I have always been of the mindset that it’s important to use formal names for things with children. They’re capable of learning them and it can continue to strengthen their vocabulary skills in other ways. In most aspects of my day, I stay true to this philosophy. I use “schema” with my students; I explicitly teach comprehension strategies and expect students to use their formal names. I teach content vocabulary and expect students to use
Counting coins is in the second grade Common Core math standards, but it’s so important to begin to work with coin values and counting coin combinations early. The ability to switch values while skip counting can be tricky, especially if students aren’t being very attentive. Giving students continued practice, and working with coins in many different ways really helps build students’ coin counting skills. Here are some of my favorite resources to use to practice
Fact and opinion is such an important skill to teach students. In the digital area, information is presented continuously to people. Our students need to be able to judge the quality of a text, the validity of the arguments, and make their own decisions based off of it. It takes a lot of work to build those much needed, “adult” skills in students and it starts out in the primary grades at a foundational level.
For years I struggled with how to best record my observations and guided reading notes. I have looked at lots of different ideas online, and have tried several out in my own classroom. But, I always keep coming back to the simplicity of this form. I developed it several years ago when working with the kindergarten teachers in my building. Their lesson plans for guided reading are stored separately, by book, and they needed the
