Do you have a teacher desk?I have vivid memories of my primary school teachers sitting in their desks while we wrote in journals or did Silent Sustained Reading time. Anyone else?As a first year teacher, I thought that I needed a teacher desk. It seemed pretty standard to me. My room did not have a desk, but my neighbor teacher thought that was ... Continue Reading
5 Hands-On Ways to Teach Multiplication
As a student, I disliked math. Math was just a book that I had to complete a set of problems from each night. It was boring and I failed to understand when in life I would use the skills. The only thing that I can remember about learning multiplication was memorizing facts on flash cards. I think it is this experience with math as a student that ... Continue Reading
September 11th in the Classroom
September 11th is a tough topic in an elementary classroom, but I have always felt that it was imperative that I discuss it with my students. I know that some teachers feel that it is too negative or will scare the kids. I agree that this is a possibility. But students will hear about September 11th one way or another. They might hear about it from ... Continue Reading
Improving the Quality of Student Work in Centers
I love centers. And so do my students. We do math and reading centers every day. Centers can be an incredibly valuable time in your classroom- or it can just be a time filler. If students are not producing quality independent work, then it is not a good use of time. Here are a few tips for improving the quality of student work in centers. Too ... Continue Reading
Clothes for the Teacher
I absolutely LOVE clothes, but I am a terrible shopper! I want new clothes, but I am not too great at picking out clothes that look good on me and are comfortable. Back to school shopping is always a challenge for me. For this reason, I am super excited to have a stylist who sends pieces right to my house for me to try on! I use a service ... Continue Reading
Open House & Back to School Night: Tips and Tricks to Get Organized
Yesterday I went live on Facebook to talk about how I keep my open house organized. You can watch the video replay here. Are you ready to make your open house paperless? Check out this tutorial.Click below to download my FREE open house signs. They are editable! ... Continue Reading
Paperless Open House
Every year, I watch as my class parents spend a good 30 minutes filling out paperwork at open house. They have the paperwork required by the school and then the ones that I ask for. I know that after they leave my room, they will be heading to the sibling's class to fill out another stack of paperwork. I have four kids. So I can feel their ... Continue Reading
5 Data-Driven Math Websites for Students
When I first started teaching, I was nervous about technology. Let's be real- we didn't have technology in our classrooms when we were students. (Unless you count the TV on a cart and the projector with transparencies.) It terrified me to let a kid loose on the Internet or on an iPad. What if they got off task? What if they saw or did something ... Continue Reading
Should the first day of school be fun?
I recently read a Facebook post from another teacher. Her question was, "Should the first day of school include fun activities or would that set the wrong tone for the year?" I read though many of the comments. One teacher said, "No because you need to show your students that you mean business." My jaw dropped and my heart broke. I don't ... Continue Reading
Vocabulary Instruction
Are you struggling to find time to teach meaningful vocabulary lessons? I was! So I did lots of reading and research about vocabulary. I made it a professional goal to improve the quality of my vocabulary instruction. I tried a lot of different things. I gave my students a dictionary and had them look up the words. They were totally confused ... Continue Reading
