Brandy Alexander - The Creative Teacher, 2nd Edition

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I this second edition of The Creative Teacher, we included the new ideas we generated but could not fit into our first edition. We also wanted to incorporate feedback from other teachers who have reviewed the book and/or asked us to include specific ideas. This book is meant as a one-stop resource for teachers who need immediate ideas to make their curriculum more relevant and engaging.

It also includes fresh concepts for educators searching for something different from and more interesting than what they have been using. With these goals in mind, writing this book was as simple as referring to the many boxes, files, and resource books we have gathered; websites we visited; and workshops and conferences we attended over the years. More than anything, we wanted to organize a resource to help teachers make their curriculum come to life. The Creative Teacher does just that. Being teachers ourselves, we developed a list of the many resources we wished we had had at our fingertips for our own classrooms. We also discussed key areas that we felt were left out of many curriculums.

It seemed that there was never enough time or we didnt have enough information to do justice to certain curricular areas, such as book reports, math reviews, social studies research reports, simple science experiments, art projects, and essay writing. We believe that if there is one resource teachers can consult for such ideas, there will be less need for stacks of supplemental materials, which busy teachers rarely have time for. Revisiting this book was a great experience, and we hope that new and veteran teachers will find it useful in preparing their curriculum throughout the year. We continue to add creative ideas to our own repertoire including resources such as teacher-made worksheets, puppets, report guidelines, workshop tips, as well as the wonderful ideas we have collected from colleagues, students in our teacher preparation programs, and our current student teachers. We recognize that there are many amazing books available to help new and veteran teachers, but we also know how important this book will be in combining these ideas offering a one-stop resource. Kimberly Persiani, EdD Associate Professor CSU, Los Angeles

The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas.

Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensiveand autonomy can be the antidote. Tom Kelly, General Manager, IDEO Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The SurprisingTruth About What Motivates Us Many teachers still believe that the best way to motivate students is with rewards and incentives, but Daniel Pink would likely say thats a mistake. He proclaims that the secret to high performance and satisfaction at school is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

The second edition of The Creative Teacher holds this thought at the forefront as we offer a variety of subject-specific activities that not only tap into the Common Core Standards (CCS) but also push for creativity, innovation, autonomy, critical thinking, and inference to encourage those new ideas and avoid the mediocrity that Daniel Pink speaks of.

With the Common Core Standards coming into play, and the 21st century well under way, this is the perfect time for us to revisit and update the first edition. We also offer new and interesting ideas to not only meet the demands of the CCSs but also the demands of the advancements in digital media as well as the ever-changing diverse student population. One of the most important aspects of the second edition is that the template pages will now be available for download for ease of use when planning lessons. New templates to help support activities throughout the book will also be made accessible for corresponding pages. These templates will be noted by the CD icon, which serves to remind you that there is a template ready for your students use.

In this edition, you will find a variety of updated activities, such as new book reports, including one for creating a Social Network Profile page on story characters or real people from informational texts. Other responses to literature in the Book Reports section offer the options of predicting the future through the Crystal Ball, digging around in a story characters garbage in Take Out the Trash, and solving problems in the story by writing to Dear Abby. Teachers will be excited to see new Graphic Organizers to help students keep track of data for writing essays. Some are related to types of writing, such as compare and contrast; developing topic ideas for stories; or preparing information to write history and/or science reports. Other areas to find new templates and new activities include science. You will enjoy teaching your students how to create a terrarium with products they can bring from home.