Time-saving Educational resources for K-2 Teachers
Give your students more ownership this year! Helping them set their own goals can be a powerful tool for improving academics, behavior, and effort. How can you Help Students Set Goals? Teaching students to set goals is a skill they will benefit from throughout their entire lives. Discuss the importance of setting goals and model setting one for yourself. It’s… Read More
As teachers, we have benchmark goals for almost everything. “Students should be reading on ___ level by the end of ___ grade,” “Students should be reading ___ words per minute,” “…. know __ letters/ sounds by __” “…. know addition and subtraction facts to 10, 20….” These goals may be helpful to us as teachers, but do they mean anything… Read More
Multisensory Sight Word Practice High-frequency sight words are essential to gaining reading fluency. Want to know the best way to practice? Here are some key things to do to make sight words stick: In all of my years teaching and researching about sight word instruction, I’ve learned that when kids are engaged and using their bodies to learn, they retain… Read More
Ever have students zone out during some parts of a lesson, but stay alert during others? This may be attributed to their learning style or preference. We’ve all heard it: “Not all kids learn the same way.” We know it’s true, but do we take action to meet the needs of all of our learners? Read on (or see chart,… Read More
Ever read your students’ writing and see words that you’ve already covered misspelled? In fact, those words are on the word wall and students can easily look up to spell them correctly. So why don’t they?? This may be because often a word wall is just (dare I say it?) CLASS DECOR to kids. They don’t refer to it, or… Read More
You finished a lesson early, now what?! I know, that very rarely happens. But, indulge me for a minute. So, you have an extra 5 minutes before you have to get ready for lunch/ music/ PE… Hmmm, what can you do? There’s not enough time to read a book or have kids write in a journal. So you pause. Harp starts… Read More
Sight word fluency is so important, yet many kids struggle to build and retain a strong sight word vocabulary, despite a variety of approaches. Today, I want to share with you some really great tips on helping your students to master sight words! Have you tried incorporating movement into your sight word instruction? Movement is scientifically proven to be linked with… Read More
Have you ever had a student ace a spelling test, but misspell those same words the very next week? This happens all too frequently, and the reason may be the focus of spelling instruction. In traditional spelling, students are given a list of words to practice throughout the week. They’re tested on those words at the end of the week. The focus… Read More
Johnny looooved math. He’d come every day to our math lesson with enthusiasm, ready to take on any numerical challenges I had for him.Then it would be reading time. Johnny’s face and demeanor immediately changed. He pretended to look for his reader’s notebook in his desk, then went to the bathroom for 10 minutes, followed by a trip to the water… Read More
I love when I find a great book that I can use for multiple Writer’s Workshop mini-lessons! Mañana Iguana by Ann Whitford Paul is one of these books. It’s a version of The Little Red Hen with a Mexican twist. The main character is an iguana and she wants to throw a fiesta, but the Conejo, Tortuga, and Culebra (Rabbit,… Read More