Growing Good People

Whoa.  What. A. Ride.  Right? This has been crazy.  Teachers everywhere are scrambling to figure out how to best reach our students.  How will we teach the remaining content for this year? How will we grade student work?  How will next year look?   How will we stay connected to our students?  How will we help them handle this unprecedented time calmly? How can we help them to feel safe and remind them that they are loved? All over the country as schools are closing, teachers are working.  They are creating, trying new things, and figuring it out.  Why?  Because that's what teachers do to help kids.  Teachers are rock stars. Using Facebook to Connect with Students For over a year now, I've been running a Facebook group called Franklin (my school) Bedtime Stories.  Once a week, a staff member goes live and reads a bedtime story to our students.  In the summer, I have student readers in addition to our staff read...

It's been proven that those who read the most, read the best .  So, if you want students to get better at reading, they actually have to READ. 😀 Enter: book clubs. My students participate in a book club every Thursday during our reading block.  My goal for book club is simply to get students excited about reading.  By the end of the year, almost every student in my class tells me they like reading more now than they did before this year.  Book club is simply about enjoying a book.   Picture an adult book club.  Everyone is sitting around discussing the book they read.  What did they like?  What do they wonder?  There is no written assignment or accountability.  If you didn't read, you can still go to book club and listen to the conversation.  Sure, you may not have much to contribute, but no one is taking your work for a grade.  This is why book clubs are successful.  They are opportunities for people to gather an...

I am often told by other teachers how well behaved my class is and that I’m lucky to have gotten such a nice group of kids.  While it’s true that every year I am lucky to have that particular crew, it’s not by accident that they are so well behaved. Their behavior is a result of a lot of hard work and behind the scenes planning on my part.  In my earlier years of teaching, I used the more traditional methods such as green, yellow, and red cards, marble jar, tickets, classroom economy, even online tools. I’m finally at a point in my teaching where none of those ‘gimmicky’ and slightly time consuming methods are necessary for me.  The way I manage is not easy, takes constant work, but offers great rewards. Here is how I manage my class.  Develop relationships. HUGE. MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER. Begin the year with student surveys and getting to know you activities then use that information to find commonalities between you and your students.   Be positive....

I have a 20 minute commute and am always looking for good podcasts to listen to as I drive.  Since The Bachelor is over and I'm OVER that podcast anyway (hey, stop judging me!), I've been looking for something else.  I stumbled upon a podcast called "The 10 Minute Teacher Show" and so far I'm loving it. Today's podcast topic was called "Neuroscience: 5 Ways to Superior Teaching" and they talked about 5 ways to improve students' ability to learn what you are teaching.  For 10 minutes, I was nodding and thinking, "Yes!" and planning how I could be better in my classroom. The 5 ways mentioned in the podcast were: 1.  Memory in recall vs. accessing and practicing 2.  Spoken words and written text don't always mix. Give time for notetaking. 3. Be mindful of the threshold and change things up every 10-15 minutes (although I'm thinking more often for elementary grades).  4. Tell stories. 5.  Facts should proceed skills. H...

Ready, steady, GO! Free Resources Included! I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old.  We LOVE Peppa Pig in our house.  I was trying to wrap my head around to a way to better differentiate my math block.  I have read about math cafe, other blogs, and scoured my social media resources for something that would fit into our hour of math time.  I needed something that included choice, student independence, support, and enrichment.  While watching yet another episode (or Peppasode as we call them), I heard the characters say, "Ready, steady, go" and it clicked.  That was exactly how I should run my math block! Ready is the students who are ready to learn more. Steady is the group of students who feel like they are good to go on their own. Go is the group of students who feel like they got it and need extension. The great thing about this model is that students choose which group they think they need to be in for that particular daily lesson.  So, on...

What. A. Task!  14 years of teaching and I'm still seeking ways to better organize my classroom library.  When I moved into my current teaching position (4th grade) 4 years ago, I lost a lot of bookshelf space and ended up packing away half of my library.  Don't worry, I used my "back up library" to swap books out mid-year so that students had "new" books to take them through the second semester. This summer, a local business donated 6 bookcases to my classroom and I am over the moon!  Now I can FINALLY have my full library back!  But, how do I organize my books?  Way back when I was teaching in Northern Virginia, I remember taking a SPOT training and learning about classroom library organization.  Besides having regular buckets with different themes, it was suggested to have a few buckets labeled "Boy Books" and "Girl Books".  That never set too well with the little tomboy deep inside of me because I know that personally, I've never...

This isn't the greatest Ted Talk ever made, but the message spoke to the teacher (and mom of a little girl) in me. This just became class rule number 4 for ALL students, not just girls.  For those of you who don't know my first 3 rules: 1.  Make your teacher look good. 2.  Always do what's right, especially when no one else is looking. 3.  Give your teacher all York Peppermint Patties after trick or treating. 4.  NEW! Be brave, not perfect. *They vary from year to year depending on the needs of the class and my favorite candy. Some classes have had more "rules." Ted Talk: Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection