This year, thanks to the fabulous guidance of Kristen from Easy Teaching Tools, I dove in headfirst with a Class Instagram for my Gifted and Talented Kindergartners, first graders, and second graders, and my students and parents are absolutely LOVING it! I started the year managing it myself, but now that we have a small class set of iPad minis,… Read More

Student-led Conferences are one of my FAVORITE ways for my students to take ownership over their learning and progress in the classroom.  I have successfully held Student-led Conferences in second and third grade (spring semester) in lieu of traditional Parent Teacher Conferences by using individualized “portfolio style” presentations.  There are three essential steps that make Student-led Conferences low prep, stress-free,… Read More

 Happy Thursday, teacher friends!  Today, I’m sharing with you my top five favorite “magic tricks” for smooth, easy, quick, and engaging transitions in your classroom, guaranteed to keep you from pulling your hair out!  A classroom “transition” is defined as any time students are moving from one activity to the next, and very often moving from one location of your… Read More

One of my  favorite Responsive Classroom philosophies is the “You break it…You fix it,” concept, also known as “Apology of Action.”“Apology of Action” is featured in The First Six Weeks of School resource book and essentially, encourages students to not only apologize through words, but through actions.  After all, isn’t that a LIFE SKILL as well?  There are MANY mistakes… Read More