Teacherof20

In my time in the classroom I've seen the teachers often spend so much time teaching routines and structures thereby neglecting the content. In this blog entry, I'll talk about how to leave routines the same, to free up time for teaching the content. 1. Teach the same game with different content. There are many games floating around that are all the same basic principle. Teach it, then change up the content it teaches. For example, in this October Freebie , there is a Spin n' Jump game. You can have this be an activity at a station all year, with different content. The Spin n' Jump game could be about 3D Shapes, sight words, vocabulary terms with non-linguistic representations...you name it! The game is the same, but you'd be reinforcing different content based on what you're learning that week. Likewise, with this Roll n' Graph game, found in the same freebie, you can use the same format, and change up the content in the game. I've used roll n' g...

Top 5 things to do to keep your class engaged the last month of school Here are some things to keep your students motivated and engaged in class the last few weeks of school. It can be hard to keep their attention when they've checked out for summer break (even though we're only in April!!). Here are some tools you can use to help students feel motivated to finish out the year strong! 1. Balloon pop motivation Set up balloons at the top of the whiteboard (where kids can’t reach) and the last few minutes of class pop one a day (if they've had a good day). Inside have incentives, such as no shoes the last 10 minutes of class, have a dance party, have free time with blocks and board games, etc. If the class doesn't have a good day that day they don't get to pop a balloon! 2. Games, games, games Have students bring in their favorite board game to play with classmates at a designated time of the day. If you need to cover academics during this time, board...

This week’s talented teacherpreneur is Johanna from ThatTeacherJo . She started creating resources when, as a bilingual teacher, she couldn’t find any quality Spanish resources. She figured if she needed them, other teachers did as well. She’s been growing her store ever since! The supplement resources to the Daily Five and CAFE she’s created are the most valuable resources she’s made. They have helped her structure her literacy block which was a great starting point for her 9 years ago when she became a teacher. She tells any aspiring teacherpreneur that if you create resources for your class, most likely others will need them too. She’s often downloaded others products and used them in her class, to which she is very grateful. Take a chance and go for it. There are many tips on how to get started out there. Her next venture as a teacherpreneur is to learn how to create digital resources on google slides. It is top on her to do list for the summer!

This week's Talented Teacherpreneur is Angie from Ser Bilingue Rocks! She has been teaching for six years, and was originally inspired to become a teacherpreneur because of the lack of Spanish resources she had access to. Her store has steadily been increasing in growth, and she is now a very proud teacherpreneur because she creates resources in both languages that help other teachers and students from all over! The most valuable resource in her store, and the one that's inspired her to create more hands-on engaging resources for her classroom and her store, is the 2D Shapes booklets. They are available in both languages, but her Spanish version, " Figuras Geometricas 2D " is her top seller! Her advice to aspiring teacherpreneurs? Do your research. When she opened her store, she didn't upload a resource for another 2 months after that! She was busy researching how to create products, including how to write descriptions for the products, giving credit to o...

I f you teach K-2nd, you know that you have a certain amount of minutes dedicated to each subject. Yet the increasing rigor in the standards require kindergarten teachers to have their class reading by the end of the year. So, we find ways to incorporate ELA skills into content areas while still teaching content area standards. We hope our kindergarten science units have some grade level text. How can we incorporate ELA into science units successfullly? Here are 3 steps you can take: 1. Find grade level text that talks about what you're teaching. Some good resources are Reading A-Z. While most of their books don't directly address the Kindergarten Science Curriculum, they do contain certain science themes appropriate for kindergarten.  Thi s water clarity reader ,  this  weather reader , and  this  "how objects move"  science predictable reader meet the Texas kinder TEKS. They include a predictable reader and a video that reads the book alou...

This week's talented teacherpreneur is DianaJo from DianaJo's Math and More ! She loves to help students that are struggling with math. So much so, that she has tutored over 200 students one on one, and gained many valuable insights to lower achieving students that can help them succeed! She initially heard of TpT when a friend of hers retired, and encouraged her to create and sell products. The idea of being able to create anything she wanted really drew her. The most valuable product she's made for her store has been her Math and ART! products. Most of her work has been with struggling students. She had these kids in mind when she created Math and ART! These products really help struggling students because they are self correcting and fun! One thing she'd like to know more about is incorporating STEAM into her math class especially. She hopes to do some research on this and offer related products in the coming year. After all, learning happens best when we c...

There are five simple steps I follow for my guided reading lesson in kindergarten. It doesn't matter if I've hashed out what I'm doing with my group for hours in advance, or if I'm just fumbling through that particular week, these five steps are easy to follow no matter what amount of planning you've done! 1. Phonemic Awareness: the best bang for your buck in the phonemic awareness realm is blending and segmenting phonemes because those are the skills most directly tied to reading. If the assessment your district uses requires your students to substitute or omit phonemes, then be sure you're working towards that goal during this portion of the lesson. Otherwise, focus on the blending and segmenting during a guided reading lesson in kindergarten. Once students have mastered this, use this time to briefly review blending and segmenting and maximize time spent reading the book (Step 4 of the guided reading lesson). If you'd like more ideas on differentiating ...