It’s no secret that vocabulary is a major predictor for student success. Unfortunately, academic vocabulary has always been one of my students’ greatest challenges. Academic vocabulary words are the words that are traditionally used in academic text, which are words that are not common in everyday reading. These words are important because they help students […]
Social Studies and Science Vocabulary Read More »
State and federal mandates and high stakes testing have made teaching elementary science and social studies a battle for time in the classroom. This battle has resulted in minimizing social studies and science instruction to focus on tested areas. While I agree that the content area topics should be reinforced and integrated into students’ tested
Teaching Elementary Science and Social Studies Read More »
It’s not a lot of fun to pack up your classroom. There is no tired like teacher tired, especially at the beginning and end of the school year. The beginning of the year is hard, but it’s new, fun, and fresh. By the end of the school year, we’re not only physically tired, but we’re
5 Tips to Pack Up Your Classroom Read More »
Reading for fluency is an important component of reading instruction. Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, with proper phrasing, and with expression. It is important for readers, because it allows students to comprehend what they read, rather than focusing decoding words. Fluent readers recognize words automatically, group words quickly, use appropriate
Reading For Fluency Strategies Read More »
As the school year winds down, I always try to complete a few end of the year projects that will create lasting memories for my students. This year my students are writing letters to their future self, and this has quickly become my absolute favorite end of the year (or anytime of the year activity).
Letters to My Future Self Read More »
March is here, which means it’s time to introduce all new activities for my math centers. I typically, like to phase in a few stations at a time, rather than introduce 12 activities in one day, but that didn’t work out because of our six recent snow days. I usually phase the stations in, because
March Math Centers Read More »
Reading a ruler worksheets and activities can be so much fun for students. This week students have been learning to measure to the nearest 1/4 inch, which can be challenging for students. That’s one of the reasons it’s beneficial to teach reading a ruler after your fraction unit. It’s a great tie-in to teaching fractions
Reading a Ruler Worksheet Read More »
I’ve always prided myself on classroom management, but as my class size increases, so does the difficulty in keeping students focused and on task. Math centers (or centers of any kind) are no exception. I find that we start strong at the beginning of the school year. However, after we get into the swing of
Managing Math Centers Read More »
My teaching partner had the great idea of having our students complete a literacy based pumpkin project. Our students decorated a pumpkin to represent one of their favorite book characters, and then they created a written presentation to describe the character traits of the character they chose. Our students turned in their pumpkins today, and
I never thought I had a jealous streak until I started seeing all of these amazing anchor charts pop up online. Oh my goodness! There are some seriously amazing artists out there, and I am not one of them! I’ve always tried to make nice looking charts, but I found that it was taking me
