Let's be honest, we've all been there. Wondering how many more days we can take it, much less years. Teaching is hard work. It can be a physically, emotionally, and mentally draining career, and it's often a thankless job where teachers are typically portrayed as the reason for
Grading With a Growth Mindset
Recently growth mindset has become a major buzzword in education. When I began hearing the term, I started reading about growth mindset and quickly realized that the idea of growth mindset was something most great educators already believed long before the term was coined.
Balancing Cute and Content
Over the years I've read countless blog posts, social media posts, and comments over the debate of balancing cute and content. I think we can all agree that there is value to both, and it's certainly possible to teach with both style and substance. The purpose of this post is not
Avoid Being Teacher Tired
Some of my absolute favorite teacher memes are the teacher tired memes. This is probably because I can completely identify with each and every one. Without a doubt, teaching is an exhausting profession. We go hard mentally and physically all day long without breaks or downtime. I
Soft Start Morning Work
Starting the day with a soft start morning work is a big change for me. For the past several years I've had a morning work routine that I loved. I've blogged about it a few times, and you can see one of my more thorough blog posts here. My morning work procedures were a
Productive Struggle and It’s Importance
Productive struggle time in math is not natural. Allowing children to struggle with something goes against every instinct I have. When I see a child having difficulty, every pore in my body wants to take over and fix the problem. However, as a mom and as a teacher, I know that is
First Day of School Activities
These first day of school activities will help you start the new year on the right foot! Whether you are a new or veteran teacher, planning for the first day or week of school can be a bit overwhelming. Planning is much easier when you've developed your routines, procedures, and
Favorite Teacher Supplies
We all have our favorite teacher supplies. Since I've been teaching, I've acquired quite the collection of teacher supplies and materials. In fact, when I moved schools last year I realized just how much I had. I am FAR from a hoarder, but it was still shocking to see how many
Focus Wall in the Classroom
Classroom focus walls are nothing new, and to be quite honest there isn't a set-up of focus walls that I haven't tried! I greatly regret not taking pictures from my past focus walls, especially the year I partitioned a classroom wall with painters tape to create grids based on
Student Approved Review Game
My teaching partner recently introduced me to my new favorite vocabulary review resources-Quizlet. I know that Quizlet has been around for several years. In fact, I remembered using Quizlet several years ago. According to the site, I made a quiz back in 2010, but I never used the