Someone asked me, "How do you do all of this and have a young family?" I am used to hearing people say, "Do you ever sleep?" Yes, I sleep. In fact, I need at least 8 hours of sleep each night. Rest is important for me to function at full speed as well as for my recovering brain. It's a fair question. When I was a beginning teacher, I would arrive at school early in the morning and stay there until past dinner. Then, most nights I was doing work at home before bed. It would've been really difficult for me to be an excellent teacher if I were just now starting with littles at home (not to say that others who are just starting and have littles at home can't be excellent teachers, just that it would've been hard for ME). But due to that hard (and likely unhealthy) work back then, I have a lot of strategies in my teacher tool kit and many resources to pull from. I also spend an hour each day in the summer working on resources that will help me durin
Happy Black History Month! There are lots of really great resources out there to teach black history and celebrate with your students (check out a website I've started at the end of this post that you can share with your students). Here is a list of 4 simple things you can change in your classroom today to celebrate. 1.Play music as students arrive to class or during a break. Bonus if you can get up and sing along with your students! My personal suggestions include: Stevie Wonder The Temptations Smokey Robinson Diana Ross Ben E. King The Jackson 5 Ray Charles 2. Look around your classroom walls. Do your posters represent students from different cultures? If not, replace a few. I found these posters of Amanda Gorman on IG (and I wish I could remember who shared them so I could give credit, but my search is coming up empty). 3. Replace some of your read alouds. There are many good picture books and novels that include characters of different cultures. Choose one of