be Used in the Classroom?

Sample of a Kahoot game in action.

Kahoot! is a great way to engage students in the classroom, especially in the humanities. Games can be played on any topic, and there is a vast library of existing games to choose from. You can also create your own games.

Kahoot! is not just for high school students – it can be used in any classroom or course. It is also a great way to study for exams or to review for a test.

If you are a teacher, you can use Kahoot! to create engaging educational content for your students. If you are a student, you can use Kahoot! to study for your courses or review exams. Either way, Kahoot! is a great way to learn.

The Benefits of Using Kahoot! in the Classroom

I am teaching my Eighth grade English Language Arts students a unit on Plato's Allegory of the Cave. It's a popular lesson I sell on Teachers Pay Teachers and on Amazon Ignite! I even have a free version. In the lesson, we wonder about Plato's view of reality; the essential question is, what is real? 

What teachers have said about my digital educational resources:

Love this product! Very thought-provoking. I used this distance learning with students in zoom class.

— Aron H. 

Creating a Kahoot! Course for Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Kahoot! Courses are a fantastic way to organize
gamified activities around a singular topic
— here is one I made on Plato's Cave. Check it out. 

I aligned sixteen different Kahoots to our learning objectives. The lesson plan came first — the intellectual work was the most challenging- putting it together. So with Kahoot! I was able to make a course based on all of my hard work. And voilà. It has made the unit so much more engaging for my students! 

How to get started with Kahoot! in the classroom

Kahoot! is free to start — and if you like it and want to create and access more sophisticated content, Kahoot! has several different-priced tiered plans.

Full disclosure — I am a verified creator on the Kahoot! Marketplace.

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Teaching Peter and the Wolf: 2006 Oscar Winning Suzie Templeton Short Film

In this post, I talk about teaching the short film "Peter and the Wolf" in my Eighth Grade English Language Arts class in Queens.

A typical day of learning in Mr. Roselli's English Language Arts classroom.

I Needed to Teach Something Quickly; I Chose "Peter and the Wolf"

It's interesting how I come across content to teach. Usually, deciding what to teach is not a problem because I spend a good chunk of the weeks leading up to the new school year mapping out my courses. However, this past year, teaching my Eighth graders, there was a day that I needed to fill with an engaging lesson. We had just completed a forty-day mythology unit. I say "forty days" as if we were in the desert or something, but it was forty discrete lessons, each about forty-five minutes in length. So I had a "free day" before we started our new unit. So, hence, Peter and the Wolf!

Suzie Templeton Short Film "Peter and the Wolf"

Suzie Templeton is a gifted director, and her animated short film, "Peter and the Wolf," is based on Sergei Prokofiev's famous score. The movie is only about twenty-five minutes, perfect for my lesson. Also, because of its fairy tale elements, it fits nicely with a unit on mythology.

Do Now: Setting a Work of Literature to Music

I like to get my kids' gears turning, so as they entered the class during the passing period, I asked them if they were to set a story or play or myth that they had read to music what would it be. I was hoping for something like Orpheus and Eurydice set to "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water," but I got Daphne and Apollo set to A$AP Ferg. I'll take what I can get. Also, I was keen to set my lesson to a reading standard that states students should analyze a representation of a subject or a pivotal scene in two different artistic mediums (Reading Literature Standard RL.9-10.7).

Watching the Movie and Answering Questions

We watched the movie in class -- and I was surprised by how quickly they got into the story. I think what works is that the animation is so unique. It's not the standard, glossy Pixar style my kids are familiar with. It's a quirky, stop-motion animation-style feature. And the kids noticed the exciting way the animators brought the story alive, zooming in on the setting, a small town nestled in a somewhat cold rural landscape. The character of Peter is sufficiently adolescent, and the Grandfather and the boy's big fat cat serve as comic relief. There also isn't a lot of dialogue, so you have to pay attention to the visuals to follow the story's narrative pacing.

While watching the movie, students had to complete a worksheet, which included sixteen "right-there" viewing comprehension questions. It's just a way to keep them focused, and later, they turn it in as part of their grade for the lesson. As a teacher, I learned long ago that doing activities where students have to write and show their thinking is valuable. Not only is it an excellent way to show what you are doing in your classroom, but it also serves as a snapshot of students' overall thinking. I also like to use the Adobe Scan app to capture their work. So I have an archive of sorts.

Discussing Foreshadowing, Visual Imagery, Identity, and Other Themes

After watching the film, we talked about the movie. The first big English Language Arts point I wanted to convey was foreshadowing. And the kids definitely picked up on that one. There are images and references to wolves from the beginning, opening shot, and end. And another interesting discussion we had was why Peter let the wolf go in the end. I received several answers, but I remember one of the boys in my class commenting on how Peter understood the wolf. And I agreed, which led to a discussion about identity. If I say so myself, very much in keeping with my students' socio-psycho development.

Writing Activity: What Message Does the Movie Convey? 

And finally, at the end of class, I told the students to pull out their notebooks, and they wrote independently about what they thought the film's message was, and I made them include details from the movie to support their answers. Having completed the viewing questions helped to jog their memories. As they left the classroom, they had to turn in all of their written work, and I had them each tell me orally the gist of their writing exercise.

You can purchase and download this educational digital resource from Stones of Erasmus.

Finally . . .

Do you teach short films in your classroom? How does it work for you? I'd love to hear your comments.

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Clip Art: Cosmic School Teacher

The cosmic school teacher inspires students by exploring boundless ideas, from black holes to the meaning of existence, opening minds to infinite possibilities. 

Source: Created by Stones of Erasmus, coloring page (with digital elements added by open-source artificial intelligence). This image is created and made with love by Stones of Erasmus (stonesoferasmus.com).

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Teacher's Summer Diary #2398: On the Tedium of Making Educational Digital Content (And Why a Walk, a Stretch, and a Sip of Water is Essential)

In this post, I talk about making educational resources for the middle and high school classroom and why distraction is my friendly passenger (although they don't always feel so friendly).

As per my last email (don't you hate it when you receive a message that begins that way) — or, shall I say, post — I've learned some new tips. First — there is beauty in

A message spray-painted on a side of
a train car.

small details. But my iPhone finds it challenging to capture the subtle beauty, so you'll have to contend with the bigger picture.

I read a quote today that I like — about achievement — "Before the gates of excellence, the high gods have placed sweat.”

I'm attempting to complete a monumental task this week, and I feel overwhelmed. I want to expand the teaching resources I created under my @stonesoferasmus brand — I have to go and proofread my inventory of 137 digital downloads I've created. I like the “making part” of the process — using design skills and creating incredible resources that middle and high school students can use. It's just very time-consuming. So to inspire me, I take long walks — hence the photos you see — and eat healthy — and stretch. Also — I got a bigger monitor for my computer. OMG. Having a large screen to work on makes a huge difference when creating digital stuff. OMG.

My goal is to have 200 products reviewed and created by the end of Summer. And on top of that, I'm taking a class on Special Education and Differentiation at Hunter College. The course is good — it solidifies some things I already knew about teaching and has already given me good ideas to move forward. Next year I'm teaching a section of Eighth Grade English, a World Religions class, a New York City history class — paired with Tenth and Eleventh graders in a combined section. Whew. I better get to planning. But. Oh. I see a bird in a tree. Ohh. Let me check this out. *Loses thirty minutes*. By the way, @kfs0520, is the last picture in this post an excellent example of Nantucket Red? Inquiring minds want to know.

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A Pro Tip for Teachers: Using Text Sets on Newsela

Newsela is a website that curates news articles for teachers to share with their students. The idea is straightforward. Students engage with non-fiction texts to improve their reading levels (and critical thinking skills). Each news article on Newsela is calibrated to at least five reading levels which can be tweaked according to a student's grade level and reading proficiency. Articles come equipped with quizzes students can take (and teachers can see the results) and writing prompts students can respond to (which teachers can edit to align with their own classes).

Use Newsela for Non-Fiction ReadingI have been using Newsela for a long time. I use it to assign articles to my students that supplement what we're doing in class. For example, for a Ninth Grade English Shakespeare unit I have kids read about Shakespeare in the Park or after talking about whether or not "video games rot your mind" I have them read an opinion piece on the subject before they write their own essay.

Go Further With Teacher-created Text SetsA really powerful tool on Newsela is the ability to create text sets. I teach a series of "Philosophy in the Classroom" units that I developed with middle and high school students at my school. We read Plato and Nietzsche in class but I want to connect the abstract ideas of philosophers to current and relevant events going on in our society today. Newsela makes that possible. Here is a text set I recently made for my students that I have paired up with my unit on Justice.

Newsela Text Set: Philosophy in the High School Classroom: "The Ring of Gyges"
Essential Mystery: Why should I be a good person?

I based the Newsela Text Set On 

My Philosophy in the Classroom Lesson

Supporting questions:
Should I be a good person even if I know I can get away with being bad?
Is being a good person in of itself a good thing? Why do those who do bad things not only sometimes get away with it but seem to benefit from their ill deeds while those who do good don't often prosper nor get as much recognition for the good they do?

Student/ Teacher Instructions:
Why be good? The texts in this set contribute to an overarching moral question first brought out by Plato in his book, The Republic. Plato's young student Glaucon complains to Socrates that good people never seem to benefit from their good deeds, while bad people who do bad deeds not only profit from it but seem to be better off than good people. So why be good at all?

• Pre-Reading Assignment: Before going further watch the following video “The Myth of Gyges”. Copy and paste the link: https://youtu.be/4qjGp6TWqe4
• Optional. Read the primary source material from The Republic. Copy and paste the link: http://sites.wofford.edu/kaycd/Plato/. 
• Choose THREE compelling stories from this text set to read and to annotate. Respond to all prompts in YELLOW. These are my questions to you. 
• Be both Glaucon and Socrates as you read. Highlight in RED ideas in the stories that support Glaucon. Highlight in GREEN views that support Socrates' view. 
• Take the reading comprehension quizzes for the three stories you selected. 
• Prepare the writing prompt for the article that you thought was the most compelling. Read the prompt carefully. 

In class, be ready to share your annotations for the articles you selected. You will be paired with different students to discuss the ideas of each article. Your grade for this assignment is a combination of your quiz scores (20%), your annotations and appropriate highlights (20%), group participation (30%), and finally, your writing prompt (30%).

Extension Resources:

• Primary Source "Ring of Gyges" Kay, Charles D. Wofford College. “Plato”. N.d. <http://sites.wofford.edu/kaycd/Plato/>. Internet Resource.
• Go deeper with this lecture from Yale University professor Tamar Szabó Gendler on "The Ring of Gyges". https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-2
• Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. The Republic: The Complete and Unabridged Jowett Translation. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Intended Grade Level(s): 7-10

Content Areas: English Language Arts, Social Studies, Humanities, Civics

Skills Practiced: This text set and its activities conform to the following Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2 - Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.6 - Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.5 - Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Estimated Time: Three 45-minute class periods.

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On the Passing of a Friend and Mentor: Frank Levy, Storyteller

Francis Xavier Levy, Jr. passed away on Tuesday morning - Frank was a friend and a mentor to me. I’ll miss him terribly. I met him and his wife Bonnie when I was a volunteer page at the Mandeville branch of the Saint Tammany Parish Library. I was a teenager. I shelved books. But when Frank would visit the library, he and Bonnie enlisted me in their Stories in Motion program - I’ll never forget Flutterby the Butterfly (played fabulously by Bonnie Bess Wood). We even made the pages of the Saint Tammany edition of the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune (My mom saved the clipping). I was the lepidopterist. That was about twenty-seven years ago (if I did the math correctly). I'll never forget Frank. He was (and is) a tour de force. Here are several things I learned from Frank Levy: 

1. A great movie is a work of literature.
2. Wal-Mart is better at 3 AM.
3. Calculate the seconds it takes your local traffic light to turn red (and use this knowledge to help you know when to leave your house during rush hours).
4. Sappho is awesome.
5. Every kid can have a starring role.
6. Back in 1992, Frank was already using the World Wide Web - and he taught himself HTML. I’ll never forget learning how to browse the web from him.
7. Read. READ. Read.
8. Stay quiet backstage.
9. But own your lines on stage.
10. Stage combat!
11. Homemade beef jerky (DM me for the recipe).
12. Talk to strangers. If they appear friendly. And invite them to dinner.
13. Ask, and people might give you what you want.
14. Frank was the lonely kid growing up. But as an adult, he dedicated his life to making kids happy.
15. Your past doesn’t define you.

I’m sure I’ll think of more after I click “share now.” If you knew Frank Levy, please add to my list.

Frank and his wife Bonnie

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A Moment of Clarity Waiting for the Q66 Bus in Flushing

I don’t like to wait. For buses. For people. Waiting feels like an abuse on my person. But worse than that, waiting exposes the truth of it all - that I’m not important.

     Which is why people who are entitled or privileged scoff at flying coach. One has to wait. So those who can pay the extra cash do so to stave off the notion that they’re insignificant. However, there is something to be said for waiting. I was waiting for the Q66 bus. This New York City bus takes me from Flushing to home via Queen’s Northern Boulevard. Today, I took the bus. I was shepherding a few students of mine back to Jackson Heights. We had spent the day in Flushing to celebrate the Lunar New Year (even though it doesn’t officially begin until Saturday). I teach teenagers who are studying in the United States on F-1 visas. 

      What that means is - among many aspects of the job - that we take trips quite often during the year. This year, we decided to go to a hot pot restaurant that recently opened up in Flushing. Apparently, it’s a popular chain in China. It’s situated on the ground floor of a modern box-y office building. The Mandarin teacher at my school recommended the place; she organized the trip. The dean of the upper school also came with us. He had never eaten at a hot pot restaurant, so we introduced him to duck blood and ponzu sauce.

      After the meal, waiting for the Q66 bus, I noticed the sign of Modell’s Sporting Goods sign flapping in the wind. I don’t like to wait, so I made something aesthetic for the moment. It’s often true that time slows down when waiting. Maybe it was the festive meal we were having. But I felt I was seeing, reaching for, and experiencing beauty all around me. Time goes into slow motion. Flapping of a sign. Red lanterns hanging from the storefront window. Ginseng for sale. The laughter of children. The feel of my wallet as I take it out, searching for a metro card. It’s an ephemeral feeling that lasted long enough to make me feel on par with existence. So I took a few photos. Pictures never capture how I see something with my eyes. The human eye’s depth of vision still exceeds the iPhone camera.

      I like the conversation I hear around me. I even said “Happy New Year” to a gentleman waiting for the bus in Mandarin. He smiles. I think he must be proud of me that I know an appropriate Lunar New Year greeting. We board the bus - the students and I - and I’m pleased by how calm they are; as the bus rocks and sways, gaining speed as it crosses Flushing Bay, the world seems open with possibility, and I remember the morning time. Sitting. Waiting. For the day to begin. And a teenager had said out loud, “I’m bored” - it was that time before classes had begun. That moment of free time terrifies some people because I don’t think everyone learns what exactly to do with themselves.
       It’s a skill. To stave off boredom and do. Something. And I don’t like to wait. That feeling of inactivity. Of time ticking. “Are we back at school? Yet,” asks Neil - who is sitting across from me. Yes. I say. Press the button to alert the driver to stop. “But I’m scared,” he says. I press the button. I get it. He’s afraid to stop the bus. To fling himself into the next thing and the next. I get it. I tell him. And we’re off.

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Found Object: Ancient Set of Crayons Found at Garden School

I found this ancient set of crayons 🖍 in the faculty room at work. I work as an English and Ethics teacher at a Pre-K through Twelfth-grade independent school in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. The school is old and worn, and I sometimes find artifacts in drawers or closets. Hence, this find. Notice the font for “orange” on the right hand of the crayon in the bottom right hand of this photograph. #coloringtime #prangcrayons

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On Knowing Nothing and Why I am Embarrassed that I am a Know-it-All

My worst trait is that I am a know-it-all. I like to know things, and I feel amiss if I am not the one explaining. It’s an embarrassing trait. But I admit it. Awareness is half the battle, right? I like to know things. I am obsessive that way. 

Dicken's Mr. M'Choakumchild in the Age of No Child Left Behind

© 2000 Hearst Newspapers

Because I am a know-it-all, you’d think I’d be a sore loser. But I am not. I do not like to know stuff, so I can somehow feel superior to others. I just wish to know things and I will gladly listen if you have something new to teach me. 

As a teenager, I would get into bitter arguments with my parents about the minutiae of a such-and-such fact. Is a shark a fish? Why does Louisiana have the Napoleonic code? I think my parents thought I was just being a know-it-all. I am pretty sure my mom thought I was arrogant most of the time. I liked to read, and I wanted to find someone to bounce off ideas. When you're a kid, your audience options are limited.

That Time I Arrived in Beijing to Begin a Six City Tour of China

Grill work from a door 

in the Forbidden City in Beijing.

In the Summer of 2017, we took a month-long tour of China. Here is the first post of that journey:

I feel relieved and at peace today.

It's been four days since we landed in La Guardia after a twenty-one day, six-city tour of China.

Coming home on the Sunday before the Fourth of July, we first landed in Detroit, went through
immigration retrieved our luggage and grabbed our connecting flight home.

Monday was the Fourth of July. You'd think I
would've been journey-weary; but, I scooped up
whatever energy I had left and watched Macy's fireworks on the East River with my age-old buddy Anthony Charles who was in town for work.

I hadn't sorted through all the photographs we'd taken, ticket stubs, leftover RMB notes, and select tchotchkes bought and packed, but sitting in the park before the fireworks started, I told Tony about our trip.

Notes on a Tuesday Evening After Instructing the Pupils

A Word Wall

At the end of the school day, most kids shuffle to their locker, collect wallets, purses, slung-over-the-shoulder book bags, and whatever else they've deigned to take home with them on a weekday afternoon. At the end of the school day, teachers make last-minute conversations, shuffle to the copier and churn out dittos (that's what we used to call those things), input grades, drink a cup of coffee and then head out the double door into oh-so-beautiful reality.

Or. Sometimes teachers bolt. Taking a breath, needing space between teacher and student, teacher and teacher, it is sometimes necessary to do the after bell plunge.

Today I bolted with a fellow teacher compatriot. We took solace on the local train back to our prospective boroughs (and burrows). I was dressed very dapper today. Normally I am presenting a six (or seven) o'clock shadow, my tie a bit untied, and the color scheme on my body jarring - to say the least. Did I tell you that yesterday I wore a shockingly yellow paisley tie on top of a red checkered shirt - complete with a professorial coat that seemed to have forgotten its trip to the laundromat? I am not sure if I should blame my slovenly father or my very exquisitely dressed mother, but I have chosen to not really take seriously the concept of "professionally dressed."

Anyway. I digress. I have thirty research papers to grade - ranging from topics such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and Bowling (the students chose their topics - those lusty scholars of learning!) - and instead of doing just that, grading, I am finding solace on my blog. And I have my wardrobe laid out for tomorrow - at least I'll look dapper again tomorrow. 

Here's a shout out to all those educators out there: you do you. And do clothes make the man?

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