I'm one week into my 200 Days of Picture Books Challenge, and so far I've read some awesome picture books. My wife was really excited about it at first. I was sharing some of the books with her. She was hearing some interesting stories about animals and strong women. What was not to like? We literally have each of those as categories on our Netflix. Then on Wednesday I started getting some grumblings. Apparently having 10 picture books stacked up on the kitchen table is "too many" and "we have company this weekend." That was precisely my thinking, though! My wife's friend who is also pregnant is visiting us, and I wanted to share some of the books with her. Who doesn't like picture books?! Well, I had to find a place to store my pile of books along with my flip flops that I refuse to stop wearing. No snow, no shoes! 200 Picture Books in 200 Days? Before I forget, why am I ... read more
My Favorite Character Education Books
The new school year is upon us and I'm here with my recommendations for teaching character education. I'm kind of obsessed with picture books, and I'm convinced there's at least one picture book for every situation. These books are great for teaching character so your students can grow up to be respectful and responsible human beings. Before I get into my recommendations, I want to really emphasize the importance of the discussion after the read aloud. Student to student talk is so critical, and really helps bring home the message from the stories. Even though I plan for comprehension and/or reading response questions for every day of the read aloud, my main focus is on student discussion. Check out the linked plans for the discussion questions and comprehension activities. There are affiliate links in many of the posts on this site. This means your ... read more
Tips and Tricks For Launching Thoughtful Logs
4 years ago I had just gone through an intense 3 day training on Comprehensive Literacy. Every teacher in my district had somehow been voluntold to report for the training in July. Even more surprising than teachers giving up 3 days of summer? All of us had to sit on hard cafeteria benches the entire time. Of the endless amounts of new things we were told to implement, the one that seemed the most tangible was the thoughtful log. We didn't get a lot of direction or any tips for using them, though. 4 years later, I've figured out a lot of tricks for using the thoughtful logs to make them manageable, and none of them did I learn with my butt sat on a cafeteria bench. 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. What is a Thoughtful ... read more
7 Growth Mindset Read Alouds For Elementary
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! (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.) The ... 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 from ... 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 me what my THEME was going to be. Now, ... 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 teacher! You can do ... read more