and living life one day- and book- at a time
One of my most favorite activities to do with my students is to create book trailers. It allows them to give a summary of a book in a visual format that also gives them the opportunity to utilize their creativity. There are several ways that students can create their book trailers. One is to use …
We started our poetry unit this past week, and by Thursday I was feeling about as “Blah” about poetry as my students. I hadn’t yet broached my favorite poems as I was using one larger poem in each of my grade levels to teach some of the basic poetry terms, so my enthusiasm was really …
It never fails. We create a fabulous written assignment and provide the students with a clear, concise rubric, and when we receive the work, it is far from what we expected. In the last quarter, I gave my students a written assignment and provided them with a rubric. I told the students that the rubric …
Remember when you were younger, and you would wait around watching the bottom of the screen to see if school was magically cancelled, so you could go back to bed and sleep in? I remember praying for snow days when I was a kid. When I became a teacher, I prayed again for snow days …
Have you seen a recent Covid surge at your school since returning from Winter break? When we returned, there were only a few students that were currently quarantined due to Covid; however, as the week progressed more and more students were sent home. The flu hit us hard right before Christmas break, and now, Covid …
When we returned to school this January, we had the honor to hear a presentation by the 2022 South Carolina Teacher of the Year, Ann Carter. It was extremely motivating and thought provoking. Her challenge to us as teachers was to be Gold Stars in our students’ lives. The relationships that we make with our …
Last year, at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, teachers were given a very daunting task: teach a lesson a day on 15 topics for which someone else has written the lessons and assessments. All of these had to be completed in the first three weeks of school along with the usual MAP testing. …
Last Friday I felt it coming on. I had been sneezing and coughing more than usual, and I even felt a little achy. I did nothing, but start drinking plenty of fluids and tried to rest. Rest, I told myself, was important to finish out the last week before winter break. By Monday, I kept …
As soon as I heard Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” I knew right away that I wanted to purchase a copy of her book. I pre-ordered the book in January 2021, and I have been waiting a long time for it to arrive. I was pleasantly surprised when her book, Call Us What …
Get the Christmas Activities for the classroom ready. The Christmas craziness is coming. You know, that time where the kids check out and Christmas break is the following week. Usually, the time leading up to Christmas break, we have students who leave for the holidays, or we have students pulled out for practice for Christmas …