On a recent Thursday afternoon, I decide to take a sick day. I just called for a sub to cover my duties tomorrow. I’m taking a “sick day.” My youngest, (of the three girls I have written so much about in the past) didn’t really want to go to school this morning, was clearly feeling […]
Elementary School
An elementary school is a primary school for children between the ages of 5-11 and between the grades prekindergarten and secondary education.
Posted inElementary School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy
Close Reading and Deep Thinking = “Textploration”
My focus in this piece will be on inspiring truly close reading and deeper thinking as a facet of ELA instruction. When a reader can go beyond recall; go beyond simple inference and analysis, and go spelunking deep into reflection on and evaluation of story characters and elements (while using the text to support their […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Book Review: ‘Play Like A Pirate’
I recently met teacher and author Quinn Rollins at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference earlier this month, and the session he led was on incorporating graphic novels into the classroom (you can read more about it in the link above). I’d be interested in teaching with graphic novels since Jeff Kinney’s first Diary of […]
Posted inChild Development
On Being Responsible Adults
I’ve always taught my students that we live in a democracy. We even practice it on a daily basis, voting on anything that needs settling, with a “majority rules” mentality. We also discuss the importance of good sportsmanship- a lot. So suffice it to say that when we have an election, and people begin rioting about […]
Posted inOpinion
Let them Be Children
Today at a meeting we discussed the inhibition of children. Little children. Children who have not started school yet. The rawness of their play and emotions. Think about watching a young child play or react or do anything. They give 110% of themselves to the event. In play that looks like imagination and sounds and […]
Posted inElementary School
Print Resources: Great Tools for Kids
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Scholastic News for Grade 4. All opinions are 100% of this teacher. It is always exciting when you can bring the world into your classroom. There are a million things out there to use, but as all educators know, some are better than others. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Unit Fractions: A Math Teacher’s Grand Slam!
As I slowly walked down the hallway to my classroom I told myself, “Last school year was a complete disaster but this year is going to be different!” If I could paint a picture of the students that I had last year, it would look like a scene from Major Payne. Every morning when I […]
Posted inElementary School
Using Board Games In The Classroom
I remember when I was little I loved to play board games. Growing up as an only child though, it was difficult to find someone to play with. I drove my parents crazy with Monopoly, Hi-Ho Cherrio and Sorry, then I moved on to checkers and chess as I got older. In the age of […]