Spring has sprung my friends! The weather here in Arizona has been so nice, I’ve tried to take advantage of it before it gets to 110F. When the weather is nice, I like to find ways to take my students outside. There are almost endless possibilities for an outdoor classroom,
This blog post is long overdue. Every time I put up a question box on instagram, I always have new teachers asking for classroom management tips. I’m here to share with you some tools to tuck into your toolbox, but I want to begin with this: Not every tip will
We’ve all been there. You are in the middle of teaching, and a student raises their hand. Expecting a question, you call on them, only to hear “can I go to the bathroom?” Ok… so the title of this blog post is slightly misleading. I’m not here to tell you
The past two years of teaching have been TOUGH. We are all extremely tired and need a break. I see posts all over social media saying “use your sick days!” and “don’t feel guilting for taking a mental health day!” But here’s the thing- many of those posts are from
Whenever I play review games before a test, I always have some sort of prize students can win. There is a LOT more buy in when there is a prize at stake, even if it’s only worth a few cents! Here are a list of prize ideas your students will
It doesn’t matter if you’re a headstrong toddler, adult, or somewhere in between…. we all like to do things our own way. Our own opinions matter! Sometimes we forget the importance of providing students opportunities to have choice in how they learn or how they want to be assessed. Some
As a new teacher, pacing was one of the HARDEST things for me to get right. Some classes would finish right on time, others would finish early, and with others I would run out of time to get through everything. Some kids just work faster than others and will complete
When I moved to my current school the department chair made it clear that we should “teach bell to bell.” I understand the logic in this, and sometimes class does last exactly 50 minutes. But if EVERY teacher taught bell to bell EVERY period, students would never have time to
Group work. Love it? Or bane of your existence? Have you ever assigned a group assignment and had any of these problems? Students spend more time socializing than working. One or two students do the majority of the work. By the end of the project the quality of work turned
It can be frustrating when students are absent on lab days. You spend a lot of time setting up and often spend money out of your own pocket for supplies. If you are doing labs often or teach multiple preps, dealing with student absences just gets harder to juggle. By
When we ask students to review each other’s work and give feedback, we often hear…“Why did you do that?” or“It’s just wrong.” or“It’s good” (even when it’s not). Teaching students to give effective feedback is hard and takes a lot of student practice. And then more practice. If you are
Do you have students that shut down in your class and don’t do any work? Most of the time there is always a reason for this. There could be issues going on in the home, issues with friends, or health problems. But did you ever consider you as the teacher
