Seasonal themes make it easier to keep students engaged throughout the year while still teaching the skills you need to teach. From back-to-school routines to end-of-year reflection, seasonal activities can support classroom community, academic practice, and a little extra fun when everyone needs it most.
Back-to-school season is here, and in our area, Target is stocked with school supplies like pencils, crayons, pencil boxes, and backpacks. But have you ever wondered about the must-have teacher…
The last few weeks of school bring a very specific kind of energy. Students are restless, afternoons feel long, and focus drops fast. At the same time, the daily schedule…
How do you teach students about life cycles? Below are some ideas and resources on how we build background knowledge and work with information about life cycles and animals that…
Are there ever moments in your day when you have 5-10 minutes to spare but don’t know how to make the most of them? Well, here’s a clever solution: introduce…
We’re almost into the final stretch of the school year! March, April, May and part of June! It seems so close and yet so far away at the same time!…
Creating your perfect elementary classroom schedule is a daunting task. You have the whole school day and yet you need to teach everything to everyone. As an educator, you want…
I was able to go in and get my keys yesterday. We don’t start school for two more weeks, but I have bits of things scheduled here and there, so…
During the first few days of school, building classroom community is crucial. It is important to ensure that students not only understand their roles but also know how to make…
Describe the connections between historical events is a Common Core Standard that is hard to teach! Here is how I taught this standard with the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving. Through this unit, students asked and answered questions, we made a timeline, we read great books, AND we figured out the connection between historical events.
Asking and answering questions can be hard for students! We set up a routine where students would write 6 questions and other students would answer those six questions. This was the perfect way for me to monitor whether students could ask and answer questions about any topic! Here is how we applied it to Thanksgiving.
The month of November is the perfect time to spend in an in-depth study of the events that lead to the first Thanksgiving. In this blog post, I outline how we…
What do you teach on Halloween? Halloween is a day when it’s really hard to teach any significant content, where students come to school in costumes or at least super…
End of content
End of content