School and the City

I don't know about you, but I have my students work with partners constantly. Sometimes partners are assigned strategically, based on data for intentional instruction. Sometimes, however, I just need my students to find a partner or at least someone to turn and talk to during think-pair-share. I was tired of my students taking forever to find a partner. I was tired of my kids working with the same people over and over. I was tired of saying "make a better choice" or "you aren't allowed to work together." I have equity sticks and use them often, but the partnerships aren't planned and therefore often aren't great. Here's a management trick to partner your students successfully - the first time,  every  time.  Thus, I introduce to you... The Partner Wheel! I originally heard this idea from Amie Dean, The Behavior Queen . (Side note: SHE'S AMAZING!) It's perfect for partnering your students. Put students that you...

Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Teach Your Heart Out conference onboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Navigator of the Seas! Quality time with other teachers, who just GET me... PD at sea... What could be better?! Let me tell you all about it.    We boarded the ship on Friday in Miami. Having arrived early, we were able to spend the afternoon at the pool meeting and hanging out with teachers from all over the country!  On Friday night, TYHO threw a luau-themed welcome party. We had a great time on the dance floor!   Saturday was reserved for the conference.  Sessions were divided up by grade level, but not mandated, so that each teacher could choose relevant sessions! I started the morning with a joint session by Juan Gonzalez and Brittany Root , "Turning Content into an Adventure." They talked about engagement strategies for introducing new topics as well as fun - but rigorous - ways to p...

I've already written all about HOW and WHY you should use choice boards in your classroom. Are you convinced yet? (If not, revisit that blog post here .) I've made tons of choice boards for my own classroom (13, to be exact!) and many others for YOUR classroom based on requests. View all of my choice boards here .  So are you ready to try choice boards, and maybe even wanting to make one personalized to your own classroom? THIS is the blog post for you!  Recently, I was featured on the Edverything Podcast reiterating why I love choice boards and telling teachers step by step how to make their own. (Listen here ).  Want a quick recap of the design segment of the podcast? Here are the basic steps I go through when making my choice boards: 1. Choose your topic and zoom in. 2. Review your standards BEFORE designing tasks... I learned this the hard way!  3. If needed, pull up a visual aid for Bloom's Taxonomy to get your...

Year six is DONE, y’all! ⁣⁣ I spent a lot of time during the last week working on my “back to school box,” which I’ll pack in my closet LAST so it’s easily accessible when preplanning rolls around much too soon. I learned this trick from some other teacher friends of mine, and it truly makes returning from summer break SO MUCH EASIER and so much less stressful! I’ve been doing this for the past few years and it’s a TOTAL game changer - seriously. ⁣⁣ 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞: Sneak Peek supplies (tablecloths, signs, forms, etc)⁣⁣ Supplies I’ll need immediately (scissors, Sharpies, stapler, staple remover) ⁣⁣ Blank nametags for desks and for students ⁣⁣ Back to school bulletin board decor⁣⁣ Birthday treats for the year⁣⁣ Folder of master copies for first week ⁣⁣ Basic copies for the first week ⁣⁣ A note I wrote to myself when I started my first year of teaching: My former principal made the whole staff do this, and I still have it! ⁣⁣...

Each year, 3rd graders participate in a "living wax museum" project during the last month of school. It's truly one of my favorite days of the year! We spend a few weeks reviewing nonfiction by studying biographies, then students get to bring biographies to life!  If you haven't tried a wax museum yet, you totally should. It is SO much fun - You will be so impressed by your students! We all have research standards, writing standards, and speaking/listening standards that can be taken care of with this project. Having students write speeches and present in front of an audience is not only meeting standards but it also an important life skill.  My team chooses for students to complete the project almost entirely at school. We spend a few days researching, a few days writing, and a few days making posters. At home, students practice their speeches (aiming to memorize) and put together a costume.  We also encourage artifacts to make our wax museum...

Once upon a time, when I first started teaching, I started building my classroom library.  I gathered books from retiring teachers and Goodwill. Throughout my career, I've grown my library by using Scholastic Book Club points, visiting Scholastic Warehouse sales, and shopping for specific series lots on eBay. The bins are from Dollar Tree, and they've held up well!  I must say - I'm super proud of my library!  My first school required me to have my library sorted by guided reading level. I get that! Students, in order to improve reading skills, should be reading books on or slightly above their instructional reading levels.  My library looked like this for six years... until now.  I noticed this year especially that my students rarely visited my classroom library unless I forced them to "book shop." They LOVE reading on Epic! where they can easily search and sort by categories.  Plus, as a grow as a teacher, I've learned that ...

It's that time of year, y'all! *finally* Time for students to reflect on their year of experiences while you start packing up your classroom. Whew! Exciting, but hectic!  One of my favorite projects for the last week or two of school is this  newspaper creative writing task .  It's a meaningful, creative writing activity for the end of the year! Students use all those writing skills they learned throughout the year to write about how they feel about the end of the year, their favorite memories, and advice for next year's students. We all have standards that state something about "using standard conventions of English" and "with the support of an adult, publish a writing piece." This is a great end-of-year assessment tool to see how much your students have grown in their writing abilities. Copy one of the pages as a work sample, if you need one! Most importantly, it's also a fun way for our students to "publis...