Seasonal Archives - Tales from Outside the Classroom

Amazon Finds: Knee Length Dresses with two navy dresses on either side of text

My Favorite Casual Knee Length Dresses for Teachers from Amazon

I’ve recently been adding to my knee length dresses collection for spring and fall and thought I’d share some of my favorites. As teachers, we’re always on the lookout for affordable, comfortable, and stylish items for work. Over the last several years, I’ve become a pretty regular Amazon shopper. While there are certainly reasons I don’t love that, it’s made such a difference for me while clothing shopping. I tend to do large orders, knowing

Read this post »

Teaching the Rock Cycle with Food text with ice cream and magic shell picture

3 Awesome Rock Cycle Activities with Food

The rock cycle is such a fun unit! Academic vocabulary is such a priority in this unit as students work to understand types of rocks and how they correlate with each other. One way I really help reinforce the vocabulary with our lessons is by using food to demonstrate the stages of the rock cycle. I love using food in the classroom because it’s a great way to get students engaged, and it gives them

Read this post »

Christmas Distributive Property Project

Teaching the Distributive Property of Multiplication to 3rd graders is tough. Students struggle with understanding the concept (associative property too!). I always begin our work with area models so students can visually see the model being decomposed into smaller groups. I have an in-depth blog post that shows how I introduce the Distributive Property of Multiplication using area models that walks through my lesson step-by-step. After that initial introduction, I work with larger numbers than

Read this post »

2022 Monthly Printable & Digital Editable Calendars

2022 Calendars for the Classroom

Each and every year I make printable yearly calendars. I like these because of their simple design, and notes space. They can be easily customized for anything you need- especially the ready to go digital version. These printable calendars have so many uses in the classroom. They are perfect to give to students to track individual goals. One of my favorite ways to use them is as a super affordable, and personalized gift for adults

Read this post »

I Am Thankful For Thanksgiving Writing Activity

With Thanksgiving around the corner you might be looking for seasonal writing activities. With this year being what it is, I wanted to design a digital Thanksgiving writing activity so it could work in any school setting: traditional in person, hybrid, or virtual learning. I am not a big celebrator of Thanksgiving. It’s a complicated holiday. I do, however, focus my Thanksgiving work in the classroom around being thankful. Our conversations in the classroom revolve

Read this post »

LOOKING TO SUPPLEMENT?

▹ SEARCH ◃

▹ NEWSLETTER ◃

Hi! I’m Tessa!

I’ve spent the last 15 years teaching in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, and working beside elementary classrooms as an instructional coach and resource support. I’m passionate about math, literacy, and finding ways to make teachers’ days easier. I share from my experiences both in and out of the elementary classroom. Read more About Me.

My Favorite Casual Knee Length Dresses for Teachers from Amazon