This year our district has been focusing on integrating science with ELA. This is not a new idea, but one that has been a joy to implement. We spent three days over the summer looking at our standards, resources and designing lessons for students. Focusing on keeping science alive with inquiry and hands on exploration while adding a […]
Instructional Strategies
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Uncategorized
Teachers Observing Teachers – A Closer Look
“How can we ask ourselves to go observe other teachers in other buildings, when we don’t even observe the teachers in our own building?” This question was recently thrown out by me at a PLC meeting where we were discussing teacher actions that we can take as part of our goal for our Professional Learning Community. When the […]
Posted inInstructional Strategies, Special Education
During and After the Storm: Everyday Behavior Strategies
Last week, I covered behavior strategies to use prior to behavior incidences occurring as a way of being proactive (call it hurricane preparedness training, if you will). This week, I’d like to cover what to do during and after the storm, so to speak. What happens when you’ve got a student in your room currently […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Social Studies
Where Are You From? Connecting Students to the World
Our students often have a difficult time connecting to the big world outside their everyday lives. I had a rich and in-depth activity that I loved to do with my students to allow them the opportunity to connect themselves to a bigger world and to each other. It often resulted in comments like these: “My […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Instructional Strategies
Teaching Writing to Struggling Students
The first year that I was in the classroom I was surprised when I assigned a writing task on the play, “The Crucible” that many of the kids were excited to express their feelings about the antagonist, Abigail and protagonist, John. For an entire class period we walked through the writing assignment and discussed possible ways […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Mathematics
Addition and Subtraction of Fractions
For many topics in mathematics teaching the concept before the algorithm can lead to deeper learning. Teaching addition and subtraction of fractions with different denominators is one such topic. Using pattern blocks for this topic gives students a visual representation that they can translate to the algorithm for this topic. You may want to review […]
Posted inElementary School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Mathematics, Uncategorized
Introducing Equivalent Fractions
Teaching equivalent fractions is often a difficult task. In this article I am going to show several methods that should make this task a bit easier. I previously posted an article for using patterns blocks to teach parts of a whole. In order to provide some consistency with that article the first method I will […]
Posted inFeatured, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Middle School
Rainbow it Up! The Color-Coded Essay
As a secondary English teacher, I teach many pieces of academic enrichments within my curriculum, but my main passion tends to fall at the feet of writing. When I began teaching middle school English a handful of years ago, writing was barely a blip on the radar as we had so much pressure to pass a […]