Teaching was Laura’s first love, and her work in curriculum writing shows it.  A former high school math teacher, she can put a spark into the Pythagorean theorem and make even the most reluctant student excited to practice addition facts.  Her journalism background puts her at the head of the class in researching and writing supplemental materials for almost any subject.  She can’t speak Spanish, but she can roll out a lesson on the Spanish-American War.

ECS Learning Systems

Laura was contracted by ECS Learning Systems to write math modules for third, fourth and fifth grades. These lessons were included in teacher resource books published by the company.  For Module 5.3, Laura wrote simple instructions and sample problems that addressed fifth-grade word problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Detroit Public Schools
For this project, Laura was asked to contribute articles about Detroit for a special summer reading program.  The articles were compiled in a magazine for each grade level.  Each story included activities that kids can do on their own or with their families, like virtual field trips, research reports and vocabulary exercises.
Fifth Grade: India in Detroit (pdf file)
Sixth Grade: Clean Cars (pdf file)
Seventh Grade: A Man of Firsts (Coleman Young), Wailing on the Sax (James Carter) (pdf file)
Eighth Grade: A City of Firsts (pdf file)

Penny Drive
As a fundraising initiative for her daughter’s school, Laura coordinated a penny drive.  In only five months, the students brought in more than 100,000 pennies.  To coordinate with the penny drive, Laura co-authored sets of lesson plans for each grade level (K-8) and for a variety of subject areas.   
K-5 Art: Mint Your Self Portrait
Third Grade Social Studies: The History of the Penny
4-5 English: What’s in a Phrase?
Fifth Grade English: Extra, Extra! Penny Newsletter

Math Games Club
Laura has also co-sponsored a math games club, working with K-2 students on basic math facts using games.  This is the ultimate hide-the-veggies-in-the-meatloaf trick for math, and the kids thoroughly enjoy rolling dice, moving tokens around a board and even playing Go Fish, while learning or practicing skills.  She has presented many of these activities to groups of parents at the school, who then use the games at home to supplement math education.
K-5: War
Prime number maze (pdf file)
Even number maze (pdf file)