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Are you ready for a new school year? As the end of summer is approaching, you may be thinking about how to get yourself more organized and prepared for the new school year ahead. Many ideas of how to make the new school year the best one yet might be
We have reached the final home stretch of the school year! For many, these last few weeks can be a bit of a whirlwind from end-of-the-year celebrations, awards, field trips, parties, graduations, packing up your classroom, and just wrapping up all of those loose ends of the school year. You
Welcome to Unit 7! This unit is all about communities, culture, and civilizations. This is the main hub for all my resources, tips, tricks, project ideas, and freebies for this exciting unit! But first, here are all the ways you can connect with me: * My Facebook group has tons
Unit 2 focuses on characters and is the first fictional unit for the year. Using fables and folktales, we will learn about characters. This unit will incorporate many fun and creative activities. Introducing the Unit I begin this unit with an anchor chart focusing on the essential question. During this
Immediately after the Review + Routines weeks, CA and National Edition teachers transition into a unit on rules and government, which I think is pretty fitting! We transition from talking about classroom rules and expectations to larger-scale ideas.
What is the Schwa? “Schwa” is such a funny sounding word to describe what’s actually the most common vowel sound in the English language. It may be common, but it’s not always well understood by elementary teachers. So what is it, anyway? According to the Oxford Language Dictionary, it’s “the
Jumping into a new unit is fun and exciting for both you and your students. Follow these three tips to make the most of your new unit! Vocab Check – With Your Kid Glasses On One of the biggest hurdles in a new unit is vocabulary. Some of that is
Teaching children to read is perhaps the single most important job we have as elementary school teachers. Reading is the foundation for everything! There have been a lot of theories and much debate about the best strategies for teaching reading. I’ve spent a lot of time studying literacy—enough to know
Now, I have to be honest with you. As much as I liked the unit concepts for Unit 9 of Benchmark Advance, I rarely ever made it through the whole unit with as much intention as I would have liked to. My class has done a project that ties into
It’s time to take back the classroom. Too often we hear of teachers that teach 90% of their day with their students staying in one spot. And we get it, the chaos that ensues from moving around can be overwhelming, to say the least. But we also know there is
The “three-reads” method is something that I started implementing while planning for my Benchmark Advance reading lessons. This method actually became an integral part of my planning templates. I have found great success with this method for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, I think it fosters a love of
Have you ever taken more than one week to get to all the week’s lessons in a Benchmark Advance unit? Of course you have! There’s just SO MUCH. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard overwhelmed teachers wonder how we’re supposed to fit it all in. I can
