Please tell me I'm not alone in having a giant bin full of Beanie Babies... I asked for these little stuffed toys for every holiday for years and years of my childhood. Now... over 20 years later I've moved these stinking Beanies from place to place. Classroom to classroom thinking... "I'll use these someday." Push [...]

If you've followed along with me at all... you probably know how much I LOVE sticky notes! They transform my classroom, engage my students, and they even help my own kiddos clean up their room. (I've got some cute sticky note student resources here!) When I was in the classroom full time, I learned an [...]

If you love teaching in thematic units, you may already know that I do too! There are so many reasons that I love teaching with thematic units. Whether you use them once in a while or on a regular basis, it's great to have a list to come back to of some great thematic units [...]

I remember at some point during my educational training, thematic units went OUT... and so many teachers seemed relieved. At that point, with my lack of experience I didn't really mind either way. All I knew was that it made it easier for me to submit my subject units when they weren't really tied together. [...]

Literacy centers are one of my favorite times of the school day. Teaching reading is my passion and I want to keep students engaged in meaningful activities while I meet and confer with small groups of students.  One of my favorite word work centers is word building mats. These mats are so versatile. They have [...]

I love ALL THINGS STICKY NOTES! I don't know if I love them more, or if my students do. Typically if I want to snazz up a reading lesson, all I have to do to boost engagement is somehow involve a sticky note or two for my students. My tasks and organization became even more [...]

Although my maternity leave began almost 2 years ago (this seems impossible to believe), this post has been on my mind. In fact I have a whole set of posts planned out to share about how I planned for my maternity leave from my first grade classroom, but they slip away from my mind as [...]

Teaching reading is a huge passion of mine, and has always been really. Well , if I'm being honest, first it was a great mystery to me. I was afraid when I began my educational training that I would never be able to "teach" students how to read? Watching it come true as a first [...]

As the school year is off to a good start, I like to reflect upon and think about the ways that I use certain activities, or types of activities in my classroom. One of my favorite category of resources to create and use (and one that has always been a student favorite) is the color [...]

Teaching reading is one of my greatest passions, as you probably already know if you've been reading along. But as much as I love reading with and to my students... as much as I loved listening to discussions... I wasn't really sure how to balance writing good chapter questions. In the beginning I struggled with [...]