Today’s That Thing You Do! segment is authored by Ali Capasso. Ali teaches 2nd grade on our Title I campus. I’m excited for Ali to share her wisdom about facilitating an environment where readers talk about the books they’re reading. You can follow Ali on Twitter @MrsCapasso Every day, Timothy stops by my door. We …
That Thing You Do! segment posted on Thursdays throughout this year took a short hiatus while I wrapped up end-of-school tasks. I’m so pleased today to showcase a teacher on our campus who worked tirelessly this year setting new goals for herself and her young writers. Andi Spaulding is a kindergarten teacher on the PreK-6 …
Recognize these signs? Exhaustion. This is a fatigue so deep that there’s no way to “turn it off,” no matter how badly you want to. It’s deep in your bones. The kind of tired where you just want to ooze into your bed and disconnect from life. Extreme graveness. Realizing you go hours without smiling …
The school year is over. Wednesday was the last day for our students. Thursday and Friday were professional development days. Saturday was a half-day workday. It was an incredible year, but I have to be honest. By noon on Saturday, I was knackered. All I wanted to do was sleep. And then sleep some more. …
HuffPost published a piece in August 2015 on the amount of money that teachers spend on their classrooms. They created a hashtag, #mymoneymyclass, on Facebook and Twitter inviting teachers to share how much they had spent in getting ready for the 2015-2016 school year. I’ve read similar articles that estimate the average dollar amount teachers …
Yesterday my daughter took me to breakfast so we could celebrate Mother’s Day. Just the two of us. Alone. Don’t get me wrong, we love the rest of our clan. Getting to eat alone and chatter away about anything and everything, though, was the best gift this momma could have received. Before we left, Paige …
They sit on the floor in front of me eagerly waiting for me to turn the page. They’ve made predictions, shared ideas they’re inferring, made connections to the poetry and informational texts we’ve read this week. They ask if the author has written other books. There’ve been so many questions. Questions that led us to …
Just this weekend I listened to Cornelius Minor’s interview at Heinemann and I can’t stop thinking about the power of advocating for our students. If you have not yet listened to the podcast or at least read the transcript, do that ASAP. It’s a game changer. The personal work that Mr. Minor is intentionally doing …
Let’s pretend for a minute that next year your campus will no longer provide pull out services for students with unique instructional needs. Neither the SPED teacher nor the ELL teacher will be taking students from your room to provide “special” services. How in the world is that going to work? Meetings are scheduled with …
It’s been months since I read Kelly Gallagher’s book, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom, but something he wrote there has hounded me ever since. I want students to take the wisdom they encounter in the books they are reading and apply that wisdom to the …
