MzTeachuh: Learn About Frequent Disabilities in School Children

 

Developmental Disabilities

https://www.cdc.gov/child-development/about/developmental-disability-basics.html

• Developmental disabilities are a group of conditions due to an impairment in physical, learning, language, or behavior areas.
• These conditions begin during the child's developmental period, may impact day-to-day functioning, and usually last throughout a person's lifetime.
• Most developmental disabilities begin before a baby is born, but some can happen after birth because of injury, infection, or other factors.

What are developmental delays?
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-developmental-delayshttps://ncld.org/understand-the-issues/specific-learning-disabilities/

What are Specific Learning Disabilities?

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs), commonly referred to as learning disabilities (LD), are brain-based disorders that affect an individual’s capacity to excel in specific academic areas. These disabilities manifest differently but primarily affect reading, writing, and mathematical skills. Here are some of the most common,

https://ncld.org/understand-the-issues/specific-learning-disabilities/

Your chances of knowing someone with learning disabilities are very good. Did you know?

https://ldaamerica.org/support/new-to-ld/

5 Strategies to Help Neurodivergent Students Find Success in Math
https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-neurodivergent-students-math

Complete Guide to Dyslexia

https://childmind.org/guide/parents-guide-to-dyslexia/

A Writing Prompt to Really Get To Know Your Students

 Three Things I Want You To Know About Me
I came up with this prompt while teaching high school, but it works with younger kids, too. It gives the students a choice of what to comment on, and allows them to use their own voice to tell it like it feels. You may learn a lot about music, sports, and their dog; but sometimes you will also learn about very serious topics like family crisis or illness. And at times the school can help the families. But you will know the students better, especially if you actually read the essays and comment on them. The kids feel very validated, and more willing to write the remainder of the year no matter what the topic.

Jim Abbott of the Yankees, pitching a no-hitter.

I especially enjoyed when the students shared their dreams for their future. You would be amazed how many major league baseball players (of the future) were in my seventh grade classes. Far be it from me to say otherwise. Who knows, anyway? If Jim Abbott, who had only one hand due to a birth defect, became a major league pitcher, shouldn't I be like his grown-ups and be filled with encouragement?

Late Summer: Vivaldi and Vincent Van Gogh

 

Poppies and Butterflies Van Gogh

The intensity of insects buzzing, the sirocco searing across your face. Flowers bloom then fade daily. Can music sound like the dizzying daze of summer? Vivaldi thought so.

Antonio Vivaldi - Summer (Full) - The Four Seasons 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY1p-FmjT1M 

(P.S. Don't forget to hydrate. Just listening to this can make you thirsty.) 

And also...

Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers With Vivaldi's Summer 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZtZTxkGtwI

MzTeachuh: Trauma Informed Teaching

 

 Helping Students Feel Safe in an Uncertain World

https://www.edutopia.org/article/helping-students-feel-safe-uncertain-world

How Trauma-Informed Teaching Rewired American Education

https://thenext30years.substack.com/p/how-trauma-informed-teaching-rewired

What is trauma-informed teaching?

https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-trauma-informed-teaching

MzTeachuh's Five Minute Bible Study: You Are Able (Romans 8:28)

 

We have one challenge after another. That is life. When these super tasks rise up, there are are few steps we can remember to finish strong and satisfied.

You Are Able

...because God will clarify what you need to do. Situations can be complex, but the Lord will give you a verse, a thought or plan, or a helper who has expertise to help you in your progress. The Holy Spirit is quite the analyst and loves to help.

You Are Able

...because God gives strength. At times, we don't even realize we have a deficit. And there are times we feel completely inadequate. Either way, the Holy Spirit in His gentle way will show us how to improve our ability to function.  It is humbling, of course. But mostly, it is a relief to understand we can do better and why. Maybe our schedule needs adjusting. More sleep, healthier food. Maybe we need to recognize limitations and adjust the workload, get help in a deficit area. Tech? Organization? People skills? Ask God for help. Then ask people for it.

You Are Able

...because you can finish. Some days finishing the afternoon is tough and sometimes you are in a project of months. Fortunately, we live one moment at a time. When Jesus said, "Take no thought for tomorrow," He meant, "Take no anxious thought for tomorrow." One minute at a time. We have organized with contingencies (see above how the Holy Spirit helps us plan) and even if we are slogging through- get rest, eat healthy, and finish. If you get bored, lose interest or are distracted, the Holy Spirit is going to remind you to finish the task. We can ignore that or not, but having made the commitment and investment already, go ahead and keep at it, Really long term commitments are difficult. What do you need to be able to finish? A Brain Break? A vaycay? A hug? Pray about your feelings and the situation. You are able to finish. You will finish. It's not forever, it only feels like it.

Romans 8 is packed full of encouragement. Check it out.

AudioBible.com

https://audiobible.com/bible/romans_8.html?srsltid=AfmBOorgiIIpbXOeB21Bbr2M1awZx0H_o3tXqZKTp-T5Z23F7nR-4AFP

MzTeachuh: Special Education News

 

Families of Special Education students participate in open forum discussions.

Parents, Advocates Split on U.S. Special Ed Change

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2026-09-04/trump-upends-special-education-oversight-stirring-parents-and-advocates

What’s Next in Special Education: What Every Educator Should Know for the Year Ahead

https://exceptionalchildren.org/blog/whats-next-special-education-what-every-educator-should-know-year-ahead 

Families of kids with disabilities warn Education Department changes could break a flawed system

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/families-of-kids-with-disabilities-warn-education-department-changes-could-break-a-flawed-system

Exploring special education for English language learners and their families

https://www.understood.org/en/blog/exploring-special-education-for-english-language-learners-and-their-families

Using Edtech Tools to Support Neurodivergent Learners

https://www.edutopia.org/article/tools-support-neurodivergent-learners

Is This The Most Cheerful Music Ever?

 

This is such cheerful music, it even makes the dog smile.

Amazing that Swing Music was birthed during the Great Depression, 

then kept swinging during WWII.

1. Benny Goodman Sing Sing Sing from Hollywood Hotel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ4dpNal_k

Benny Goodman: clarinet

Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Chris Griffin: trumpets
Red Ballard and Vernon Brown: trombones
Hymie Schertzer and George Koenig; alto saxophones
Art Rollini and Babe Russin: tenor saxophones
Jess Stacy: piano
Allan Reuss: guitar
Harry Goodman: bass
Gene Krupa: drums
Composed by Louis Prima

2. Bach Brandenburg 3 complete. Abbado.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj_gMBqHX8

3. The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand (Ed Sullivan ) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs

4. Stevie Wonder - I Wish Lyrics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skmodkj42eE

5.  Mozart " Eine kleine Nachtmusik" Allegro 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_jQBgzU-I

6. Happy  Pharrell Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM 

7.  Earth, Wind & Fire - September (Official HD Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk

MzTeachuh: New Info on Phonics

 

What is ‘Linguistic’ Phonics and Why Are Some Schools Adopting It?

It’s emerging as a teaching method—and subject of debate

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/what-is-linguistic-phonics-and-why-are-some-schools-adopting-it/2026/08

Is phonics getting way too much airtime?

https://hollykorbey.substack.com/p/is-phonics-getting-way-too-much-airtime?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=235252&post_id=212059302&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=d548x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

A New Phonics Debate Shows How the ‘Science of Reading’ Movement Is Evolving

Debate about ‘linguistic’ phonics signals rising interest in using best practices in classrooms

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/a-new-phonics-debate-shows-how-the-science-of-reading-movement-is-evolving/2026/08

Mzteachuh: The Lasting Legacy of Rita Pierson’s ‘Every Kid Needs a Champion’

 The Lasting Legacy of Rita Pierson’s ‘Every Kid Needs a Champion’

More than a decade after Rita Pierson stepped onto the TED stage and declared, “Every child deserves a champion,” her words still echo through schools, teacher prep programs and staff meetings across the country.

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion?utm_medium=email&utm_source=engagingnetworks&utm_campaign=20260719_News_MindShift_Newsletter&utm_content=20260816_News_MindShift_Newsletter+0884725367

Original TED talk

Every kid needs a champion

https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion

Mzteachuh's Five Minute Bible Study: Pushing Up like a Flower (Luke 21:28)

 

Photosynthesis of the spirit-that's what we need. Moving to the light, upward to the sun's power--where our life is restored and enhanced. In the cold and darkness, look up, your redemption--the Son--draweth nigh (Luke 21:28) with energy and life.

Weeping, like a freezing winter storm of loss,disappointment, immobilizing depression, may endure for a night. But the sunrise, joy, warmth, and growth, cometh in the morning, Psalm 30:50

Just as the struggle of a buried seed struggles and pushes the enormous weight of soil in the desperate need for the sun, we are covered with the weight of calamities we seemingly cannot get through, until we do, with God's help and we look up because our redemption HATH draweth nigh. We have a springtime of joy after what seemed like a never ending winter. 

I'm reaching out to you, Lord, reaching out my hand for security and guidance. I believe this time will end and I have your promise of days of warmth and growth. In Jesus' Name. Amen

Mzteachuh's Five Minute Bible Study: Plans to Support You Jer. 29:11

What a peaceful feeling to know someone has good thoughts for you and is thinking about your well-being. Not someone critical, mocking, or planning to hurt or ridicule. Not someone who enjoys to point out failure or weakness. Not someone wanting to take advantage. 

And the best part in this verse is that Someone is able to really bring safety and the best way forward. Life can be really tough. A supportive someone can help melt anxiety and systematically reveal the one-step-at-a-time way to unloose the knotty problems we're tied up in. Jesus does that. I don't know how, but His Spirit will inspire effective ways to bring an effective solution(s) to really difficult situations.

A hope, an expectation of good things from Jesus who has them in mind for you. 

"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." Isaiah 55:6 Take a deep breath, speak to Him. Ask Him what's next. Look at your Bible app (or actual Bible, if you still use one.) There's that arm around your shoulder, the word of peace, the answer.

Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday 4/30

 

Somehow Annabel Lee should be in the back pocket of a pair of Levis.

Poem in Your Pocket Day takes place every year on a day in National Poetry Month. The 2026 Poem in Your Pocket Day will take place on Thursday, April 30. 

Search

Poem in Your Pocket Day

A Program of National Poetry Month

 https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day

Participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day!

 http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/participate-poem-your-pocket-20720.html

Is that a poem in your pocket?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/04/is-that-a-poem-in-your-pocket

 

 

Here is my very first Poem in my Pocket: Longfellow's 'The Rainy Day.'

 

Cheesy Jokes and Serious Thoughts About Easter

 Confession is good for the soul, it is said. And I confess I do love the 'chocolate' holiday season from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine's Day to Easter. Cadbury has the queen of treats, the Creme Egg, appearing only at Easter. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I'm not alone. It is just too much fun decorating baskets with that eternal Easter grass (it never goes away, it's like glitter), and coloring the eggs the old fashioned way with vinegar, etc. The images of bunnies and chicks and ducklings are cute, even better than Santa who has a list and checks it twice. No unconditional love from him! And this is an outside sport, temps in the 70s, with light breezes, egg hunting, spring clothes and bonnets, blooming Easter Lilies. Well, at least here in SoCal.

I did see a puddy tat!

Not one of Woodstock's, I'm guessing.

The secularization of this holiday makes it acceptable to everyone. Afterall, anthropologists say that all peoples celebrated the return of spring after the difficulties of winter.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox-traditions.html

Coaxing a smile from Eeyore.

Familiar pop-culture figures dominate all 
holidays now, and this is a word that used to mean 'holy-day.' Have we lost anything by this transformation?  Is the concept of the sacred now forbidden? Teachers carefully appreciate the separation of church and state in a public school. But everywhere?

Easter is the most secularized of the holidays in the USA, and ironically, the most important for Christians acknowledging the death and resurrection of Jesus. Question: how can we honor the rights of all and permit our students to express their beliefs in public and private?

This is not a student of mine. He is a model.

Here in SoCal this year it has become a fashion statement for middle school boys to wear rosaries as necklaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary

 And not only the latino kids. I've asked some of them what it means to them; sometimes they say it means they are Mexican, sometimes they tell me it is about their faith. Some say they just think it looks cool. So far, this practice has not been considered a dress code violation. In other places, it is dress code.

Amarillo ISD Student Wears Rosary Beads, Violates Dress Code, Arrested

http://www.everythinglubbock.com/story/d/story/-/2y_mYNc72ESSBDmVsYGvgA 

Can I wear clothing that communicates a political or religious message?

http://www.riaclu.org/know-your-rights/pamphlets/know-your-rights-school-dress-codes 

So why so serious, MzTeachuh, and where are the silly Garfield jokes? OK, here we go.

What do you need if your Cadbury Creme Eggs suddenly disappear?

You need an eggsplanation.

Where does the Easter Bunny get his eggs? From Eggplants.

How is the Easter Bunny like Kobe Bryant?

They're both famous for stuffing baskets.

Q: What does the Easter Bunny get for making a basket?

A: Two points, just like anyone else.

Q: How can you tell where the Easter Bunny has been?

A: Eggs mark the spot! 

Did you hear the one about the fifty-pound jelly bean?

It was pretty hard to swallow

Why do we paint Easter eggs?

Because it is too hard to wallpaper them.

What does the White House do when there are too many undiscovered Easter eggs on the South Lawn?

Call an eggstermi-nator.

What is the title of the rabbit in charge of the distribution of Easter eggs?

Chief of Hoperations.




I am a huge fan of the Cadbury Creme Egg Bunny, and was charmed when I found one I could buy as an Easter Bunny. A stuffed one that cackles like a chicken, not a real one.

So, enjoy these animal actors. Why is there no Emmy or Oscar for animal actors?

Cadbury Bunny Ad - Chocolate 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2eOXtDN6g

Cheesy Jokes and Serious Thoughts for St. Patrick's Day

 

We're all Irish on St. Patrick's Day--and since the Irish diaspora was over  600 years long, and the Irish lived long and prospered wherever there was a Catholic church worldwide--it's probably true we're all Irish. Geneticists say that Genghis Khan was the foremost contributor to Y chromosomes worldwide, followed by O' Neill of the Nine Hostages (Irish).
My grandmother was completely Irish, her mother immigrating from the Old Sod, so I have been successfully indoctrinated about the Isle of Saints and Scholars. Trust me, no demeaning stereotypical jokes about the Irish in my growing up. Sister Francis Eileen, O.P., was the principal of St. Louis Bertrand's School in Oakland, California, and her lilting Irish brogue came over the P.A. system every morning. She was cool, all the nuns I had were cool; I never had a negative experience in parochial school. Many were from Ireland, many were Irish Americans like my sainted grandmother. And I was in that school both when John F. Kennedy ran for president, was elected, and was assassinated. Powerful stuff.

I am so thankful I didn't have to unlearn prejudice and bias--my Oakland elementary school was perfect. The only almost-bias I had to unlearn was that not everyone was from my church.

http://www.tolerance.org/hiddenbias

I was stunned when I heard my first negative joke about the Irish. Didn't they realize we saved western civilization?
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/irish.html 

The Isle of Saints and Scholars-to be sure

And I didn't even say, "Pog Mo Thoin." Which shows a lot of maturity and restraint.

Ethnic jokes and teasing are a form of bullying--so kids and adults really need to knock it off. Are we that desperate to feel superior? The quiet kid in the back of the room won't be able to stand up for herself in the midst of  biased-based laughter. Bullying includes those jokes about physical appearance, churches, where you're from, and let's throw in sports teams since kids are so sensitive about them. Kids should have the right to be in school without bullying or humiliation of any type. Grown-ups, too.

 So, anyway, here are the jokes. (That's pretty Irish of me:  stick up for the underdog and then tell jokes.) 

Green, and Garfield provides the orange

How did the leprechaun get to the moon?

In a shamrocket.

Why is Ireland like a bottle of wine?

Because it has a Cork in it.

What would you get if you crossed a leprechaun with a Texan?

A pot of chili at the end of the rainbow.

No relation to Bono. Or the Edge.

What kind of music does a leprechaun band play?
                                      Shamrock and roll.


What do you call a leprechaun's vacation home in Fort Lauderdale?

A lepre-condo.

 Love Irish music. O'Sullivan's March, The Chieftans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkrr0-qut4
My gggrandmother (later immigrated to Kansas)  was a Sullivan leaving from Cork in 1844, and who survived a coffin ship to Grosse Isle Quebec.