I’m back to share some more tips on how you can stop the stress and anxiety and have your best first week ever! One of the best things you can do at the start of the year is set up strong classroom procedures, routines, and expectations for every part of your room. Make sure your...
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
In my classroom, students start each morning by completing a page from my Daily Morning Work resource. Before we started a morning work routine, our mornings were chaotic. Students were were lingering in the hallway, socializing, or using the time to read or finish work from the previous day. Trying to complete those important morning...
In my classroom, students start each morning by completing a page from my Daily Morning Work resource. Before we started a morning work routine, our mornings were chaotic. Students were were lingering in the hallway, socializing, or using the time to read or finish work from the previous day. Trying to complete those important morning...
In my classroom, students start each morning by completing a page from my Daily Morning Work resource. Before we started a morning work routine, our mornings were chaotic. Students were were lingering in the hallway, socializing, or using the time to read or finish work from the previous day. Trying to complete those important morning...
It’s a miracle!!!! My 3rd Grade English Language Arts Assessments and Teaching Notes are DONE! Six months later, I have produced another 400+ page whopper! PFEW! Can I just be real with you all for a moment. I embarked on this ELA assessment journey back in September 2012. In a year and a half, I...
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
It’s no surprise that high-performing schools are extremely vigilant about how they use their time. We teachers know that there are a million and one distractions and things that interrupt student learning every day. Restroom breaks, people coming and going, students leaving during our lessons for interventions, calls over the intercom from the office during...
Teach your students about courage and celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. with these free resources .
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Need help teaching differentiated area? A 5th grade teacher shares anchor charts, activities, and ideas to teach area and differentiate your lesson.
Seems simple, RIGHT? Read a chapter, write a summary… Our students see this a lot, whether it be on our reading assessments, in our own classroom work, or on our state assessments. Bottom line, we want our kids to be proficient (and feel confident) in taking out the important elements from a piece of text,...
If you're looking for hep practicing punctuation, I share a simple strategy to quickly practice without taking away time from other subjects.
Now, more than ever, we need to teach our students about spreading love and kindness. I am a firm believer that the best way to do this is by showing our students what it looks like and what it sounds like to be kind. When it comes to lessons on character and community building, I...
Are you looking for a fun test prep idea for your 4th and 5th grade math students? Use coloring pages, tic-tac-toe, and a relay race to turn boring test prep into a fun, outdoor game.
Need an enagaging, real-world math project? This post shows how your students can create a dog business of their own using the four operations.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Social studies has always been one of my absolute favorite subjects to teach. I get so excited about United States history, and I do my best to make a potentially boring topic come alive for my students! There are a lot of opportunities for hands-on, get out of your seat lessons and projects in the...
Looking for help with nonfiction text features? This blog post provides teachers with free resources that help with teaching nonfiction text features.
Help your struggling readers understand their silent reading voice. The lack of an interacting silent reading voice is a big reason why readers struggle.
Grab my free activities and lessons for writing narrative leads. Teach students to write for fun, get creative, and hook readers.
Seems simple, RIGHT? Read a chapter, write a summary… Our students see this a lot, whether it be on our reading assessments, in our own classroom work, or on our state assessments. Bottom line, we want our kids to be proficient (and feel confident) in taking out the important elements from a piece of text,...
I’m back for my next installment on close reading! I am so excited to FINALLY share what I have been working so hard on. A few weeks back, I asked my Facebook followers to rate their understanding and knowledge of close reading. I was shocked to learn that so many teachers didn’t really know much...
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
Click through to check out my FREE resources for teaching point of view and perspective including anchor charts and activities.
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
Need ways to support and help your students with ADHD or other attention needs? This blog post provides tips to help you support these students.
Do your students struggle with theme? Teach them how to find a literary every time with a few simple steps. This post provides a step-by-step process for students to find the message of the text. Get them to ask the right questions to identify the theme every time.
Help your child or student start reading at home. In my experience as a mom and teacher, these are some of my best tips to help children love reading.
Read aloud time is a very sacred, coveted time in our classroom. My kids beg for more of it and some of the best conversations and deepest thinking happens during this time. We are starting my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE read aloud in our classroom this week, The Westing Game. We are knee-deep in our character unit...
I’m back for my next installment on close reading! I am so excited to FINALLY share what I have been working so hard on. A few weeks back, I asked my Facebook followers to rate their understanding and knowledge of close reading. I was shocked to learn that so many teachers didn’t really know much […]
Do your students struggle with theme? Teach them how to find a literary every time with a few simple steps. This post provides a step-by-step process for students to find the message of the text. Get them to ask the right questions to identify the theme every time.
I’m back to share some more tips on how you can stop the stress and anxiety and have your best first week ever! One of the best things you can do at the start of the year is set up strong classroom procedures, routines, and expectations for every part of your room. Make sure your...
Are you interested in learning some best practices for building students' vocabulary? Here, I share simple and effective methods for mastery.
In this blog post, read about my best teaching strategies to teach writing narrative endings. Grab all the freebies to help you teach.
In this blog post, read about my best teaching strategies to teach writing narrative endings. Grab all the freebies to help you teach.
Are you interested in learning some best practices for building students' vocabulary? Here, I share simple and effective methods for mastery.
I’m back for the next part of our character development lesson using Verdi by Janell Cannon. For this lesson, I will be sharing how we used the book to compare and contrast two or more characters in a story, drawing on specific details from the text. To read the first blog post in this series, and to...
Welcome to Part 2 of our Character Study! You can read up on Part 1 HERE! Our Analyzing Character Unit is in FULL swing in our classroom. We started by discussing the different types of characters in our books. Since we’ve had many read alouds and read a lot of mentor texts this year, it...
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
Looking for ideas to teach nonfiction text structure? In this post, I share my best tips and resources to help students master nonfiction text structure.
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
This past year I started reading Robert Marzano’s The Art and Science of Teaching to guide my instruction. So many aspects of that book spoke to me. I love the idea of having students use a four (or five) level rubric to assess themselves before, during, and after their learning of a specific standard. You...
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
Do your students struggle with theme? Teach them how to find a literary every time with a few simple steps. This post provides a step-by-step process for students to find the message of the text. Get them to ask the right questions to identify the theme every time.
