It seems like every day there is an endless stream of students reporting behaviors or incidents that happen in the classroom. On one hand, we want to help our students feel heard and validated so they know we are a safe person for them to talk to. On the other hand, we certainly don't want to feed into the tattle machine. It's a fine line to walk. So how do we handle tattling in our classrooms?
Cooperative learning can be a powerful learning strategy, but only if it works well. These small changes can make group work more effective in your classroom.
Being a new special education teacher can be overwhelming and stressful. Check out The FIRST thing to do as a new special ed teacher.
How to help your child find the right learning styles to enhance their potential in school and to prep the brain for higher learning. Learning is unique and different for each child.
Learn what a sensory diet is, how it can benefit your child's learning, focus, behavior, and emotional regulation, and discover which activities should be part of your child’s individual sensory diet.
Coping strategies are techniques that help reduce negative feelings when someone is feeling under stress. Those feelings might be the result of anxiety, anger, depression, or just general day-to-day stress. Practicing coping strategies can help kids and young adults learn how to manage their emotion
There’s at least one in every classroom — yep, I’m talking about the kid who just sits there, and doesn’t work. The one who needs constant cajoling to put pencil to paper and get started. In some cases, there’s an attitude problem and the student is disengaged from school in general, and in other cases, … Continued
A cheat sheet of education theorists and their research based teaching practices.
Special educators need a pretty large toolbox of strategies and resources to support our learners. So often, our students can have significantly diverse needs and levels. On any given day, special education teachers might need to take student reading data, modify a math assessment, teach science wit
Those days of forgetting their math facts? Staring blankly at a multiplication problem? Adding or subtracting when they should be multiplying? Done. Gone. Over. Those days are in the past! Today we’re going to learn how to teach multiplication facts to our students with disabilities so that they build conceptual knowledge and retention.
We all fall into one of nine learning styles. Which one is your strongest?
If you struggle with classroom management no matter how many different strategies you try, there's a chance you're doing something to get in your own way.
What is normal? According to Dictionary.com, normal is defined as "conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural." But really, normal is arbitrary; what is "normal" for you is not necessarily "normal" for me. Look around. Each one of us is different. People come in all shapes and sizes. No two exactly the same. From Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5: "A human being mints many coins from the same mold, and they are all identical. But the holy one, blessed by God, strikes us all from the mold of the first human and each one of us is unique." We are different by design. So isn't each of us "normal" in our own way? Striving for the arbitrary "normal" seems to me a waste of time and energy. I think Maya Angelou has it right, "If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be." Don't worry about being "normal". Be amazing. Be sure not to miss a post from Removing the Stumbling Block:
Differentiation and scaffolding can help students better understand and learn. Here are teaching ideas and tips to use in class.
My goal is to show parents how to teach kids with dyslexia to read. There is a lot to know about teaching kids with dyslexia to read. Let's break it down step by step.
A digital curation project is a fast way to engage critical thinking in any content area. Here's how it works.
Aloha friends. I am excited to be participating in this summer's book study Teaching With Intention hosted by The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. This week is Chapter 2 Beliefs and Practices. This weeks hosts are Flying Into First, The Primary Gal and Mrs. Dailey's Classroom. This chapter focuses on our ideal teaching practices and how students learn best. Do you have a personal philosophy on teaching and learning? Being in the classroom for over 20 years I have seen so many changes in education. In college we were taught the holistic approach to teaching. Basals were bashed and we were to use only "real literature". We learned thematic units were the way to integrate all subjects and cover our schools standards. Over the years I have seen the educational pendulum swing in opposite directions and then come right back. No matter what your admin or district throws your way you still need to have personal insight into how students learn best and how to teach them. In this chapter Debbie Miller lists 6 things that guide her in teaching. I whole heartedly agree with this. Your classroom needs to have a set place for everything and students need to know where and how to access materials for learning. I label everything and we work on routines from day 1 to make sure all items have a place and are replaced where they need to go. My walls have lots of posters that we use everyday and throughout the year along with anchor charts and student work. We are such important role models! Students will pick up on our behaviors and emulate them from Day 1. You lead by example. If you focus on the negative so will they! I work really hard at finding the positives in everything. Somedays are easier than others. I am pretty sure we all know this. Some days you wonder why aren't they getting it? If it's not engaging you will lose some of those kiddos. It's definitely hard to have those active and engaging lessons all the time, but it's possible to tweak any lesson to make it more engaging. Just working with a partner can help even the most reluctant learners. This is something that I have worked on in the last few years. I have done centers forever, but it was a lot of work on my part. Once I read The Daily 5 I was hooked on the workshop method for Reading, Writing and Math! It has helped so much and I know my students love it! The following books really helped me to put this all in place. We do this informally almost everyday. You take mental notes all the time on how each child is doing. Sara is always the first one done and Jessica may never finish. But why? It's not necessarily one is smarter than the other. There could just be different motivators for each child. I try to do quick checks each day to see how and why my students are performing the way they are. Bobby never finishes his work independently. Is the work too hard? How can I help and adjust my teaching strategies to get him to finish independently. This chapter continues on with putting your beliefs into your teaching practices and reflecting on them. Debbie suggests writing them down. Believe me this is so helpful! I started this blog 3 years ago and it has helped me to reflect so much on my teaching practices. I go back and reread many of my posts and it inspires me to do more and keep learning. Sharing ideas with others and reading other blogs has also helped me to reflect and improve. In her final statements of this chapter Debbie mentions district mandates. I hear complaints from so many teachers of how they can't teach the way they want because of what has been mandated. This can really be hard and frustrating. I love what she says " Take the high road. Don't let them defeat you. Do what you have to do; in the end no one can mandate how you feel about children." How are you liking the book so far? Next week is Chapter 3 Environment, Environment, Environment! I will be hosting and I am really looking forward to sharing! See you then.
Every English language arts teacher needs a variety of successful, student led discussion strategies that will provide opportunities for student learning.
Unwanted talking is near the top of the list of teacher frustrations. In this article, learn the actual strategies to finally get rid of it for good.
If you do fewer teacher-directed activities, that means the kids will naturally do more talking, doesn’t it? Not necessarily.
Want to teach your child the most important spelling rules? These are the basics and will help your child spell common words.
Nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice. Learn how to incorporate it into your classroom.
data:blog.metaDescription
The Unfair Game is a totally unfair twist on Jeopardy that your students will LOVE to hate! Learn how to play and find sample game boards in this post.
Outlawing the words "I'm done" changed my classroom! Find out how to reform fast finishers and improve the quality of work in your room!
We want students to work at their own pace, but when one student is significantly slower than his peers, it can cause problems for him and for his teachers.
Whether your students are lethargic or super-charged, adding movement to your lesson plans will help to solve both issues. Not only is it healthy to move throughout the day, but it can also help students focus and become more engaged with the content they are trying to master. Due to the nature of English classes, ELA ... Read More about 10 Ways to Add Movement in the ELA Classroom
The amazing ways being bilingual affects the brain. Learn about it in this infographic.
Dealing with oppositional defiant disorder at home or in the classroom? We've got 18 ODD discipline tips to help with problem behaviors in a positive way!
I’ve been spending some serious amounts of time this summer leading conversations around the country focused on the integration of social studies and literacy. And for the last few years, I…
We're sharing 10 things NOT to do on the first day of school. If you're a teacher wanting a smooth start to the school year, look no further. This post will show you what mistakes to avoid so that you have the best classroom management practices in place from the beginning!
Supercharge your morning work with I Heart Literacy! Each page features a fun theme so your students will not only be practicing reading and ELA skills, but will also be learning about a curriculum-based topic. A wide variety of Common Core skills are addressed. Try these five free pages for free! Happy Teaching! Rachel Lynette ... Read More about Morning Work ELA and Reading Freebie!
Activities to help in your classroom TODAY to build Multiplication Fact Fluency across all grade levels. Perfect for Intervention
I'd like to start this post by throwing my past teacher self under the bus. That's right, I can honestly tell you that I made a lot of ...
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
Oh so many phonics rules to remember! From remembering that vowels have two sounds to the more advanced rules- WOW! It’s quite a bit for our little readers and writers. As we teach the rules, it’s always helpful to incorporate visuals and stories. It gives our students something to anchor to when coming across a […]
I've seen this quote countless times and kept meaning to make a printble out of it, but hadn't....till now! A sweet reader wrote and asked me if I had done it so I did! You can find it both color an
I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of what ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is. If you are reading this post there is an excellent chance you already know what it is because you are dealing with it in your classroom. I’m also going to go out on a limb and assume that […]
Learn three simple things you need to teach your ESL beginners right away. These include variations of introductions, classroom surroundings and basic needs
What’s one thing I can do for student behavior that I can see almost an immediate response? Incorporating quick and easy preventive strategies into your
I have always struggled with spelling, and how to engage students in meaningful activities to practice their spelling words! I have tried just about everything under the sun, from rotating through teacher-selected word work centers, to a free choice spelling menu where students try to complete different activities throughout the week. Nothing seemed to work!
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
This simple behavior management strategy allowed me to anticipate possible behaviors that would happen and plan my reaction or consequence.
I LOVE saving figurative language until June - it's such a fun language unit ... and perfect for our "dreaming of summer brains". We finished up our EQAO testing mid week, and this onomatopoeia activity was the perfect break from testing. How fun is that??? Students chose two contrasting colours - one for the background and one for the word and border "bursting out of the page". They also needed newspaper (cut just a fraction smaller that the "bursting out of the page border" and glued the newspaper on top. They glued their word on top of that (we had brainstormed a lot of onomatopoeia words, but for some reason most of them chose SPLAT for their word). I also had them do a little shading under their letters for that little extra POP (see, I know some onomatopoeia words, too). ;) I had seen this awesome idea on Pinterest and followed it back to Artisan des Arts. Her examples are FANTASTIC!! We also wrote simile poems this week. I found a little template HERE for the students to use for their rough copies. When students were finished their templates, I had them write out their good copies, and illustrate a few lines with a small image. I hung these up, too ... LOVING our bulletin board switch up ... even this late in the school year!!! (I have two of these "smART class" bulletin boards side by side in the classroom. 15 more school days left ... I think I can ... I think I can ... Happy Friday!!!
Every language changes with time. So does English, and you can't imagine how many beautiful words with exact and witty meanings got lost. Take a look at this list!
These are the top 10 budgeting tips for beginners you HAVE TO know! This is part #2 in a 5 part series. Your Ultimate Guide on How to Budget.
Synonyms and Antonyms Anchor Chart! This blog post contains the material to create this anchor chart, plus a FREE interactive notebook entry for synonyms and antonyms!
Advice from Real Teachers Series Chances are good that you have at least a few gifted children in your classroom, even if they aren't formally identified as being gifted. These students can be a joy to work with, but it does take a special teacher to know how to motivate them to set high goals
Vocabulary instruction is so critical in today’s classroom! A vast vocabulary will help students to become better readers and writers. Vocabulary is also essential to their performance on standardized tests. Helping kids to develop their vocabulary is time that is well spent in a busy classroom. I have developed a routine to teach new vocabulary
