How to be a Memorable Teacher

Over the years, I have had some stellar teachers. Today I’m sharing some tips and tricks for achieving their level of awesomeness 🙂

1. Build a planetarium out of garbage bags and giant boxes and use a thumb-tack to poke out astrologically correct constellations.  Keep in the corner of the classroom at all times.
2. Name your class guinea pig, rat, and gerbil Rameses, Marie Antoinette, and Anastasia, respectively.
3. Give your students writer’s workshop for no other purpose than to stimulate creativity.
4. Accidentally tell your sixth graders that a lot of babies were born nine months after the great NYC blackout in 1977. Wait for it…
5. Make your own marshmallows for the cookies you bring on the class field trip. My dad was the chaperone on this one and he still talks about it.
6. Do cartwheels to teach your fifth graders about fraction reciprocals.
7. Sing oldies songs to teach vocabulary. People, people who EAT people, are the luckiest people… (still not sure why cannibal was on the vocab list that week…).
8. Let your sixth grade super-spellers create their own spelling word lists.
9. Capitalize on the corporate creativity of your third graders and let them create a class bulletin board that tells different stories of the Pickle People each month.
10. Rent a porcupine for a week.