Many of you probably know the story of my Twitter handle: @buddyxo. Buddy is the name of my dog – a now 12 year old black Toy Poodle. Back in 2010, I was sitting at the Alan November BLC conference and Alan told us that we all needed to be on Twitter. So, the first handle that came to mind — buddyxo. Maybe it was just that I was missing my guy a little too much. Or just that I love him a little too much. At a time when I didn’t think I’d ever actually use Twitter on a regular basis, buddyxo seemed like a good name! And so it has lived on.
Buddy came into my life when he was 2 years old. It was winter break of my first year teaching – December 2017. He was (and still is) the most adorable, timid little guy. When I got him, he didn’t know how to walk on a leash. I didn’t know a dog had to learn how to walk on a leash! But I guess nobody had ever trained him, and so I taught little Buddy to take walks. And then there were stairs. He was too terrified to even walk down the two steps in front of the house. But we got past that pretty quickly. Buddy is not a daring dog. To this day, if a pencil drops on the floor, he leaps 5 feet back. Each day when I leave the house, he shivers and shakes. Each day when I come home, he whines with joy and attaches himself to my leg. He exudes that unconditional love only a dog can give. Buddy has the kindest, most loving heart imaginable!
As a natural dog lover, when I heard that American Kennel Club launched an initiative all about teaching students in grades K-12, I thought I would share the story of Buddy along with more details about the AKC project. Their new Educator Resources page offers lessons plans for grades K-12 in the subjects of language arts, math, science and social studies which are rigorous, engaging and aligned to national curriculum standards. The new webpage also includes hands-on activities for young children and research-based professional development articles for teachers. They will publish new content to the page each month.
To celebrate the launch of their new webpage, American Kennel Club is hosting an iPad giveaway in which one lucky teacher will win an iPad for their classroom. Visit their new site to check out the resources they have available and to find out how to enter the iPad giveaway.
* This is not a sponsored post *
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