School and the City

Whether you are looking to #treatyoself, add items to your wish list, or shop for the amazing teacher in your life, this is the list for you! Here are 5 items I truly CANNOT imagine my classroom without: 1. PAPER CUTTER This is one of those items that I didn't know what I was missing until I had this in my life. I use this ALL. THE. TIME. Seriously, at least once a day. I use it to pre-cut interactive notebook pages and cut out lamination (all the task cards)... It is truly a major #timesaver. Mine is a hand-me-down gift from a retired teacher, but it's by Swingline. You can find a similar Swingline paper cutter HERE . It's 15", self-sharpening, and has a safety lock... win, win, win! 2. CORDLESS GLUE GUN Yes, this is a thing. It actually exists. It works great, and it's so handy. It's so much more convenient than your regular glue gun that you'll actually use this one more often! Surebonder doesn't make my model anymore - ...

I receive a lot of questions about how I run my literacy block. At my school, our schedule is blocked out, but I have freedom to arrange my own blocks (if that makes sense). So my literacy block is 9:40 - 11:15, and this is what I've decided to do with it: We start right away with our minilesson. Students are fresh from recess and eat their snacks while I read and model strategies. From there, students move into their Daily 5 rotations. (Our school using CAFE & Daily 5, but I don't have time to rotate students through 5 stations daily, so I make sure some aspects of Daily 5 are integrated throughout the day!) I keep this as simple as possible. I occasionally change it up, but rarely! I have a chart in my room so students know exactly what their options are for each rotation. During this time, I pull small groups. You may notice I do not include myself as a rotation. I do this in order to provide flexibility for myself. Sometimes, I don't need to ...

I am SO thankful for you, so I thought I'd share a freebie with you that I hope will be useful in your classroom! My text features products are some of my absolute favorites. I originally created them my own classroom. I needed a way to assess my students’ understanding of text features other than by observation, and I wanted the assessment to tie in curriculum and relevant content. Thus, this product line was born. The kids have fun using different colors to identify the different text features, and it provides great work samples for me. I first made them about science and social studies topics , then biographies , then holidays ! I'd love for you to download the Thanksgiving text features passage for FREE!  Join my newsletter & I'll send it for FREE! I promise I'll never spam you or share your email address.  Send me the freebie!  We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered By ConvertKit

At the end of the first quarter, teachers at my school are expected to hold conferences with each child's parents. This is the third year that I have chosen to do student-led conferences, and I don't plan on ever turning back! Let me tell you why: It takes a LOT of pressure off of me. Students do a lot of the preparation and the spotlight is on them.  Students take responsibility for their own learning, behavior, and progress.  Students get to practice their speaking and presenting skills.  Parents see their child in an environment and situation that they do not typically get to observe.  Teachers can see how students interact with their parents, and parents can see how their children interact with the teacher.  Students, parents, and the teacher work together as a team to set goals and determine next steps.  It is truly amazing. It's an excellent learning experience for the students - and for the adults - and the sense of pride they walk away w...

I'm really trying to be better about holding writing conferences this year. These simple questions have completely changed the quality of my writing conferences: 🔹What did you write about? Why? 🔹What was the easiest part of your writing process? 🔹What was the most challenging part? I've found students to be very open and honest. It's helped me build relationships and obtain valuable insight. It makes note-taking easy! As for feedback, I'm just using sticky notes. It's easy, fast, and they stick right in students' notebooks! For now, I'm making a "Glow" sticky note and a "Grow" sticky note. This keeps conferences short and sweet, just like this blog post. ;) If you're looking for a conference log, I have one that you can download for free in my TPT store!  Happy conferring!  Pin me!

My Curriculum Night was just a few weeks ago, and I wanted to find something to keep parents busy while they waited in the hallway. I decided to bring my students' writing to LIFE by recording themselves reading it! Here's a detailed tutorial to show you just how EASY it is!  I used the Voice Memos app on my iPhone to record students reading aloud. It was very easy to trim and alter if needed, and the quality is good! Best of all, it's an app that's already on your iPhone so it's totally FREE! Students were called one at a time to enter the "recording studio," AKA my closet, where they read aloud their writing nice and clear.  After recording, I used the share button to upload my recordings to Google Drive.  I love Google Drive and use it for just about everything!  In order to get the QR codes for my students to scan, I just used the shareable link from the Google Drive file and copied it into GOQR.me. I...

On a recent Instagram story, I mentioned that we earned a new unit for our 3rd grade team. I'm not sure how common this is, but you all had lots of questions for me! I had 25 students in my class, which is the state maximum for first, second, and third grades. However, we had to wait for the ten day attendance count and allotment funding to come through before hiring a new teacher. We were so lucky to find someone amazing, but at this point, we were 4+ weeks into the school year, so the transition was tough for everyone! How many students did you lose? Five. Five sweet, clever children that I had spent 5 weeks bonding with. How were students selected to move? There were so many details that went into this decision, which was made by the administration team: reading levels and math levels - We have leveled classes, so this is important! demographics - The new class needed to be just as balanced as ours, as far as ethnicity and gender.  exceptionalities - The n...