Even teachers and support staff in the education field need a boost as the school year kicks into full swing. The following titles are written for educators to help them have a positive experience in the classroom that translates into a good experience for students. These items have been recently added to our Literacy and Learning Collection. Descriptions from the publishers.

The Accessible Music Classroom for All by Brian Wagner-Yeung – This book provides teachers with the tools to give every student the appropriate support needed in music classrooms, especially in diverse settings, by presenting evidence-based strategies and examples of accessible music-making in action. While the book focuses on students with disabilities, readers will find that the strategies can benefit all.

Real Talk for New Teachers: Tools for Building a Sustainable Career by Katy Farber. Real Talk for New Teachers helps beginning teachers develop their vision and orient their practice toward a personally fulfilling, healthy, and sustainable career. Having a sustainable career goes beyond buzzwords like self-care. This book provides meaningful ideas for balancing the demands of the profession and getting the most out of it. Topics include managing health, time, and emotions; building community with students and families; collaborating with colleagues; creating an engaging curriculum; and leading a busy classroom. Whether you read this book alone or with a mentor, you’ll come away with clear ways to cultivate strong learning communities and practices that support both personal and collective efficacy in this vital profession.

Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education by Isabelle C. Hau – The most important aspect of early childhood in general and education in particular is the quality and care of the relationships a child forms. Love to Learn shows how to build and develop these relationships — and unlock every child’s true potential. Early relationships are the key to healthy brain development, resilience, and lifelong flourishing. This book offers a vision for a future where learning is relational, and love is a literacy. It is a provocative paradigm shift, from child-centered education to relationship-centered learning.

 

The School Mental Health Response Handbook: Practical Strategies for Educators and Support Staff by Ali D’Amario. Make a difference in children and young people’s lives at school with targeted mental health support exactly when you need it. The essential companion for addressing the mental health challenges faced by children today. Covering topics such as developmental trauma, anxiety, and self-harm.

Up Your Teaching Game: Creating Story-Based Games to Engage K-12 Students by Janna Jackson Kellinger. Up Your Teaching Game offers K-12 teachers an intuitive and refreshingly fun pathway for creating immersive, story-based games that encourage students to experience the curriculum through play. Regardless of their technical abilities, design acumen, grade level, or domain, today’s teachers have fresh opportunities to create and implement their own content-based games based on the same techniques that video game designers use to create commercial video games. In five actionable steps, this book prepares educators to design curricular games that teach instead of test, that are derived from content rather than divergent from it, and that motivate students to take ownership over their learning. Programs that most teachers are familiar with, such as PowerPoint and GoogleSlides, and technologies that may be new to them, such as Twine and Scratch, are addressed alongside the use of their own classrooms and schools as game spaces.