Blog - Page 22 of 63 - Tales from Outside the Classroom

Calendar in the Primary Classroom

Classroom calendars used to be commonplace in nearly every first grade classroom, and even a lot of second grade classrooms. As the push for standards accountability has grown, I’ve noticed fewer and fewer teachers implementing calendar in their classrooms because the “standards” don’t “dictate” it. Or, because they just are feeling the time crunch and with the struggle to fit everything in, calendar has been cut. My classroom calendar is the single biggest tool for

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How I Schedule My Math Block: Instruction & Centers Structure

For my first several years of teaching, I struggled with teaching math. I tried teaching what I thought was Guided Math to my small groups. I hated it and didn’t feel like I had enough time to teach my students. I tried teaching whole group, but too many students struggled to stay engaged and I struggled to see the work they were doing to provide feedback and support. For a year and a half I

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A Close Look at Reading Fluency through Supported Reading- girl with magnifying glass and books

A Close Look at Fluency: Supported Reading

I’m continuing to look at ways to improve my students’ reading fluency using The Fluent Reader by Tim Rasinski. As with nearly everything in teaching students, fluency should be taught and practiced following a gradual release model. When we read aloud we are modeling fluent reading for our students- read more about using read alouds to improve students’ reading fluency. The scaffolding stage, or oral supported reading, gives developing or struggling readers supports from a

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10 YouTube Channels to Help You Teach Science

I’m always looking for new videos to show my kids, especially when it comes to the content areas where I feel like I don’t have enough resources and don’t always have the best in-depth knowledge myself. I’ll be honest and say that my content areas get planned last, I don’t have nearly enough time to teach them, and I always feel like they could be so much better if I knew of better ways to

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A Look at our ELA Test Prep

I wish I could say we don’t spend any of our instructional time on ELA test prep. I wish I could say that the tests were straightforward and gave me quality data to help make instructional decisions about my kids’ learning track. I wish I could say that the tests were painless and worthwhile. I wish I could say that they were fair, developmentally appropriate, and measured my kids’ knowledge fairly. I wish I could

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