Latest on the Blog

4 Easy Steps to Keep Digital Writing Organized in Google Drive

Are you using Google Apps for Education with your students? If you are, or you do a lot of digital writing with your students, this is the post for you!Read on to find out the simple way I organize my student's writing....Before I went paperless in my classroom, I used twin pocket folders to keep my student's writing organized. My first version was one folder with one pocket labeled "Drafts" and the other "Published". After a couple of years I felt they needed one more pocket, so I expertly ... Read the Post

Poem of the Week Activities Plus a FREEBIE!

April is Poetry Month so I thought I would share a bit about how I use Poem of the Week in my classroom. If you read through to the end, there's a FREEBIE waiting for you! When I first started with a new poem each week, we would just read the poem each day and then move on to other literacy based activities. Then as time went on I started creating activities to go along with the poems to help deepen my student's understanding of the poem. I even created my own set of poems because I wanted the ... Read the Post

Earth Day Activities for Any Grade!

Every year I look for a different activity to do with my students on Earth Day. In fact, I often look for several new ideas because I usually make this the focus for the whole week. I've put together a list of my favorite tried and true Earth Day activities that I have used in my classroom over the years.Read on to see the list!Awesome Earth Day Activities for Elementary Students:1. Each year my whole school does a school yard cleanup. We ask students to bring a garden glove from home so we can ... Read the Post

Activities to Use for Any Novel Study

Each year I like to do a different novel study with my students. I'm always on the lookout for novel study activities for any novel. This year I chose the book, "The City of Ember" because it fit in nicely with my science and social studies units (Light and Sound for science and Ancient Civilizations for social studies). We did so many great activities throughout this unit that would work well for ANY novel study so I thought I would compile a list for you! Great activities that you can do with ... Read the Post

12 Strategies to Help Students with ADHD in the Classroom

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of what ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is. If you are reading this post there is an excellent chance you already know what it is because you are dealing with it in your classroom. I'm also going to go out on a limb and assume that you are struggling with a student (or several) and that's why you're here. Dealing with ADHD in the classroom can be a big struggle for the teacher, the student, and the other members of the classroom ... Read the Post

Graphing Activities to add to your Data Management Unit!

What's your favorite color?What's your favorite food?Favorite movie?Favorite sport?Is this how your typical graphing unit goes? Mine too! Until this year, my students were always graphing the same boring answers to the same types of boring questions. This year I decided to make our graphing activities more meaningful. I wanted to increase engagement with math as well but I didn't know how.Then by fluke, I was on lunch duty and a group of my students were flipping water bottles (ughhhh). Normally ... Read the Post