Ms. Almagor

Friends, it's my birthday!! I'm turning 40 and I'm excited (:

If you would like to give me a present, please consider sending a little $ or a book to one of these young people.

I'm so glad I got to teach them - now they're out teaching our children, and embarking on careers in education at a time when the work is harder than ever.

Showing them a little love and support would be a wonderful gift.

Thank you so much ❤️🎂 🍎💜

Marq Thomas-Hunter is teaching middle school English at KIPP DC: Northeast Academy, where he won the Board Award last spring. He's also a new KIPPster parent!

His amazon wishlist is here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3LCP3AQOLHE31

Justin Lowery is teaching third grade math after serving as a mentor with City Year as well.

You can cashapp him with support for his classroom here:
https://cash.app/$shabazzX12

Jazmine Madison Felder just graduated from Lycoming College and is at KIPP Philly for her first year of teaching.

You can find her amazon wishlist here:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1K4POYVLF387V/

Or her cashapp for support with hand sanitizer and other classroom supplies: https://cash.app/$MJJones365

Breon Robinson just graduated from Duke University and has moved to Houston to teach sixth grade math with Teach For America.

His amazon wishlist is here:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2T2JFYA39RFWP

Friends, it is almost my birthday... and it is classroom library season!

In a little over ten days, we'll be welcoming our full student body back to school, for the first time since March 2020. I know they are eager and excited to return; I think many also feel real trepidation about the transition.

Last year, my friends, you sent STACKS of delicious fourth grade books to my students. I am so grateful, still. Those books went home to kids in individually handpicked monthly book baggies. Some of those books were returned... some were not. That's OK. We knew that might happen.

So: If you would like to get me a birthday present, please consider sending a book or two to help replenish our classroom library. You'll notice lots of very short, very accessible selections this time; that's because these fourth graders haven't been in school since second grade, and I think they may need time and space and magic and lots of little victories to find themselves as readers again.

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1M94A3QL0HTLJ/

Parents of rising high school seniors: Now is the perfect time to get that college application essay done.... so you don't have to worry about it in the fall. I can guide your teen from start to finish, through a writing workshop process that is creative, joyful, and customized for you. Click to learn more about my approach:

Your College Essay Journey | @MsAlmagor Your College Essay Journey Writing your college application essays can be daunting and stressful. But it really doesn’t have to be. There is a better way. Your application process should not be about second-guessing what the admissions officers want to hear. It’s about finding the stories that y...

Supporting readers, writers, parents, and teachers this summer! Drop me a line if you're looking for creative writing instruction, college essay support, home learning planning, or help with your etsy profile. (-; Or check out my new (non-fancy) website:

@MsAlmagor | Supporting students, parents, and teachers. Welcome to ! by MsAlmagor | Jun 15, 2020 | About This website is new! I’ve been supporting students, parents, and teachers for a long time, mostly via word of mouth; but I’m excited to dip my toe in these new waters. Summer is a great time to help your child rediscover the joy of readi...

From the kids:

Parents have been asking me for help finding books, teaching writing, maintaining relationships, creating structure, managing behavior. Curiously, nobody has asked me how to gather standardized test data on their kids to get through this time.

Public service announcement from a veteran literacy teacher:

You do not need to “do school.” If it works for you or brings you joy, great. If not, skip it, and don’t let the elaborate schedules or work plans posted online stress you out.

Your kids DO need to read, talk, sing, write, research, create, engage with language. If they don’t, you could see real academic damage that will take months to undo.

The good news is that there's no reason to force reluctant readers to sit silently and “do their reading.” Instead, you can cultivate the joys of social reading and pleasure reading:

Read aloud to your kids. Please, please, please read aloud to your kids. Read to babies, little kids, big kids, and teenagers. Read them any book they want. Read them the same book over and over. Read them a recipe, a news article, or an email from a family member. If you’re sick of the books you have at home, try downloading more from your local public library, or from raz-kids.com, or from readingeggs.com, or from amazon’s set of free kindle books for kids. Set up a curbside book swap with friends - quarantine the books for 24 hours first. If you only do one thing, please do this.

Get kids reading together. Can your kid and a sibling take turns reading to each other? How about your kid and a relative they can contact via FaceTime or Skype? Older kids can agree to read the same chapter as a friend -- and then call each other to talk about what just happened. Try reading the newspaper together, and talking about what you learn.

Independent research rocks. What does your child love? If your kid was in charge of school, what would she want to learn about? This is a great week for researching horses and ponies, famous soccer players, the chemical composition of snot, or the minute-by-minute details of the sinking of the Titanic. Find some information online and read it together. Notice words that are hard or new: How can we figure out what they mean? Notice how the text is organized: Where can we find the information we want? When you’re done, draw a picture, write a letter to a friend, or call Grandma to share what you’ve learned.

Write about what matters. Encourage your kids to keep a diary or journal documenting their time at home -- and write in it yourself too. Write letters or emails to family you can’t visit. Make a family newspaper or create a blog post together. If life at home gets stressful…. and it will… try writing a list of rules, goals, or hopes and dreams. Write storybooks for younger siblings or cousins to read at home… take pictures and text to them.

Go outside. The vast majority of school-aged children in America spend way too much time already sitting still, staying indoors, being silent, “producing work.” If they spend the next few weeks moving more, playing more, and creating more, they’ll build habits that will serve them well even after we’re all back in school.

My new essay in the Boston Review. A post-PARCC update on the ways that standardized testing deepens educational inequity.

High Stakes Tests Aren't Better—And They Never Will Be Accountability is important. But tests that tie school funding to student performance only make things worse.

My 2014 essay on standardized testing made Boston Review's list of the decade's Must Reads. I wrote it the year before DC introduced the PARCC test... perhaps I was a bit optimistic about how that was going to go. 😂

Ten Years of Must Reads Our editors’ picks from the past decade: Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Robin Kelley, and more. Plus, find out which was voted as our readers’ favorite.

It's NEW CLASSROOM LIBRARY SEASON!!! If you'd like to put a shiny new book in the hands of a fourth grader... or get me an early birthday present... here you go.

Your List

College trip six years ago today. And now they're off to college for real. ❤️