One of the battles I have been fighting throughout my teaching career is how not to lose mentor texts. I know right! I want to use high quality texts, and I love it when my students want to read and... Continue Reading →
This post is part 2 in a three part series on re-thinking how I teach personal narratives. Part 1, about a new way that I tried to generate small moment ideas worth writing about is linked at the bottom of... Continue Reading →
Seeing as I always gather great ideas from others online, I thought it only fair to share this "virtual book series" reading unit for grade 2 that my co-teacher Ms. Yuka and I recently completed. The lessons are listed via... Continue Reading →
Seeing as I always gather great ideas from others online, I thought it only fair to share this "virtual opinion" writing unit for grade 2 that my co-teacher Ms. Yuka and I recently completed. The lessons are listed via image... Continue Reading →
One of my professional goals for this school year was to make design thinking a more integral part of the curriculum, but not as a stand-alone activity, rather purposefully integrated. The whole "less is more concept," especially since there never... Continue Reading →
It all started by accident really. Just before recess. On Friday. Out of a need to recognize and give a voice to those students who were consistently acting as role models for the others in the class. I pulled the... Continue Reading →
The impetus behind this idea came from constantly reading over the Grade 2 Common Core standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.6 which basically states that students should, "with guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in... Continue Reading →
Eventually the time will come when we ask our students to self-reflect and/or assess their writing. Sometimes in the form of a rubric - sometimes in the form of a checklist - two stars and a wish, whatever you want... Continue Reading →
Born out of lack of success in having students independently use their class word wall, high frequency word lists, or personal spelling dictionaries to edit their writing my co-teacher @YYteach and I decided to give the Don't and Do spelling strategy... Continue Reading →
