Community Building in the Classroom Having a strong classroom community is arguably the most important aspect of teaching. Our classroom community is what makes students feel welcome and comfortable when they’re at school. Community building in the classroom is something I am super passionate about, so today I’m sharing with you my favorite activities to build a strong classroom community! Classroom Community Building Why build a strong classroom community? Our students spend approximately 40 hours a week in our classroom – equivalent to the amount of time adults spend at their full time job. Think about it. Would you like to work in an environment where your coworkers don’t really…
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FREE Activities for At Home During Coronavirus School Closures
I did not have this blog post planned – but can you ever plan for a worldwide pandemic? I guess not. Many schools across the country are closing in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. And even if your school doesn’t close, parents may still choose to keep their students home out of caution. Because of this, many teachers and resource creators (and education business, too!) around the country have banded together to offer free resources to teachers and parents during this time that can easily be done at home. The following is a master list of MANY of the free resources out there. If you are a teacher…
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Teacher Organization Part 5: Time Management for Teachers
Happy Tuesday, friends! I can’t believe this is the last week of our teacher organization series! Today’s post is a little different as it is all about time management for teachers. We’ve mostly been focused on getting our classroom organized for the new school year, but time management is such an important part of staying organized as well! I wanted to make sure to spend some time talking about this before the series ended. As you know, I pride myself on my organizational skills as a teacher. But I also consider myself a really great manager of my time. Time is EVERYTHING as a teacher! We have a countless number…
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Meet the Teacher Handout & Tips for Success (+ FREEBIE)
Meet the Teacher Handout & Tips Meet the teacher day/night can be a super exciting but also super stressful time. Exciting because you’re meeting your new students for the very first time, but stressful because you’re also meeting their parents and you want to make a good first impression. You may also have a lot to prepare – such as getting a meet the teacher handout ready – in addition to all the other beginning of the year stuff on your plate! There is a lot to think about when preparing for meet the teacher. I’m sure all schools do it a little differently, but in my opinion, meet the…
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How to Use Task Cards in the Classroom: 7 Creative Ways (+FREEBIE)
How to Use Task Cards in the Classroom Task cards. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I had absolutely no clue how to use task cards in the classroom – but now I can’t imagine life without them! This is because task cards are low prep, easy to use, and so versatile! At first, I thought they were basically just flash cards. Wow, was I wrong! Of course, they can be used that way, but there are so many other ways to use task cards in the classroom as well! Over the last year, I’ve discovered numerous uses for task cards, and most of them are extremely low prep!…
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Building a Strong Classroom Community + FREEBIE!
One thing that I never did much of until this year was focus on building a strong classroom community. I felt like I had good relationships with my students, but I realized I wasn’t very good at fostering my students’ relationships with their peers. How important that is! If students aren’t valuing and respecting each other, then it can be really hard to get much accomplished during the day. So this year, after learning more about Responsive Classroom and building classroom community, I decided to put that at the center of my planning. Allowing time for my students to interact with each other and encourage each other during class was…
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7 Tips for Classroom Organization in a Small Space + FREEBIE!
Anyone who knows me knows how much I obsess over keeping things organized. I am by no means a Type A person, but organization is necessary for my sanity. My third year teaching, I started a new job at a charter school that rented its space from a church. The church uses our classrooms on Wednesday nights and Sundays, so we have to break down our rooms twice a week. This wasn’t too much of a challenge my first year there as I was in a big room with lots of storage space. The next year, however, I moved to 2nd grade — and a smaller classroom with little storage.…
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3 Ways Student Engagement Makes Your Life Easier + FREEBIE!
I have a HUGE passion for student engagement. This passion has been a fairly recent discovery, though I’ve always loved making learning fun and felt that it’s important for students to love school. However, last year, in the middle of my fourth year teaching, I was feeling a little burned out and bogged down with curriculum and doing the same old thing every. single. day. I felt like I was failing my students and I sure wasn’t having any fun teaching. I was losing my why and feeling a little demotivated. I had been hearing a lot about the newly released book, The Wild Card, by Hope and Wade King,…
