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Even More Back to School Bulletin Boards
It's my favourite time of year again - back to school prep time! I love love love planning and making my back to school bulletin board. Yesterday, my teaching bestie and I went in to create our...
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Black and Rainbow Classroom Reveal
I'm so excited to share my classroom space for 2017/18 with you all! Get ready for a visual journey! (At the bottom of this post is a video version of the tour if you'd rather watch than read.) Here...
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A Guide To Year-Long Personal Inquiry
I've been using year-long personal inquiry (also known as Genius Hour, Passion Projects, etc.) in my classroom for a few years now. I get a lot of questions about how I run it, how much time I...
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Let's Taco 'Bout Bulletin Boards
If you're a follower of mine, then you know that I'm a huge fan of the Back to School Bulletin Board (capitalized because it's that important to me). I've got two new boards for us to taco 'bout...
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Teacher Time Saving Tips
It's no secret - teachers are busy! I have five of my own tried and true teacher time saving tips to share with you today, as well as some bonus tips from other teachers! 1. Make Extra Copies This is...
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Story of my Name Writing
Today I'm sharing one of my favourite tasks for building community in the classroom. Students are able to share an important aspect of themselves (the story of their name) with the class and with me,...
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Ideas for the Day after Halloween
Even scarier than Halloween itself is... THE DAY AFTER! It's likely that your kiddos are going to stay up too late Wednesday night. It's likely that they'll have snuck some Halloween candy for...
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Reinforce Concepts and Boost Engagement with Games
As teachers, we get to decide how our students learn content. We know the value of written tasks, but we also know the power of engagement through games. Incorporating fun classroom games into your...
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6 Remembrance Day Picture Book Recommendations
November 11, Remembrance Day, is an important day to recognize at school. It’s a time to both reflect on the past and also consider the present and future. It can also be an excellent day to have...
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An Introduction to Standards Based Assessment in the Elementary Classroom
Standards based assessment is a method teachers can use to report student mastery of learning outcomes. Rather than accumulate point scores, teachers gather evidence of student learning through a...
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5 Free Ideas for Valentines Day
Holidays at school are always about finding a balance between learning and having to scrape the children off the ceiling. I've rounded up 5 ideas for you to have fun on Valentine's day, while still...
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4 Ways to Add Real-Life and Hands-On Experiences to your Science Curriculum
One of the pieces of feedback I often get is that teachers struggle to find meaningful ways to integrate hands-on or real-life experiences in their Science lessons. Teachers say that they don't have...
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7 Strategies to Help Your Students Read for Information
Reading for information is a life-long skill. Students who have strong reading comprehension skills understand what they read (and know when they do not!). Learners require direct instruction of...
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6 Ways to Encourage Your Reluctant Writers
Go into any classroom and you'll find reluctant writers. Some will tell you writing is boring. Others will say it's too hard. Some students are afraid to begin because they don't know if their idea...
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Best Assess Student Writing
Evaluating student writing can be one of the most time consuming tasks a teacher can face. It takes time and mental energy to read 30 (or more!) unique pieces of writing. Especially when you...
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10 Ideas for Manageable Year-End Celebrations
As we begin to wrap up year end assessments and start to pack up for summer, we are all looking for fun ways to celebrate with our students. We want to acknowledge all of the hard work accomplished...
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Organize Your Classroom Using Bins and Containers
The key to a smooth-running classroom is organization. When everything has a home you maximize your time because you know exactly where your materials are. Students can feel ownership over the...
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How To Set Up Your Classroom Library
As a beginning teacher, setting up a classroom library can be a bit of an overwhelming thought. What books do you buy? Where do you buy them from? And then, how do you organize them? The key to...
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Boost Reading Comprehension Through Discussion
One of our ultimate goals when teaching reading is to boost student comprehension of text. We want our students to construct deeper meaning as they read. A simple, no prep way of helping build...
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Struggling to fit it all in?
As a teacher it always feels like I'm adding more things to my "To Do" list than I'm taking off. There's always something to grade, some sort of data to hand in, and more curriculum to cover than it...
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