December is always a crazy teaching month. To combat the mayhem we play a lot of games and spend this time reviewing what we’ve learned during the first half of the year! I recently sent out these 3 free games in my monthly newsletter and I wanted to share them with you here in case anyone didn’t […]

Happy December! Hannukah has already started and Christmas is right around the corner. As with every year, I have no idea how the holidays arrive so quickly, but here I am scurrying around to get my gifts in order. I have been wanting to write a post like this for awhile, so I thought I […]

Asking questions while reading is such an important skill for students to learn. There are many activities to help students practice questioning, but I find the best way is to through reading and modeling.   “Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions.” (Paul & Elder 2000)   When teaching students to ask questions […]

Are you on the lookout for some quick and simple Halloween activities this October? Halloween is a big deal up here in Salem, Massachusetts, but I totally get that in the school world this holiday isn’t too much to think about… other than all.the.candy. Sometimes the days leading up to (or following) Halloween just need some […]

I wanted to take some time today to share (3) different retelling strategies that work with my first grade students. Hopefully you find them useful as well! At the beginning of the year, I teach my students the 3 ways to read a book: read the illustrations, read the text, and retelling the story. These […]

Setting up Writers Workshop in first grade can be a little tricky. You have students who aren’t reading. You may have some who don’t yet recognize all their letters. So how are they supposed to sit and write for an extended period of time?! In my classroom, I spent the first few weeks easing my […]

What do those first few moments in your classroom look like? Do you run a morning meeting? Morning tubs? Morning work? A morning meeting was something I always wanted to do in my first grade classroom. It was the perfect way to start our day with respect for one another, come together as a community, […]

I don’t know about you, but I am always on the hunt for new and engaging math centers! When my students are working independently on their math games/centers that means I am able to successfully meet with my small, guided math groups. It’s a win-win. Recently I went to an escape the room with some […]