10 Tips for Departmentalized Classrooms
Yesterday I posted about how my team makes departmentalizing work in 3rd grade. Today, I’m back with 10 tips that help everything run smoothly. Let’s get to it! Tip 1: Label Everything! Printing student...
Category: Classroom Management
How I Work Departmentalizing in 3rd Grade
Departmentalizing is my jam. Trust me when I tell you, it’s a game changer. Not only did I become an expert in my craft, but I got my life back. If your admin is...
TeacherBoss Hack: Class Dojo Reading Conference Notes
Regardless of the process or style you subscribe to, if you’re teaching elementary reading, you’re probably doing individual reading conferences with students. As a third grade teacher that teaches only reading, this became really...
Standards-Based Grading Portfolios
“Standards-based grading” is definitely a term that does not spark joy in my life. They’ve been hanging around in Virginia for a while now and pushed much more heavily in some counties than others....
Back to School with 10 First Week Lessons
The first week of school is unlike any other week of the school year. We are tasked with getting to know 20+ students and establishing a classroom community while still teaching them classroom and...
How to Use Student Data Notebooks to Boost Your Classroom Culture
I’ve had such a love-hate relationship with data notebooks over the years. I’ve always worked in “Baldrige” schools that have required every teacher to have a data wall and every student to have a...
Homework Part 2: Study Guides
Happy Summer! This is the first post I’m writing since officially being on Summer Break and I already knew the topic I wanted to tackle. Homework! My “Homework, Homework, Homework” post from 2014 has...
Will it BEE a boy or girl? Classroom Gender Reveal
It’s a girl! My sweet teacher bestie, Mrs. Le, is expecting and today we did a gender reveal with our students. They were so excited! When the students came in for the day, I...
3 Fun & Easy Ways to End the School Year
It’s that time of year again! The weather is getting warmer and everyone (including myself) is getting squirrely. As teachers, we juggle so many balls during this time. We want to celebrate our students...
My Top 5 Whole Group Test Prep Strategies
I’ve been blogging recently about how I prepare my students for the end of year reading test during small groups (you can read more about this here and here), so I thought that today...
