Twain!

Teacher's Discovery is highlighting our Mark Twain items this month in honor of his birthday.

Who doesn't love Mark Twain? Really.


Click the image above to check them out.

A ghoulishly good time

One of the many perks to working around here (along with the fun of making great classroom tools) is the annual Halloween party. Last year, members of the Teacher's Brunch staff actually did all the planning. They were happy this year to let Lauren and Katie from the Foreign Language building throw the shindig, and this year's party planners did a fabulously awesome job.

Among the festivities were a pumpkin carving contest and a costume contest. As you might expect, we have some immensely creative and talented people around here.

See for yourself:


Caryn in FL made this wonderful piece. We're not exactly sure how many pumpkins are in this thing.




Get the joke?





Ginger in Foreign Language made her pumpkin look like one of our popular bobble head turtles.




Dave from Exploration Company made this pumpkin he called "Shish Ka Boo."





And here's the winning pumpkin, from Katie. That's real meat, people.





Karen came dressed to impress deep-fried fanatics everywhere.






Barb's wacky buffet retained the food fancy.





When he's not fixing web and computer problems, Vadim fights crime as one of the X-Men.





Devilish designer Michelle helps Nick search for coins and turtles to stomp.





And finally. here's the Tech Team decked out as the Channel 4 six o'clock news team from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy." We won first place, which, since there were five of us, means we each get four bucks to spend at our local Target.

We didn't do it for the money. We did it for the glory.

Here's hoping your students aren't too wired on jujubees and goobers. And is it just me, or are Bit o' Honeys way too little honey and way too much bit?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from your friends at Teacher's Brunch, Teacher's Discovery, the Exploration Company, and that Italian food warehouse next door.

Check back Monday for pictures of the festivities, including the Tech Team's first place rendition of a certain television anchorman and news crew.

Thanks for the laughs, Soupy

While it's true that Teacher's Discovery is a national (even international) company, regular readers of our blog know that we are proud of our Michigan and Metro-Detroit roots.

So those of us here at Teacher's Brunch HQ in cold and rainy Auburn Hills, MI join with everyone in mourning the passing of a TV icon we in Detroit like to consider one of our own, Soupy Sales.

No, Soupy didn't start in Detroit, and he wasn't even from Detroit, but he was here as he approached the cusp of his success. He always maintained a generous attachment to our fair state, and the people of Michigan reciprocated.

Maybe today in his honor, instead of eating a pie, we should all throw one. That would be good for the waistline, and the funny bone.

Happy Birthday to Ryan

Today, we at Teacher's Brunch HQ in warm but soggy Auburn Hills, MI will raise a slice of pizza and celebrate Ryan's birthday.

Ryan is now head wholesale honcho, but in his time as a Project Manager he got his name on loads of products, including the best-selling teacher favorite Literary Terms and Devices Challenge game.

He also likes motorcycles. And he's getting old.

So we offer this image, combining both themes, as a Teacher's Brunch blog birthday card:

New "Shakespeare at the Movies" Poster

The Bard returns to your classroom walls in this Teacher's Discovery exclusive poster, "Shakespeare at the Movies."






You'll see that the poster features a lot of well-known Shakespearean adaptations, along with some films with surprising bard roots.







We're particularly pleased that the poster gives props to "Forbidden Planet." Your kids will love it, too!






(Blogger's note: the last image isn't on the poster, but it made you smile.)

Pathos, Ethos, Logos (and Robots)

Someone last night was standing in front of a group of college writing students, delivering the finer points of appeals to reasoning, when it dawned on him that one of the funniest bits ever done by the good folks at "Saturday Night Live" has all three--pathos, ethos, and logos.

In abundance.

So here it is, nice and easy, for writing teachers assigning argument essays across the globe. (Sorry for the lead-in advertisement, though.)






A great example of persuasive argumentation. (And just look at the Old Glory logo!)

Plus, it has robots. And there's something about the "Certainly I'm too old" lady that makes us want to pinch her jowls.

RSS Feed

We're trying a new techy thing on our blog.

We think we hooked up an RSS feed, to let folks stay on top of all the latest and greatest updates from Teacher's Brunch HQ in winter-already? Auburn Hills, MI.

Feedback is appreciated as always.

Our students and "dirty books"

While a lot of the blogging and posting at Entertainment Weekly's website focuses on the latest exploits of John and Kate or summarizing the goings-on in Melrose 90210, sometimes it does stumble on something worthwhile.

Tina Jordan's post, you can find it here, discusses teenagers and pre-teenagers reading books that may approach or even throw themselves over the comfort line, as far as some adults might see it.

Where do you stand on that? Another one of EW's obsessions, the Twilight books, seems to fit in the discussion, too. But so do loads of other books that have fallen into the canon.

Another great response for Electronic Poetry Starter

We got another really great review for our Electronic Poetry Starter.



We have four electronic starters in all, and you can find them here.

They're so cool, and your students will enjoy using them to write so much, you might even forget heart-breaking baseball playoff losses.