I have been out of school for four weeks. If I take my normal work day, which is from 7 am-5 pm, Monday through Friday, I have a total of 50 hours a week that I usually spend working. That totals to 200 hours that I’ve supposedly had off thus far. This is supposed to […]
Featured
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Keep Kids Writing All Summer
Summer Learning Loss is the bane of every teacher’s existence. We work tirelessly to teach students reading and writing strategies, grammar concepts, vocabulary building techniques, critical thinking skills, and more and it seems that by September they have forgotten what Venn Diagram is and how to find a noun. I know I do endless work […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Elementary School, Featured, Kindergarten, Professional Development, Teacher Branding
Empowering Yourself as an Expert
“Empowering teachers as experts” is the mission statement of The Educators Room. It is a powerful statement, but only true if we believe in ourselves as teachers. Many of us are made to feel like we are glorified babysitters, and we are belittled when we try to say what we feel, and when we hear […]
Posted inFeatured, Professional Development
What Salsa and Storytelling Taught Me about Teaching
About five months ago I took my wife on a date to a salsa dancing class. I like to dance at weddings or parties, but I would never list dancing as a hobby and certainly not a skill. But there I was, because of a deep love for my wife and a willingness to try […]
Posted inFeatured
Why Teachers Stay…
There are plenty of reasons to leave the teaching profession, but there has to be a reason we stay, right? Every teacher has different reasons for staying, and they are very personal. Some of us have several reasons and some of us only have one. Many people forget that we are human. We need compassion and […]
Posted inFeatured, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Parents
Parent tip: Beyond Sounding It Out
Your child has started to read a little. You are so excited and want to encourage him to read more. So you buy him books or go to the library. You sit next to him on the sofa and expect him to start reading away. Instead he gets stuck. The most common thing for a […]
Posted inFeatured, Professional Development
Before that last school bell rings: How to sustain yourself as a professional
The end of a school year arrives with both relief and trepidation for many teachers. Some are limping toward the finish line after a Spring of relentless testing cycles, struggles to get students to the point of mastery, threats of budget shortfalls, and general burnout from 60+ hour work weeks for the last 10 months […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Elementary School, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Kindergarten
How to Build a Classroom Library on a Barely-There Budget
After attending a Penny Kittle workshop in spring of 2014, I decided that I wanted to radically change the reading/literature instruction in my twelfth grade English class by setting up a Reader’s Workshop. In order to do that, I needed a classroom library. In fact, I needed an extensive classroom library if I wanted the […]