Let's talk growth mindset read alouds. How often do you have to coax, encourage or even beg your students to just TRY a new activity? How about those GT students who explode when they suddenly meet a challenge that pushes their thinking? Or that student who MUST do everything perfectly? Or YOU find out in a PD that you've been doing readers workshop wrong for the last five years? Okay that was me. Regardless, these seven growth mindset read alouds are great for any any age (even us teachers). Better yet, each one could easily be a mentor text you could bring back multiple times during the year for different purposes! The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds // El punto This book by the amazing author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds tells the story about a girl named Vashti who is CONVINCED that she is not an artist. So much so that she spends an entire ... read more
Night Before the First Day of School Reflections
Twas the night before the first day of school, and all through the school, one teacher was worrying, would fourth grade be cool? Okay okay, I'll stop, but when I get nervous, for some reason, I like to make parodies of songs and poems. Seriously, though, last year I wrote a great bus duty song based on the song "Dancing in the Moonlight" that I sang over the loud speaker at the end of the day because I was nervous about an evaluation meeting I had with my principal. It was called "Dancing in the Bus Line." It was awesome. I completely digress, though. It's the night before the start of my sixth year of teaching, and I'm nervous. My first five years of teaching were all spent in 1st grade, and now I'm moving on up to fourth grade. I was at the point that I could literally name all of the first grade reading and math Common Core standards ... read more
My Simple Keys to a Successful Dictado
Do your students learn a dictado and then never apply the learning in their own writing? When I first started learning about bilingual education and the importance of dictado for Spanish literacy, I never understood why my students were not internalizing my language lessons related to each dictado. I tried a lot of different things over the years in my dictados slowly learning how to successfully get my students to internalize the learning and apply it. Now 6 years into really focusing on dictado, I have found a few simple keys to a successful dictado. What a Dictado Should NOT Be When I first started, my dictados were essentially just spelling lists. Kids practiced writing the words each day, and on Fridays they did the final one and handed it into me. I KNEW that if kids practiced writing those words and we looked at the ... read more
5 Things to Do Instead Of Stressing About Your Classroom Decor
Do you spend the end of your summer stressing about your classroom decor? Do you spend hours laminating and cutting owl, superhero, or llama theme decor packs each year? I used to be you. No longer. I'm here today to tell you that that does not have to be you! Your classroom doesn't have to be that elaborately decorated room you see on Pinterest! There are so many more useful things you could be spending your time and money on for back to school instead of worrying about your classroom decor, and that's what I'm going to talk about in this post. There are affiliate links in many of the posts on this site. This means your purchase supports myself, my business, and my family when you click through to buy - at no additional cost to you. Why I Don't Buy Into Classroom Decor When I first started teaching, many of my colleagues were quick to ask ... read more
3 Ways to Get Your Students Talking
Do you find that you, not your students, are the one doing all of the talking during your interactive read alouds? It's a read aloud, teachers are supposed to do the talking right? Kind of. When I was a new teacher, I did almost all of the talking during a read aloud other than the odd question to prompt hand raising and a short discussion afterwards. That's how my teachers had done it and nobody had ever shown me anything different. Then I found that when I asked my students comprehension questions, many of them really didn't understand the story. This quote changed how I did my interactive read alouds. Many of my "high fliers" and even some of my average students were getting my read alouds, but I wasn't reaching a LARGE portion of my class. I made changes. Guess what? They aren't hard! (Well maybe some of them will challenge you, but you're a ... read more
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