If I were to survey my students and ask them where their favorite spot to hang in my classroom is, hands down they would all say our classroom library. I couldn't keep them out of it and I wouldn't try to. They love the series of books they find there. They love that there is a cozy corner of the room to relax and read. Best of all, they knew how ... Continue Reading
I Just Got a Teaching Job- Now What Should I Buy?
Congratulations! You received your first teaching contract and your first instinct is to want to go out and buy everything you see in the teacher store and the Walmart back to school section. I was there! I couldn't wait to get into my new classroom and start putting my room together. However, I want you to put a ... Continue Reading
I Just Got a Teaching Job- Now What?
Congratulations! You should be very proud of your accomplishments and your new job. I probably don't need to tell you that teaching is not an easy job. Showing up every day for your students will, at times, be exhausting and overwhelming. There will be times where you feel like you are buried in to do lists and not making a difference in the ... Continue Reading
What are writing conferences and why do we need them?
OH, MAN! When I first started teaching, writing conferences were a HOT MESS in my classroom.I literally would have volunteered to take every teacher’s lunch, recess, and carpool duty for the year if just one of them would do my writing conferences for me. (Don’t forget that I am located in the Phoenix area and temperatures get up to 120 ... Continue Reading
Grading Student Writing
Are you struggling grading student writing? It can be difficult to find time to grade all your students’ writing samples. I think one of the problems is that teachers tend to grade too many writing samples. You end up grading every night and every weekend. I believe you can get writing grades without having to take home formal writing samples ... Continue Reading
Tips for Teaching Students to Revise Their Writing
Every single time I talk about teaching writing, someone will ask me, "How do you get your students to revise their writing?" Well, I don't really give them a choice. That's not too helpful! Let me explain... First, what is revising? When I first started teaching, I thought that revising and editing were synonyms. I didn't understand why they ... Continue Reading
Editing Student Writing
When I first started teaching, I used to take a few students' writing journals home to edit each night. I would spend my evenings marking up mistakes in my students' writing. I would then meet with them the next day to discuss what they needed to fix. I would do this every single night! When I did this, we mostly focused on spelling, grammar, and ... Continue Reading
Why I Ditched the Writing Prompts
Teachers in my Facebook groups are always asking for suggestions for what they should have their students write about. They always get a big list of ideas, but I am the crazy one who says: "Let them write about whatever they want to write about!" That scares the begeebers out of some teachers! I have to be real with you, ... Continue Reading
How to Find Time to Teach Writing
As you may already know, I am a huge proponent of the writer's workshop model in the classroom. But finding time for writing workshop can be tricky. When I asked teachers in my Facebook groups what their biggest challenge was when teaching writing, most said it is finding the time to teach it. I believe that you need at ... Continue Reading
Teaching Students to Solve Word Problems
I LOVED teaching third grade math! If I could have found a way to teach nothing but third grade math- I would have been in heaven. I did not like math as a child. I just couldn't understand WHY! I was THAT kid asking, "When will I use this?" "Why does that work?" My math teachers hated me. And because of that experience, I strive to give ... Continue Reading
