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Tips for New Teachers
Your first year of teaching is a special level of insanity. You’re thrown into a classroom, in charge of a slew of kids and you have to get them to learn, sometimes while they work against you. Nothing you learned in college is remotely helpful. Everything is crazy. You get to decorate your classroom which…
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10 Tips and Tricks for Classroom Pack Up (part 1)
It’s the 4th Quarter baby! For most of us, we’re heading into the last quarter of the year and school is winding to a close. This is, of course, AWESOME because who doesn’t love summer? (For real, I love my job…but not having to work for 2-3 months? it’s freaking amazing). As we get closer…
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10 Tips and Tricks for Classroom Setup
Classroom setup is a whole thing. Below are 10 tips and tricks for classroom setup. Please note that these are my own personal observations that you are free to agree with or disagree with. And you do what works for you in your classroom. I have had 7 classrooms in 13 years, so here are…
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Classroom Setup – An Introspective (Part 1)
Classroom setup is by far one of the most irritating, fun, and important parts of being a teacher that doesn’t involve the actual act of, you know, teaching. You are essentially given a blank slate and you need to make it functional, welcoming, organized, kid-friendly, and all in about…5 hours depending on your district’s back…
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Interactive Notebook Organization Tabs
When I started using these this year, it was an experiment to see if they’re valuable at all. Y’all. Seriously. Not only are they EASY but this has been by far the best my kiddos notebooks have looked…well, ever. They have very few, if any, skipped pages. They don’t have notes all over the place.…
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Easy Review Activity: Sprints (Part 2)
What is a sprint? A sprint is a review activity that involves students only getting one question at a time, having to solve it, then “sprinting” up to check their answer and get the next question. This can be done individually, or with groups. They could have to complete a task or game after they…
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Easy Review Game: Sprint (Part 1)
It’s review season, and that means teachers are getting ready for days and days and days of test prep. It’s not the most fun, by any stretch. We’re also at the end of the year so you’re getting the “please don’t make copies” or “we’re out of paper” message from the office, or you just…
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10 Tips and Tricks for Classroom Pack Up (Part 2)
If you haven’t already, check out Part 1 of this list. Here are tips 6-10 for packing up your classroom at the end of the year! Tip 6: List It So this one isn’t just an end-of-the-year deal. I absolutely love Google Keep for keeping a list of things I need to do and keeping…
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IEPs and 504s for the General Education Teacher
I don’t think I’ve taught a single year without at least one kid with an IEP or 504. I’m almost positive that I have not. Sometimes, I am the one who kicks off the testing for the IEP/504. Either way, I always have one. Let’s back up and explain these lovely acronyms. So IEP stands…
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Classroom Setup – An Introspective (Part 2)
So if you missed part 1, I looked back at my second classroom (and the room I was in the longest) – it went through some pretty big changes. I’m going to briefly skim over my new classroom in my new school: She was pretty. And I liked both colors that were on the back…
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Teaching Ancient Egypt (Part 3)
Teaching Ancient Egypt (Part 3) So in Part 1 we covered geography, pharaohs, pyramids and the Nile. Part 2 was all about the mummies. In part 3, we’re going to round out our lessons on Ancient Egypt by going over papyrus, clocks, hieroglyphics, and irrigation. So thinking back to when we first talked about the…
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Teaching Ancient Egypt (Part 2)
Mummies So at this point your kiddos should be familiar with Ancient Egypt. If not, I covered in Part 1 how to introduce it and go over some of the first interesting bits. Now we move on to the really cool stuff: mummies! Most kids are going to know what a mummy is. Most kids…
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Dig in to Science
Learning with poop? Yep. Learning with poop. (not real poop. I promise) So after reading Hope and Wade King’s book The Wild Card, I remember reading/seeing the Jurassic Park transformation that Hope King did and the food web activity she did with dinosaur poop. (again, not real poop). So I adapted it to fit my students and standards.…
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Teaching Ancient Egypt (Part 1)
Let’s talk about Ancient Egypt! First, I’d start with a collaboration board on Nearpod or a Jamboard or some other interactive board. In person, it would be a Know-Want to Know anchor chart. This lets the kids tell you what they already know about Ancient Egypt – which may be quite a lot. Expect to…
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Ancient (or Near-Ancient) Civilizations
We’re about to head into my favorite 3rd grade social studies unit: ancient civilizations. (Well, four of them are ancient, one is medieval). Let me pause for a second and give you a quick update: after teaching 5th last year I got moved to 4th due to numbers. Then, the week before school started, they…
Schooling Sara
Learning never stops. Even when you're the teacher!