Blog

Capturing Classroom Milestones with Photos

Do you take first and last day of school pictures of your students? It is a favorite tradition of mine! See how I use these pictures in my classroom and try it this year in your classroom if you don't already! How Does It Work? First, I print out a few of these adorable signs. As the students are working on an ... read more

Five Ways to Help Your Students Beat the Mid-Winter Behavior Blues

Indoor recess? Gloomy weather? Increasingly complex concepts to learn? Students snapping at each other? The middle of winter is also the beginning of the second half of the school year and students may be stuck in a rut or acting out a bit. Here are some tried and true ideas I use every year to help keep students ... read more

Reward Notecards For The Classroom

"Do you have any "nice notes" today?!" That is a phrase I hear often in my classroom! My students LOVE getting recognized in front of their peers AND taking their "nice note" home to show their family. What are Nice Notes? "Nice Notes" are cute little cards with a positive message and a cute clipart animal or person. ... read more

First Grade Health Activity Book

First grade teachers do a LOT of activities around washing hands and stopping the spread of germs, but there are a TON of important health standards in 1st grade that can help build a foundation for healthy living now and in the future. Enter our "I Can Be Healthy" book that is a favorite of ours in first grade! I love ... read more

Alphabet Poems for Shared Reading Activities

Do you LOVE fun poems as much as I do? Well, I know young readers LOVE poems when they are learning to read, rhyme, and identify letters and sounds. These alphabet poems are a favorite! These Alphabet Poems are fantastic for ABC Bootcamp or whenever you start learning and reviewing letter names and sounds in ... read more

End of the School Year Activity Book

The end of the school year is such a busy and sometimes stressful time for students and teachers! Changes to schedules, celebration events, special activities, strong emotions, and more take up time and can throw off your usual classroom routines. That's why I LOVE our End of the Year book! It's such a fun way to review our ... read more

Replace Your Reading Logs with Reading Calendars

After 20+ years of teaching, I've done a lot of different things for reading homework. I stopped doing reading logs several years ago because I didn't feel it was meaningful. Sometimes, families were just rushing to write down book titles to get "credit" for homework, instead of focusing on the fun and important work of ... read more

Using Decodable Books with Emergent Readers

I love using fun decodable books with my young readers! See our four-day reading group routine with our short vowel decodable books! I've used these in reading groups, with reading volunteers, and I send them home with students as well. The kids love the funny characters and simple text. The "words to know" section is ... read more

March and April Weather Calendar Fun!

We have a lot of fun with this each year and I always look forward to it! It's a fun way for my students to focus on the changing spring weather and to track what they observe each day. They get so excited to check out the weather at recess each day. I start off by reading the book In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb and ... read more

New Year’s Activities and Ideas for the Classroom

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 🎉🎉🎉 I look at the first few days back with my students as a "soft-start" and here are some of the things we do during that first week! We all need time to get back into the routine, me included! I've got a great pack of FREE New Year activities included at the end of this post just for you! 1. Talk ... read more