Teacher Clip Art, Literary Resources, Classroom Ideas
This post is all about teaching reading, and it also contains a FREE alphabet printing activity for you to download!
You may have seen my recent post about my HUGE teaching dilemma last year: a new teaching partner who had no experience with teaching primary math! How could I make sure that my new partner stayed on track without spending HOURS talking about math lessons, planning, intervention and reporting?
My solution? I had the idea to make a whole year of paperless daily [Read More…]
Welcome to the Social Skills Ideas Bank!
The Social Skills Idea Bank is a series of related posts, each dedicated to sharing strategies for teaching a particular social skill.
As teachers, our strength lies in sharing our ideas, experiences and strategies!
This is a growing list, and you are invited to contribute in the comments section. We hope you will, because there’s nothing like a good idea shared between teachers to make our jobs easier.
In this post you will find lots of simple ways to encourage students [Read More…]
I start my math lessons with math videos almost every day.
They are a great way to warm up and start thinking about numbers. They’re a great review of the concepts we’re working on.
Most of all, they are so fun and interactive that my students LOVE math time!
Here are some of our primary favorite videos:
Dancing Monsters Count to 50
This is our absolute favorite for early learners for counting to 50.
The cute monsters dance around to the beat, while students count in groups [Read More…]
DIRECTED DRAWING VIDEOS
Using Directed Drawing videos is a fun new way to practice drawing with your students! It saves a lot of teacher time by being no-prep – just give students some paper and pencils, press PLAY, and students draw along with the video! You can pause whenever you like, and replay the video at the end. It also makes a fun independent activity if you have access to smaller devices during center time or for early finishers. As with [Read More…]
Here’s some real talk about my experience using STEM in the classroom.
When I am coordinating S.T.E.M. curriculum for grades 1-5, I observe many students exploring the STEM process who are truly engaged with hands-on learning.
For the most part, students LOVE it!
However…
Sometimes I also see students who are not yet comfortable with taking risks.
Some students are not emotionally equipped for dealing with the disappointment that arises when their great idea doesn’t quite work out the way they wanted.
Other students feel threatened by other students [Read More…]
I’ve recently started to incorporate online read-aloud stories to my daily routine, and discovered there are so many great books online out there!
Howard Wigglebottom Stories
My favorite find in the last year is the site dedicated to the Howard Wigglebottom stories. These cute animations focus on character building, social and emotional development, and lots of other essential ingredients for the primary classroom.
And guess what? They are all animated on one website! We use one story each morning as a springboard for [Read More…]
10 Apps for Encouraging Reluctant Writers
Do you have ipads in your classroom this year? Are you looking for ways to encourage your reluctant writers? I am always on the lookout for fun new activities for my young writers.
Each year, I have students in my class who just LOVE to write. When I ask them to write one sentence, they write five. If I give them a few scraps of paper, they’ll staple it and create their own fully illustrated [Read More…]
I am always on the hunt for new math apps to use for class, and I’m particularly happy when I find some that are simple and effective.
I recently attended a professional development session about math apps, and I’ve collected the most popular ones for primary classrooms. These were recommended for K-2 classrooms, and they are between $0-$5.
Click on the name of each app to see more information.
Name: Math Tappers
Skill: Addition with fixed sum (ie. friends of 10) Choose the sum on [Read More…]
Today I’m joining up with Erica to share techie tips for blogging and TPT.
Click HERE or on the image to visit Erica’s Ed-ventures blog post.
I’ve given my blog a bit of a face-lift today. Nothing too extreme, just a little botox in the wrinkle zones. : )
Here’s the problem: When I saved my signature image as a png, it uploaded to blogger with a black background. What?! There’s no background in a png – it’s been removed. So [Read More…]
