Picture book lesson plans and activities for busy teachers
“All teachers are underpaid, overworked, and stressed out.“ That’s how one teacher described her job. Teacher work life balance is something that almost all educators struggle with. This teacher said that she felt like she was always running late for school events, meetings, and parent conferences. And when she wasn’t working, she was trying to keep up with homework assignments,… Read More
How many times does this happen? You’re having a classroom discussion, your students are talking and then…crickets. You’re a great teacher, so you know that you need to provide adequate wait time, but that silence is deafening. All too often, I used to jump in and provide an idea or add a follow-up question to try to keep the conversation… Read More
Who doesn’t love interactive read alouds? Even as an adult I still read books aloud. I’m an admitted picture bookaholic, yes. But what about the rest of the world? At what age or grade level should interactive read alouds stop? While I was doing my student teaching, I split my days between a Kindergarten/1st grade split class and fifth grade…. Read More
Wait, you want your students talking in your classroom? Isn’t it a struggle enough to get that overly talkative kid to STOP talking? Let’s be honest, that kid that won’t stop talking is never going to completely stop talking, and you shouldn’t want them to. Student talk in the classroom is incredibly important for vocabulary development, building classroom community, writing,… Read More
Why do read alouds fail? When I first started teaching, I wasn’t given much direction in terms of read alouds. In my literacy class I had read that a read aloud was part of a balanced literacy program and that I should do one. I wasn’t really told anything more but my professor did read us Thank You, Mr. Falker… Read More