Happy Teacher Appreciation Week: Our Gifts To You!
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! We know you spend all school year helping your students grow with every lesson. That’s why we want to take the opportunity to stop, reflect, and see how the seeds of knowledge you’ve planted in your students all year are blooming and will be perennial as they continue their education. Take a look at the ways we’re recognizing and celebrating you this week:
Give your fellow teachers their flowers by celebrating their accomplishments
Watch your students grow with these Teacher Appreciation Week activities
Special delivery: Teacher Appreciation Week mail
As a thank you to our special Newsela teachers, we’ve sent a thank you note right to your inbox! Check the email account connected to your Newsela account for this special delivery. To stay connected with us, make sure you adjust your email preferences to get all our communications personalized just for teachers. Make sure you’re signed up for:
The Weekly Planner: Get new, interesting ways to share Newsela content and activities in your classroom, paired with timely lessons and themes throughout the year.
The Teacher Newsletter: Stay up-to-date with our latest announcements, updates, content, and events for teachers each month.
Newsela marketing communications: Get feedback opportunities, news, and event and promotional announcements from our marketing team.
Give your fellow teachers their flowers by celebrating their accomplishments
At Newsela, and especially in our educator community, we love to highlight teachers who go above and beyond to bring content-rich instruction and engaging activities to their students in the classroom every day. Let’s give a virtual round of applause and spotlight some of our featured teachers for this Teacher Appreciation Week:
Jaclyn Wallace
Jaclyn is a fourth-grade teacher at Leaphart Elementary School STEAM Magnet. She recently gave a presentation on fostering a multicultural classroom.
During the presentation, she spoke about how she used the Newsela article “Why Haiti is Prone to Devastating Earthquakes” (in our Science & Tech text set) to make connections between her lesson on primary and secondary sources and her co-teacher’s science lesson on earthquakes. She also invited a student’s mother, who was in Haiti during an earthquake, to speak to her class and provide a first-person point of view.
Thank you for creating such an impactful and important lesson, Jaclyn. Congratulations on being one of our outstanding Newsela teachers!
Felicity Flower-Zitske
Felicity is a seventh- and eighth-grade social studies gifted and talented teacher at Marana Middle School. She uses Newsela to incorporate literacy into everything she teaches.
Newsela gives her the ability to find texts that fit the varied reading levels of her students. In her classroom, she uses the “before reading” activities to help focus students’ instruction and develop their background knowledge on the lesson topic.
Thank you for differentiating instruction and creating engaging lessons for all your students, Felicity. Congratulations on being one of our outstanding Newsela teachers!
New to Newsela?
Sign up for Newsela Lite to practice skills and build a literacy routine that students love—for free!
Megan McCall
Megan is a science instructor at Barton Academy in Mobile County Public School District. She uses Newsela when she starts a new topic in her classroom to give students extra support with developing background knowledge.
Megan makes connections between the topics her class is studying, like endangered species, and current articles about the topic. Differentiated lexile levels help her meet students where they are in their educational journey.
Thank you for making real-world connections and accessible lessons for all your students, Megan. Congratulations on being one of our outstanding Newsela teachers!
Guy Pratt
Guy is a high school biology and research science teacher at Darien Public Schools. He uses Formative to analyze real-time data about his students' comprehension of concepts and ideas.
With Formative, Guy helps students prepare for cumulative exams by identifying content standards they found difficult the first time through.
Thank you for making skills practice, test prep, and comprehension priorities for your students, Guy. Congratulations on being one of our outstanding Formative teachers!
Dazhia Davis-Carr
Dazhia is a fourth-grade ELA and social studies teacher at Phenix City Schools. She uses Newsela to build literacy skills while exploring key concepts in her social studies class. Her students learn domain-specific vocabulary and can exercise their comprehension skills!
Dazhia is a pro at creating a dynamic learning environment that promotes both literacy and students' understanding of social studies concepts.
Thank you for stressing the value of cross-curricular lessons, Dazhia. Congratulations on being one of our outstanding Newsela teachers!
Watch your students grow with these Teacher Appreciation Week activities
Want to help your students show their appreciation for other teachers at your school? Here are some activities you can do with your students to help spread gratitude throughout your building:
Ask students to describe their teachers in three words. Create and share a word cloud for each teacher that they can display in their classrooms.
Have students ask teachers the names of their favorite books. Find a way to purchase any missing titles for your school library—either with school funds or by having students brainstorm ways to fundraise—and donate a copy dedicated to that teacher from your class.
Teach students how to write thank you notes and encourage them to write messages to their favorite teachers.
Browse the Appreciating Our Teachers text set to get even more ideas on how to help your students thank and celebrate the other teachers in your school and their lives.
Help our new Facebook community flourish
If you haven’t heard, our Newsela Community has moved to Facebook! We heard your requests to connect more deeply with other Newsela educators in a place where you already spend time. This new Facebook community group is a space for all of you to engage with each other, offer expertise and support, and share your successes.
In the Newsela Community, you can find a variety of voices from teachers, administrators, and instructional coaches. Join now to start collaborating! If you’re already a member, we’d love to hear from you about this change. Email community.manager@newsela.com or fill out our feedback form to share your ideas about what you’d like to get out of the Newsela Community.
Not on Facebook? Not a problem! You can still be a part of the Newsela Community by following us on other social media platforms—like Instagram, X, and LinkedIn—and by subscribing to The Weekly Planner.