Have you ever stumbled upon a website and wondered why you've never used it before? That's how I was with Math Playground. It was love at first click. I am very picky when it comes to websites and math games. I am not looking for more skills practice with low level computation

It's a Tuesday afternoon, and we're well into the school year. I've taught my reading mini lesson and have already met with one guided reading group. I look around the room and everyone appears to be on task during their independent reading time. Things are running

I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the only days more challenging than Halloween is the day AFTER Halloween.  There is nothing quite like a room full of children who’ve eaten nothing but candy over the past 24 hours.  I’ve heard many teachers say that November 1st should be

I’ve moved from a traditional format of math centers to using a booklet format. Students' first set of centers is primarily on place value and rounding, and their second set of centers covers addition, subtraction, and a lot of activities to build number sense. Then, students'

After teaching place value and rounding, my next math unit is multi-digit multiplication. Since time is always a concern, I jump into this unit and pick up right where I left off with my previous unit. You can read more about my place value lesson plans and instruction

Most upper elementary students love writing fictional narratives. They get to let their creative juices flow and have fun with writing. However, this may be the most challenging writing genre for students. Even though fictional narratives are "fun" they require considerable

It's hard to believe that we're on year three of teaching during a pandemic. In just three years, I've been face-to-face, virtual, in a hybrid model, and in an alternating schedule. This year we started 100% face-to-face, but our numbers quickly rose, so we switched to an

Math games are a great way to increase student engagement and to give students an opportunity to apply newly learned math skills. Even though there are many games to choose from, it's often challenging to find exactly what I'm looking for in a game. I try to avoid games that are

I'll be the first to acknowledge that teaching students how to answer questions by restating the question and supporting their answer with text evidence is not always the easiest (or fun) part of the year.  However, I also know that it isn't an option. Restating the question and