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… Read More
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… Read More
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… Read More
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… Read More
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… Read More
