Where creativity & learning collide.
I hope all of you who have started back at school have had a wonderful first few weeks! I know for me when September rolled around, I was still trying to get to know my students and fine tune our routine. If I planned out my day well and prepped all of my materials, itMore
When our little friends come back this fall, I know one of the first things we will be teaching and/or reviewing is beginning sounds. Phonics and phonemic awareness make up the foundation of reading. Practicing these two things builds stronger readers! With so many engaging ways to teach this skill and let students practice, IMore
Do you use Elkonin boxes with your students? Using Elkonin boxes (also called sound boxes) in the classroom helps build the foundation of phonemic awareness for students. They are a set of boxes where each box represents a phoneme to model segmenting words into individual phonemes. While they seem so simple, they are a powerfulMore
August will be here before we know it! I know how crazy the beginning of the year can be. Getting to know new students, organizing materials, and mapping out your curriculum for the new year can be overwhelming. I want to share something that I think will be a gamechanger for teaching science in AugustMore
Because I have such a passion for guided reading, I also love sharing helpful things so you can implement it in your classroom, too! Guided reading is such a crucial part of the primary classroom because such powerful reading instruction takes place! I know how overwhelming it can feel to get started (or even makeMore
Have you heard of SignUpGenius yet? Are you implementing it in your classroom? I know staying organized makes our lives so much easier, and using SignUpGenius is defintely able to do that. This website lets you coordinate with parents and co-workers to manage tasks easily. SignUpGenius also lets you send out automatic reminder emails to helpMore
Friends, summer is here! This is the perfect time to take learning outside. Whether you are a mom of littles, a homeschooling mom, or a teacher looking for some new ideas, changing the scenery always freshens up learning! Hands-on alphabet activities help reach kinesthetic learners and reinforce skills. Helping our kids keep learning all summerMore
I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about guided reading by now, but what about book clubs? Do they have a place in a balanced literacy approach in the classroom? Friends, I think they do! Both of these options provide many benefits to our learners. An opportunity for students to practice reading in a group setting,More
Can you guys believe that summer is just around the corner? I know the feeling that the year is slowly ticking by, and all of a sudden, it’s over! I’m sure you’ve been thinking about what you can do to help your little friends retain what they’ve learned this year. Without a structured time andMore
Managing word work for 22 (or more!) students can be a handful. Add in accounting for differentiation and it can make your head spin! I found a program I loved to use with my kindergarten students that helped me meet each learner where they were and organize their progress. Let’s explore word work in kindergarten!More
Can you guys believe how close the end of the year is? It will be here before we know it! So will the end-of-the-year party. While the kids LOVE parties, they can be a headache for teachers. HERE is my post on some tips for a simple (but fun!) classroom party. I know by nowMore
Summer reading is so important for our students! The dreaded summer slide is real. Did you know that research suggests that kids will lose an average of one month of learning over the summer? For reading, students can drop two reading levels. Low-income students tend to decline even more. Yikes! I know that sounds likeMore
When it comes to classroom parties, I am all about keeping them simple, making them easy to manage, and letting parents help as much as possible! If you have parents that will plan parties for you, you are LUCKY! I always have been in charge of my own classroom parties and when parents showed up,More
“Where can I find books for guided reading?” I get asked this all the time! You get excited to implement guided reading as part of a balanced literacy program, but then the issue is finding leveled sets of books (usually six per title) to use with your little readers. The struggle is real friends. IfMore
With Earth Day around the corner, I thought it was the perfect time to share this DIY Earth Day Necklace. I got this idea from a great teaching colleague. You know the kind. The kind that you would team teach with any day, go to when you have an idea, but just aren’t quite sureMore
If you have been able to catch any of my Facebook lives last summer or even heard me present, you will always hear me talk honestly about book shopping. When I was in the classroom, I was always SO fearful of letting all of those little hands touch my books. After all, I had spentMore
April is such a fun month for science! The topics covered for this month are farms, recycling, life cycles, and the rainforest. These work so well for teaching our science standards this month. I’ll show you how my Science for April bundle will bring these topics to life! I grouped these topics together because it’sMore
We primary grade teachers know that kids come to school with a variety of letter knowledge. Some kinder, and even first grade, students are still working on letter identification. This was the case for most of the schools I taught in. In her book, The Next Step in Guided Reading, Jan Richardson says that students whoMore
