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If you’ve ever worked in a school, you know who’s responsible for keeping everything together. Hint: It’s not the principal. It’s the school secretary. A good secretary has the ability to keep a school running smoothly. From ensuring the copier is always working to checking up on kids who are absent from school, the school secretary plays a very important role in a school community. In honor of Administrative Professionals’ Day, we’ve come up with 66 reasons to thank your school secretary. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a holiday for you to tell your school secretaries how much they mean to your school.

1. The school secretary is often the first person to greet visitors to the school.

2. The school secretary fields phone calls from upset parents.

3. The school secretary has the ability to keep upset parents from visiting your classroom.

4. The school secretary knows how to find an accurate phone number for nearly every student.

5. The school secretary helps manage meeting and conference schedules, which can often be confusing.

6. The school secretary knows when a student is absent and if a student has been absent a lot of days.

7. The school secretary can make last-minute copies for you, even if you’ve exceeded your monthly quota.

8. The school secretary can get the custodian to your classroom in an instant, even though the custodian has been avoiding you for hours.

9. The school secretary knows all of the juicy gossip.

10. The school secretary knows and can easily access nearly any form you need to fill out.

11. The school secretary gives students a talking-to while they wait for the principal.

12. The school secretary often gets paid much less than the value she provides to the school.

13. The school secretary often has to work during the summer (and during some school breaks).

14. The school secretary helps make sure every student has a schedule at the beginning of the year.

15. The school secretary makes sure the crossing guard and flag raisers get their job done every day.

16. The school secretary makes sure buses arrive on time and finds out where buses are when they’re late.

17. The school secretary makes sure announcements are delivered at the proper time.

18. The school secretary helps control the fire alarms and announcements during safety drills.

19. The school secretary serves as the PR firm for the entire school.

20. The school secretary comforts kids who are sick, feeling sad, or just having a rough day.

21. The school secretary listens to teachers who just need to vent.

22. The school secretary often puts together and sends out the school newsletter.

23. The school secretary helps ensure a smooth transition for students transferring into the school.

24. The school secretary can answer nearly any question about the school that people call to ask.

25. The school secretary can tell you where your elusive principal is at nearly any given moment.

26. The school secretary knows who’s a walker, bus rider, or going to after-school care.

27. The school secretary takes important messages all day long and knows which ones to mark “urgent.”

28. The school secretary has to listen to the ringing of the phone all day long.

29. The school secretary often has to eat lunch while sitting at her command post.

30. The school secretary is a master multi-tasker.

31. The school secretary makes sure the copier is always working, whether she fixes it herself or calls the repairman.

32. The school secretary has the ability to magically find the supplies you forgot to bring for your classroom.

33. The school secretary keeps the school calendar updated and lets everyone know of any changes.

34. The school secretary schedules substitutes when teachers call in sick or need a day off (and can often get the sub you really want).

35. The school secretary makes sure the vending machines in the teachers’ lounge are working and well-stocked.

36. The school secretary signs for important packages, such as approved grant applications.

37. The school secretary fills teacher mailboxes with important mail and announcements.

38. The school secretary serves as an in-school communication system, passing messages between teachers.

39. The school secretary serves as an in-school postmaster, putting stamps on letters and making sure they get out in the mail.

40. The school secretary often sends around a card or organizes a group gift for birthdays, funerals, and other life events.

41. The school secretary often spends the entire day in the office, rarely getting to move around.

42. The school secretary has access to tons of data on students and teachers and manages to keep it all confidential.

43. The school secretary has the ability to ward off bill collectors and sales people when they call looking for teachers.

44. The school secretary often serves as a mediator in conflicts between staff members.

45. The school secretary is in charge of ordering key supplies for the school.

46. The school secretary often has a stressful, hectic day and still manages to keep a smile on her face.

47. The school secretary helps students get instruments, lunch boxes, and other items their parents drop off because they left them at home.

48. The school secretary knows where every student is supposed to be at a given moment.

49. The school secretary has the ability to determine whether a student really needs to call home or is just trying to get out of class.

50. The school secretary writes late passes for students.

51. The school secretary often serves as the first point of contact during an emergency.

52. The school secretary makes sure all visitors sign in and are issued visitor passes.

53. The school secretary knows when to call 9-1-1 during an emergency.

54. The school secretary is usually one of the first to arrive in the morning and one of the last to leave at night.

55. The school secretary is often responsible for making sure students get medication when the nurse is out.

56. The school secretary helps arrange field trips.

57. The school secretary can often find a lost pair of sneakers or discover which student stole something from a backpack.

58. The school secretary knows how to use Power School or whatever new system the district adopts.

59. The school secretary helps coordinate room assignments for teachers before the school year starts.

60. The school secretary keeps meticulous files of all important paperwork and other key information.

61. The school secretary often helps handle many of the school’s financial accounts.

62. The school secretary helps compile the endless reports and sets of data requested by the district office.

63. The school secretary helps get your money back from the vending machine when it malfunctions.

64. The school secretary helps organize and distribute items related to school fundraisers.

65. The school secretary makes sure everyone gets his/her picture taken on picture day and distributes the pictures when they come in.

66. The school secretary makes everything she does look like a piece of cake.

Do you have more reasons to add to the list? Share why you love your school secretary in the comments.

Why not have some fun with the school faculty and write Haikus dedicated to this important individual! See our examples in the link above.

Reference

It’s that time of year again! That’s right, it’s Geography Awareness Week. The time of year when students clamor for scintillating information about our world and features that make it special. You’ve probably read our first feature, Ten Fun Facts for Geography Awareness Week, and you’ve been waiting for a brand new installment to share with your friends. Well, your wait is finally over. Get a load of these fresh facts about our world.

1. The wettest city in America (that is, the city with the most annual rainfall) is Mobile, AL, with an average of 67 inches. The notoriously rainy Pacific Northwest does not appear until 24th on the wettest list, but Olympia, WA is credited with having the most rainy days in the country, averaging 63 per year. The wettest inhabited city in the world is Buenaventira, Colombia, which receives 267” of rain per year!
2. Africa is the only continent located in all four hemispheres. It is, therefore, the only continent to have land on the prime meridian and the equator.
3. Alaska is clearly the northernmost and westernmost US state, but it’s also the easternmost! The Alaskan Aleutian Islands just barely cross the 180 degree meridian of longitude, placing them in the Eastern Hemisphere.
4. China shares its international borders with an incredible 16 nations!
   
   
   Well, some will argue that it is only 14 bordering nations. China attains its title of Border Nations King only when you include Hong Kong and Macau, “Special Administrative Regions” of China that are not exactly autonomous. If you do not count those two regions as independent nations that border China (and many in Hong Kong do not feel independent), then Russia ties China, as they also have 14 bordering nations. 
5. The largest pyramid in the world is located in…Mexico! The Great Pyramid of Cholula is located in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico and was believed to be dedicated to the god Quetzalcoatl.
   
   
6. We typically think of deserts as sand covered, barren areas with ridiculously high temperatures. But a desert is actually defined by its (lack of) rainfall amounts. The largest desert on Earth is the Antarctic Desert at 5.5 million square miles. This region averages less than two inches of rainfall per year. The largest hot desert in the world is the Sahara Desert at 3.1 million square miles. 
7. According to the most recent US census, 192 different languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the country. New York barely beat out Los Angeles, who came in at 185 languages. The title of most languages spoken in one country belongs to Papua New Guinea with 820! The island has been inhabited for 40,000 years, so many languages have evolved and differentiated themselves from other. Also, Papua New Guinea has many natural barriers, leaving its people very fragmented. Cultural diffusion is minimal and many of these tiny groups have retained their own languages.
8. Mount Everest is the world’s tallest mountain…when measured above sea level. When measured from the sea floor, Mauna Kea in Hawaii measures at over 32,000 feet, making it over 3,000 feet higher than Everest. Mauna Kea is less than 14,000 feet high when measured from above sea level.
   
   
9. The Falkland Islands house 500,000 sheep and only 3,000 people. There are numerous countries whose sheep population outnumbers the human population including New Zealand,Mongolia, and Australia.
   
   
   
10. If you don’t like your neighbors, move to Mongolia. It is the least densely populated country in the world with four people per square mile. Monaco is the most densely populated country in the world at 49,236 people per square mile. Though, some would argue that Monaco’s reign as most densely populated country is unfair. The nebulous nature of the aforementioned Macau puts Monaco’s title in danger, as the “Special Administrative Region” of China has a population density of 55,301 per square mile.

Leave any fun geography facts that you discover in the comments section. We’ll be sure to have our third annual Geography Extravaganza next year.

Every four years, athletes from around the world gather to compete in the Summer Olympic Games. While the athletes are competing to win gold, the games give kids a chance to learn more about the events the athletes are competing in, as well as the part of the world where the games are held. This year, the 2016 Summer Olympic Games are being held in Rio de Janeiro, the second most populous municipality in Brazil. Despite the controversy surrounding the games and their location, there are a lot of reasons to get excited. We’ve rounded up some fun facts about the 2016 Summer Olympic Games to help get kids excited too.

1. Rio de Janeiro is the first South American city to host the Olympic Games. For a fun geography activity, look up the locations of previous Olympic games and mark them on a world map.

2. Over 10,000 athletes will compete in the games. The U.S. will bring over 500 of those athletes, which you can learn about on Team USA’s website.

3. It will cost Rio de Janeiro over $9.5 billion to host the Summer Olympic games.

4. Golf will be played at the 2016 Olympics. The sport has not been part of the Summer Games for over 100 years.

5. In many countries, the competition just to make the Olympic team was tough. Queen Harrison, a hurdler, missed qualifying for the U.S. team by two one-hundredths of a second.

6. Over 45% of the athletes in Rio will be female. That’s a higher percentage of females than ever before.

7. Dipa Karmakar will compete as the first Indian female gymnast in 52 years to qualify for the Olympic games.

8. Yusra Mardini, an 18-year-old swimmer, will compete under the Olympic flag as part of the first team of refugee athletes.

9. Leila, Liina, and Lily Luik will be the first set of triplets to compete in the same Olympic sport. They are marathon runners from Estonia.

10. Simone Biles, the most decorated female gymnast in history, is the shortest member of Team USA at 4’8″ tall.

11. To prepare for the Olympics, workers in Rio de Janeiro built 43 miles of new roads and planted thousands of trees.

12. Canadian horse-jumper, Ian Miller, will compete in his 11th Olympic Games. He’s 69 years old.

13. Michael Phelps, the most-decorated Olympian of all time, will attempt to increase his medal count at the 2016 Games. He currently has 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold.

14. The country of Kosovo will compete in its first Olympics this year, sending eight athletes to the Games.

15. Nino Salukvadze and Tsotne Machavariani, shooters from the country of Georgia, are the first mother-son duo to compete at the Games.

16. Singer Katy Perry released her first single in two years, a song called “Rise,” which will be used as an anthem for the Olympic Games.

Want to learn more about the Olympics? Work with your kids to complete our Summer Olympics Scavenger Hunt or one of our other Olympics-themed worksheets found on our seasonal worksheets page.

The legacy of Christopher Columbus is a controversial topic, but the Age of Exploration that began with his voyage to America is a major turning point in history. Acknowledging that significance is important in the Social Studies curriculum, so here are five activities and lesson plans that celebrate Columbus Day and exploration more specifically.

Celebrate Columbus Day: What to Consider by Age Group

Elementary School

Pumpkin Geography:

This great activity from the NEA teaches kids geography in a fun and exciting way. Treat your pumpkin as a globe, showing all seven continents. To make this Fall fun more relatable to Columbus, have your students paint Columbus’ route from Spain to the Americas.

Columbus Day Boat Races

Incorporate science into your lessons on Columbus’ voyage by crafting sailboats and monitoring their success. Students will love crafting the vessels and the trial and error involved in making them stay afloat.

Columbus Day Reader’s Theater:

Invigorate students’ imaginations with this play that includes roles of real life characters. Reader’s theater encourages students to interact with the script by rehearsing and mapping out their movements. It’s a terrific team building tool, and assists the audience in understanding the content.

High School

Columbus: Hero or Villain

High school age students can have a reasoned and informed debate about the role of Columbus in American history and cultural significance. There are various resources to engage in discussion about his legacy, such as this CBS News story or this Washington Post article. After discussing the controversy as a class, allow your students to post their thoughts on Debate.org which solicits comments from readers and archives them. This writing assignment forces their rationale to be brief, but pointed. This ABC News story suggests alternatives to Columbus Day. Ask your students to support or oppose each alternative and to create their own Columbus Day replacement to suit all parties involved in the debate. Help Teaching also has a free printable multiple choice test that examines all sides of Columbus legacy.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Many writings from Columbus’ voyage are available for use by teachers. The magnificent Gilder Lehrman Institute provides a unit of study for students to think like a historian in dissecting Columbus’ letters. This unit provides step by step instruction, as well as primary sources. Students become investigators, drawing conclusions from Columbus’ own words and actions.

Christopher Columbus’ voyage and legacy is a topic that fascinates students. Finding ways to integrate the history with interactive and challenging activities makes the history come alive. For more options for disseminating information on Columbus and other explorers, check out our post Graphic Organizers in the Social Studies Classroom.

It might start by simply hiding behind their mother as a toddler and progress into a sense of anxiety so strong it inhibits everything from classroom instruction to proper socialization.

While many children are boisterous and creative through imaginative play, some struggle deeply with shyness.

Shyness has positive points, but when it is so extreme that it affects their daily life in a negative way, then there may be ways to help.

Group activities for shy kids can be very beneficial when executed correctly. Timid kids can learn to find strength in numbers and to be accepted in ways they previously feared.

It might seem the worst thing you could do is put a shy child in the middle of a team or arranged social circle – but in many instances it can also help.

Classroom Structure

While some kids may never be the spokesperson of the group, they may contribute ideas to a more outgoing member of the team and feel proud where they otherwise would’ve just been silent.

An attentive teacher will recognize a shy student who is struggling, and will often try to help.

One way to help is to arrange the classroom so that desks are in pairs or small clusters rather than individual rows. This promotes teamwork in the classroom – the various clusters of desks work together to come up with an answer, or they brainstorm together for an activity.

Leading the Way

Many shy children tend to be excellent students or independent workers.

Why not tap into these positives by asking them to mentor younger children?

Whether in the classroom or on the soccer field, the opportunity to build relationships with younger kids can make the shy child feel more comfortable and able to speak up more in other life situations.

This works even better if they can be paired with another to assist a handful of younger ones. This mentorship system is the core of the Montessori school structure – it has been known to raise confident and capable children, and in some instances, abolish shyness.

Get Active in the Classroom

Although it may seem a recipe for disaster, one of the best activities for shy kids is group physical activities or sports. They experience victories without having everything rest on their shoulders, but also learn the important lesson of other people counting on them to be confident and do well.

Team activities have proven time and again to be effective in bringing children out of their shell, and don’t include the pressure of individual sports like gymnastics or figure skating.

When Shyness is a Problem

If a child is so shy that they are experiencing anxiety attacks, problems even walking into the schoolyard or signs of depression, encourage the child’s parents to seek the help of a health care provider right away.

While many kids are shy and go through life in a simpler, quieter way, shyness can sometimes lead to more serious issues. Sometimes even a one-time therapy session with a quality counselor can get to the bottom of the situation and help the little one to feel more confident and secure in who they are.

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Sarah Antrim is a blogger and social media manager for ActivityHero, a website that helps parents find, plan and book kids classes and summer camps. She blogs extensively about kids activities, providing parents fun and time-saving tips on how to engage kids. As a mother of two, Sarah firmly believes in the company’s mission to keep kids active & healthy.

Math month is celebrated in April each year. Why? Math has an image problem, a negative reputation of sorts. If math teachers received a nickel for every time a student asked, “When will I ever need to use this after I graduate?” – well, do the math.

At it’s heart, math is a critical tool in solving many problems in the real world. On the face of it, students probably don’t realize that math and statistics are central in ensuring our messaging and internet are secure, that modelling climate change, trends, and other big data is all math-based, and that genetic advancements and medical research has math at their heart. And everyday, the applications of math is widening into ever more sectors, such as biotechnology, energy, business, sustainability, medicine, transport and AI, to name just some. 

Without math, we simply lack a driver of innovation and the ability to either increase or decrease complexity.

Mathematics Awareness Week was established in 1986 with the hope of increasing public appreciation of math. It was later changed to a month-long celebration of math. Take advantage of this math month and explore the wonder of the world of numbers by engaging your students or child with one of the following activities that we think they’ll love.

Math Month Activity #1: Math Poetry

As it happens, the month of April is also Poetry Month, so why not combine the two themes and create some fun math poetry? This can take a number of forms:

• You can create poetry about math
• A poem can be created around a mathematical concept like the Fibonacci sequence
• Or you can use actual math to create a poem or limeric, like this example
  

Math Month Activity #2: Ask Fermi Questions

Quick! How many drops of water are in a gallon? No calculator allowed! Nobel Prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi was known for his capacity to perform rapid mental estimations. The goal of answering a Fermi question is to find an answer on the correct order of magnitude instead of an exact number. For example, I would estimate there are about 20 drops of water in a teaspoon and 768 teaspoons in a gallon. To make it easier, I can round 768 to 800 and guess that a gallon has around 16,000 drops of water. Whether the precise answer is 10,000 or 90,000 does not matter for a Fermi question, what matters is the answer is on the correct order of magnitude (10⁴ in this case). To get started, visit fermiquestions.com.

Another fun variation of this is to have an estimation jar. Fill it with jelly beans, or any other filling like dried beans, buttons, or marbles, and students can take turns estimating (or guessing!) what the answer is. The closest answer wins the prize – or if it’s something like buttons or beans, a better prize 🙂

Math Month Activity #3: Write to Manufacturers about Metric Misuse

Ask your students to make a list of products at home and record the metric labeling for volume or mass printed on the labels exactly as they appear on the products. Then have students compare the labels with the U.S. Metric Association’s guide to “Correct SI-Metric Usage.” Chances are, at least one of the products will be metrically mislabeled. Next, have each student write to a manufacturer and either point out incorrect metric usage (politely!) or thank them for promoting good metric usage. As a bonus, many manufacturers will kindly respond to student letters.

Math Month Activity #4: Explore Math in the Workplace

Dispel the myth that students will never use math once they leave school by inviting professionals to your class to share how they use math in their careers. Take a field trip a local business willing to give a tour and discuss the importance of math in the workplace. Students may be surprised to learn how often math is used outside the classroom. For more information, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offers a Periodic Table of Stem Careers.

Math Month Activity #5: Watch a Math Movie

What student doesn’t love a movie? From The Theory of Everything to Stand and Deliver to Moneyball to Good Will Hunting, finding a movie featuring math content isn’t difficult. Get started by checking out this list of movies featuring positive math themes. Also, read Test Designer’s article on using movies in the classroom.

Bonus Math Month Activities: Read a Math Book

Who doesn’t love a good book? And if you can get one about math that isn’t  a textbook, all the better. We suggest Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Wayne Geehan (or you can check out a reading of it YouTube). Characters with fun names like Sir Cumference and Lady Di Ameter, bring light-hearted fun on an adventure that see’s our hero turned into a fire-breathing dragon and solving riddles and math puzzles to change him back.

Further Reading

Read our articles, “How to Write Higher-Order Math Questions” and “Top STEM Competitions – Could Your Student Be the Next Winner?” for more math education ideas.

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STEM – Most Popular

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Joe Pizzuto-Pomaco is an educator, writer, and editor who has taught in public and private schools 15 years.