Even though I just got back from my first trip with EF Tours, it’s already time to start thinking about plans for next spring break. For spring break 2014, we will be taking a trip to London and Scotland. We will be holding our first informational meeting for students and parents this week on April [...]

For spring break this year I took a trip to China with students from Woodland and FHS to China as apart of a group with Education First Tours. On our trip we were able to see three major cities in China: Beijing, Xi’an, and Shanghai. The trip was amazing and it was great to catch [...]

After a long hiatus, I thought it was time to touch base on my website and give some quick updates…lessons learned style. Since the last time that I logged we have all become smarter. Some more than others, but specifically my kindergarten students have become smarter. On February 1st kindergarteners at Leverett celebrated the 100th [...]

Happy Friday…here is a short pep talk to get you through what is left of this week. Enjoy. Mr. McClung

Last week Leverett Elementary was invited to attend the monthly school district board meeting and lead the meeting in the pledge of allegiance. Accompany me to the board meeting was my 5th grade student council officers and representatives. It was a great a great privilege to be invited to lead the pledge and myself and [...]

A conversation that we really need to start having as educators is how do change math? I know that there has been an influx of ideas regarding this subject, but there has to be another way. Think about it, as time goes on just about all of our academic disciplines have morphed as a direct [...]

Harry’s Kindergarten is a wonderful YouTube channel that provides educational videos to teach the basics of kindergarten. Our kindergarten teachers are currently using Mr. Harry’s channel to teach counting to 100. To check out all of his videos click here. Mr. McClung

We had a very special visit today as the members and coaches of the Arkansas Razorback baseball team stopped by to help us celebrate the holidays. Over the past few weeks these young men worked to raise money to buy gifts for 4 very lucky children…it’s also worth noting that they then wrapped and presented [...]

One of our major professional development focuses for our school this year is to increase the amount of cooperative strategies that we use in the classroom. The focus is on increasing student engagement by reducing the amount of teacher talk and replacing it with guided practice that the students perform. We have been focusing on [...]

Today our 3-5 graders visited Bud Walton Arena to watch the women’s Razorback team play Jackson State. The visit was apart of the Sweat Hog program that our school participates in. Sweats Hogs is an organization that brings student athletes from the University of Arkansas to speak in our public schools about the importance of [...]

On Wednesday, our very own Ms. Bley received a $500 check from the our local news station KNWA and General Electric. Ms. Bley has submitted a project that she and her students did last year called “Energy Rocks”. This video focused on ways that students could conserve energy. This year she will be using the [...]

Finally the day has come. Although I do complain about politics during the election season, I do enjoy the election itself and the teaching moments that it can provide in education…that’s the social studies teacher in me. Here at Leverett we have used this opportunity to introduce some election themed lessons/activities. The image above was [...]

This last week marked the end to our first quarter of school…and it was quite a busy one at that. We started out on Monday by having visitors from the first department come to our school to discuss fire safety awareness month. Student get a chance to get up close with a fire truck and [...]

One thing that I have learned in the short time that I have been an administrator is that there is always the “next big thing” on the horizon. Educators are always looking for the next program or resource that is going to make a meaningful impact on their students, and on the flip side, there [...]

Yesterday morning athletes from the University of Arkansas stopped by Leverett as apart of the Sweat Hog program. Sweat Hogs is a program in which student athletes work with local schools in order to promote healthy lifestyles through exercise and diet. The university athletes spoke to the students about how they specifically stay healthy and [...]

Lesson One – Tis The Season Every year, when the political climate is just right, I try to post one of my favorite videos regarding politics. There becomes a certain point during election time where a person can get very overwhelmed with the rhetoric and the pandering that goes on…it’s enough to drive you crazy. [...]

What measurable educational factors determine real life success for individuals? Educators, policy makers, and all other individuals involved with the public school systems have tried to figure out the answer to this question over many of years. The result that we have been left with is standardized tests…and lots of them. No one knows exactly [...]

To get the week started off right, I thought I would share some words of wisdom from Sir Ken Robinson as he speaks about curriculum. Enjoy. Mr. McClung

In our district that has been an initiative to use more technology in the classroom and lately there has been specific training on how to to flip a classroom. With this in mind, I thought I would chime in with a quick three things on this subject matter. Students are Connected – So why aren’t [...]

Lesson One – Meet The New Boss So I decided that I would like to continue with my usual lessons learned, but post them every other week instead of weekly. With that said I do have a few quick observations from my first two weeks of being an assistant principal. First of all I am [...]