Finding Voice, written by Nancy Dean with Natalie Danaher, is a foundational book for elementary students and teachers that addresses close reading of complex text through understanding and practicing the elements of voice. The book is a collection of classroom lessons that cover the tools authors use to shape voice and meaning: diction, detail, imagery, figurative language, and tone. Every voice lesson includes a quotation selected from a wide range of engaging fiction and nonfiction text...

This collection of Nancy Dean’s best newspaper columns, all drawn from “moments in time” in her life, gives readers insights into human nature as well as plenty of reasons to smile. Join her at skating rinks, gas stations, calf scrambles, soccer games, yard sales, gardens, and on bike treks. Lose yourself in the emotions her stories elicit—excitement, fear, sadness, humor, love, euphoria, and more. Discover what to do when surrounded by a herd of burly cows that wonder why you are collecti...

This book is a journey—a reminiscence of Nancy Dean’s adventures. In Parts One and Two, she travels from a laid-back southern town in Alabama through awe-inspiring wilderness in the western states with two young sons and a husband determined to conquer every mountain along the way. Ancient desert ruins, verdant rain forests, horned lizards and scorpions, beautiful wildflower meadows, a bone-aching mule ride, hidden mountain lakes, an eight-day backpack across snow and lava, frustrating mec...

Discovering Voice is a collection of classroom exercises that helps students deeply understand the reading and writing of complex text. The lessons, which cover diction, detail, figurative language, imagery, syntax, and tone, help students understand voice in what they read and encourage them to develop a strong, personal voice in their own writing. Every voice lesson includes a quotation selected from a wide range of fiction and nonfiction text, two discussion questions, and an exercise t...

In the second book in the Uncomplicating Mathematics Series, professional developer Marian Small shows teachers how to uncomplicate the teaching of algebra by focusing on the most important ideas that students need to grasp. Organized by grade level around the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, Small shares approaches that will lead to a deeper and richer understanding of algebra for both teachers and students. The book opens with a clear discussion of algebraic thinking...

What do children need to learn first? Their ABCs? Their numbers? As it turns out, the “what” children need to develop is their social intelligence and emotional intelligence, the essential building blocks for all future learning. Best-selling author Pam Schiller provides information, activities, and experiences that develop the seven skills children need in order to become successful learners. These include social intelligence skills, such as relating to and playing with others, as well as...

Organizing your home can be overwhelming. Especially if you have bought too much stuff and have a hard time getting rid of it. However, help has arrived.If It's Clutter... Quick Tips for Decluttering the Home shows you what to do when you have got too much junk. With its quick and easy advice on how to remove and let go of your unnecessary items, this guide can help you get on the path to having peace of mind as well as a tidy home.

Teachers know how important it is to develop children’s fine motor skills as a stepping stone to future learning. Christy Isbell’s book, Mighty Fine Motor Fun, provides teachers with the tools and information to teach fine motor skills to children ages three to five. Isbell covers a wide range of current research on fine motor development, from developmental differences between boys and girls to guideposts for what is developmentally appropriate for children at each age. The activ...

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a long-time collaboration, in work and in life; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see and think about the natural world.Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book might have been a revelatory treatise on plant life. Lab Girl is that, but it is also so much more....

A "delightful, witty" memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks ( Library Journal).Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and th...

How do we teach with rigor to our youngest learners? How do we implement standards that spell out quite clearly what students must know—but do not give us either the methods or materials that help our students achieve such skills? This professional resource provides practical routines and developmentally appropriate activities that foster an environment where our youngest learners can thrive in mastering core kindergarten content along with the Common Core standards. The routines and activ...

What would you do if someone told you that there was a better way to clean and organize your home and still have time for all the things in your life that you actually enjoy? Well, there is and it's called The Big Clean and now this classic organization and housecleaning manual has been revised and updated.Due to a complete lack of time, Kim Rinehart, author of Goodbye, Fatty! Hello, Skinny! How I Lost Weight And Still Ate The Foods I Loved—Without Dieting, throug...