Well, it's back to school time for me, and a big part of my classroom preparations involved "tidying up" my classroom library.  I always have a ton of questions about how I organize my somewhat ridiculous collection of books--so I thought I'd share a little bit about how I get my library ready so that my students can really dig into their reading from that first week of school! Here is my monster shelf of books...this is where a huge chunk of my collection lives...this and the "yellow spinny thing" that I inherited about 20 years ago from a retiring teacher.  These two sections of my collection are organized in bins and are grouped in author and series collections.  For series where I have only a few, I put several "like" series in one bin.  Each bin has a label with a number...and that number gets written on each book in the bin.  This makes it SUPER easy for students to return books to the right place. Here you'll see another ......

"{Insert name here}, I'm done.  Now what?"  Sound familiar?  If I got a quarter, or a penny for that matter, every time a student asked me that question, I could probably put in for early retirement! Having a collection of go-to activities for early finishers is a must!  First, that pesky question is no longer being asked.  Next, having activities accessible to students reduces the boredom which in turn, reduces the troublesome behavior.  Also, activities can and should extend and/or enrich students' learning.   Including activities for early finishers can be as simple as you want to make it.  Early on in my teaching career, I had what I called "wise choices."  It was a list of activities that students could choose from when they were finished with an assignment.  The list was a short standard list.  It included unfinished work, reading, or writing.  When I was asked that "I'm done, now what?" question, I simply poin......

The 2016 Presidential election is fast approaching. This election has been one of the most controversial ones in recent memory. How do teachers tip-toe around student opinions and just teach the facts? We have created this blog post to help guide you on how to teach the presidential election without bias. Do's and Don'ts Teachers must maintain professionalism in the classroom when teaching about the election. Favoritism toward one candidate cannot be displayed in any way. Even though the classroom teacher may have strong convictions, s/he cannot try to persuade the students to support one candidate over the other. Because of this, we have created a  a table emphasizing the do's and don'ts in the classroom that should be adhered to. You can download it for FREE  here . What Ifs... There will probably be some questions and tense moments in the classroom. Here is a list of "What if's" that may surface in the classroom and how to handle them. ......

Hi there! This post has a new home. I've moved it to my own blog, where you can read the full post. Read the full post: 5 Reading & Writing Lesson Ideas for Enemy Pie Thanks so much for stopping by! Kristin, One Stop Teacher Shop...

Whether you are teaching guided reading, shared reading, or having students read independently, this post will show you how to build reading comprehension strategies into your instruction.  You will also find a FREE Reading Strategies Questions sheet to use with your instruction! It is important to teach the reading strategies according to the following method.  It has been proven to be an effective approach.  Teach one per week and focus on that one strategy throughout the variety of readings that week.  I found the best method is to: Explain:  Whether you are using an anchor chart, writing on a board, or oral teaching, explain each strategy. Model:  Always model so students can see how it is applied. Apply:  Students should apply the strategy in their reading. What reading strategies should you build into your lessons?  See below for the 10 Reading Strategies that will help your students effectively compr......

Today I introduced these self-assessment cards to my third graders.  Let me tell you, it was a total success!  First, I passed out the cards to each student and we talked about the meaning of each card.  We then practiced using them.  I modeled how to solve an addition problem that reviewed the commutative property of addition by 'thinking aloud'.  Students were then assigned a similar problem and told to use the self-assessment cards to show me their level of understanding of the concept.  I walked around and asked students to explain their thinking.  They then shared their thinking with a friend (students sitting next to them).  I then had a student explain their thinking to the class and asked for volunteers to add to the explanation.  It was truly wonderful math talk for the second day of school. Below is a short explanation of each level. Level 3: Green This card shows me that students understood the mini-lesson taught, ar......