Over the last several months I’ve been using printable calendars in several different ways in my classroom and at home. I went to download January in anticipation of the new month (I’m on top of my game by 2 days, shocking!) and decided to just create my own. I wanted something in black and white so it’s easy on my printer. The one I had been using had some colors in it, and I just
When I think of my struggles and frustrations from my first few years in the classroom, many of it revolved around all of the materials and resources I was accumulating and where the heck it was all supposed to go. My classroom storage has always been lacking, and there’s so much stuff. I tend to get behind and bogged down during the year and just throw things in places for a quick fix. Then I
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
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
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
