When moter nature isn't feeling well...

Teaching Pre K-8, Aug/Sep 2001 by Broderick, Patricia, Raymond, Allen

September Delights

And the products we've seen at the spring conventions, those we've received during our summer hiatus, truly are delights. They're the special products that deliver what they promise . . . help for you in your incredibly important job in the classroom. Happy new year from all of us at Teaching K-8.

When Mother Nature isn't feeling well... and we have to deal with floods, tornadoes and so on, we look to the Red Cross for help. Well, The American National Red Cross, in their helping tradition, has gone a step farther: they ve produced a classroom kit called Masters of Disaster. Actually, there are three kits available: one for K-2, one for grades 3-5 and, thankfully, another for grades 6 -- 8. We were sent the K-2 kit for review.

First, the heart of the program is a super teaching guide of 164, 8 1/2 x 11 pages. This guide has chapters covering general prep and each of the natural disasters: hurricane, floods, tornadoes, lightning, earthquakes. There s also a handy glossary. Each chapter (or disaster) includes a word list, preparedness ideas, selected kids book recommendations, activities, home connections and linking across the curriculum. This is truly a well-designed, comprehensive program. We learned so much we didn t know, and we ve lived in hurricane country for years!

The activities book follows the same chapter headings as the teacher s guide and provides varying numbers of reproducibles under each heading.

There are stickers, (in kits K-2 and 3-5 only), certificates you can personalize for the kids, a colorful Do You Know? poster and a video. There is a CD, Notagains, that provides interactive learning experiences for children ages 5-10. This is a scenario-based cDRoM that uses authentic disaster situations to encourage preparedness. Finally, all of this great stuff fits neatly into a sturdy storage case.

Some of these items can be purchased separately from the kit. Call your local Red Cross Chapter to purchase the kit and those single unit items. The kit costs $45 and is invaluable when one considers the lives this small investment might save.

Never enough of a good thing! What s better than one? Two. Especially if they re twins! And Twin Sisters Productions proves that over and over. This company believes that music is integral to all learning and they re absolutely right. So, they have produced terrific CDS in Foreign language instruction, reading readiness, math, social studies, science, safety and even wonderful classical music to set a learning tone for your classroom. We ve seen lots of music material across the curriculum, but none of this quality. It s all outstanding.

We saw the Spanish CD (these CDs are packaged with an Activity Book), and four math CDs. We actually saw two multiplication packages, one using soccer as a theme to explore multiplication facts, and the other using rap and hip-hop. The packages we saw are $13.99 each. Prices vary for cassettes, cDs without activity books, etc. so why not visit the Twin Sisters website at www.twinsisters.com or write for a catalog. This is information you ll want to keep handy for ordering throughout the year.

Twin Sisters Productions, Inc.

2680 West Market St

Akron, OH 44333