Host a Classroom Scrabble Tournament!

days. I created a Scrabble Board Assignments seating chart to help me keep track of who went where each day. They earned points based on whether their team won the…

Math is More Than a Numbers Game

…tool for building math vocabulary. Mystery Number Detectives takes only a few minutes a day to play and requires very few materials, but while students are playing the game, they’re…

5 Ways to Make Your Students Smile

…a healthy snack each day. That joke might be a little over used today, but when I told it, it was unexpected and the kids got a good smile out…

Awakened: Hope for the Year Ahead

…its own. In Part One of Awakened, Angela shares many stories of her day-to-day experiences as a new teacher, and it’s clear that her situation was extremely stressful. She then…

Halting Back Talkers in Their Tracks!

…establish Rule 5, “Keep your dear teacher happy.” Step One For a minute or so, five times a day, rehearse the five classroom rules. You call out the rule number;…

Why I Stopped Criticizing Common Core Math

…that celebrities and comedians like to paint a picture of students using number parts and number lines as adults, (ahem–Stephen Colbert) and I laugh right along with them…because using those…

Solving the Hand Raising Problem

Advice from Real Teachers Today I’m excited to introduce a new blog series called Advice from Real Teachers. I’ll regularly I’ll post a call for teacher questions on my Facebook…