Each year around this same time I start feeling crunched for time, because I'm always behind the curriculum map, and little assemblies and programs start popping into our day on a regular basis. I'm always happy for my students to have new and interesting experiences, but I do
Animal Adaptations Lessons & Activities
Animal and plant adaptations has to be one of my favorite science units. There are several fun lessons and activities that students love, and there are so many ways to make the lessons meaningful to students. This post shares a few activities you can use to teach plan and animal
Fantastic Fall Lessons
Teaching through the holidays can be so much fun! I am often guilty of wanting to hurry through fall and Thanksgiving activities to get to Christmas (my all-time favorite), but there are just too many meaningful fall themed lessons to skip. These are not Halloween based lessons.
Advice For New Teachers
I believe that teaching has to be one of the most rewarding yet challenging professions, but I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Here is my best advice for new (and experienced) teachers.
Don't get too caught up in decorating and making everything look perfect. Yes,
Vocabulary and Standards Posters
I know that many teachers, myself included, are required to post standards or daily objectives. I like to post my standards, as well as essential questions, and vocabulary together to create a focus wall of classroom instruction. I've recently added all of my focus wall materials
Classroom Management Strategies
Classroom management strategies has to be one of the most important, and often challenging, parts of teaching. I substituted while I was in college, so I quickly learned that if I wanted to survive as a teacher, I needed to learn how to manage a classroom. My first group was by
Bucket Fillers
I wanted to share a little more about bucket fillers. The concept of being a bucket filler is based on the metaphor that we all carry around an invisible bucket that contains our feelings. When we have a full bucket we feel good, and when our bucket is empty we feel sad. We
The Math Workshop Guide
Since my first year teaching I've loved teaching through reading workshop and writing workshop, but I never saw a way to transfer that method of teaching to math. However, I wasn't too worried about it, because my students appeared to be learning and my test scores looked
Measurement Unit
I finally finished my new measurement unit where students measure to the nearest one-fourth inch, and it may very well be my new favorite unit. I've always loved teaching measurement, but I didn't feel like I had a good written plan for teaching it. I always taught piece by
Third Grade Geometry
Geometry is such a fun unit to teach, because it easily lends itself to hands-on activities. In my Third Grade Geometry Unit there is a major emphasis is quadrilaterals and the properties and features of quadrilaterals.
Like most geometry units, there is a heavy emphasis on
