One of the most highly discussed items that is currently impacting educators across the country is the rising cost of health care. Insurance plans that school districts are able to provide include extremely high deductibles and very high premiums (especially if you are carrying your children or entire family). Today, I want to share my personal experience with health insurance ...
GimKit: Up Your Student Engagement
Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet... Have you tried them all? When the weather turns nicer and your students are dreaming of summertime, their attention starts to wane. Whew, it is hard to keep students engaged! It is the perfect time to introduce something new into your classroom. One of my favorite new games to play in class is Gimkit! Gimkit was created by a high school student for ...
5 Benefits to Using Interactive Notebooks
/>Let’s talk Interactive Notebooks! Do you use them with your students? I did for several years and really loved many of the aspects -- the colors, the way everything was in one place and the way they support student ownership. In partnership with Five Star®, I wanted to share 5 benefits to using Interactive Notebooks and why you should try them in your classroom. This post has been ...
Essential Math Manipulatives
If you have been around the blog a while, then you know that I am all about conceptual understanding and love incorporating manipulatives. Manipulatives are some of the best ways to introduce a new mathematical concept and are the foundation of the C-R-A. They help to form a solid foundation. Previously, we have written about the different math supplies and teacher supplies that we ...
5 WAYS TO USE PEAR DECK
One of my favorite ways to introduce new content to my students is to use the website Pear Deck. If you are using Google Slides or PowerPoints to share new content with your students, Pear Deck is a tool that needs to be in your digital toolbox. Today, I wanted to share 5 ways to use Pear Deck in your classroom: Pear Deck has generously offered readers an extended trial on the ...
Developing a Number Sense Routine
When we surveyed math intervention teachers about the struggles that students have, there were several themes that we heard, and “a lack of number sense” sums up the most prominent one. From my personal experience, I can attest that number sense does come easier for some students than others. It might be why adults say things like, “I am not a math person.” Is it possible that we are ...
Tips for Managing Small Group Instruction
One of the biggest hindrances to pulling students into small groups is the big question of, “What are the other kids doing while I am working with my small group?” About half of the questions I get about small group instruction revolve around the idea of how to keep students who are not at the small group table engaged and working. Here are a few tips on managing small group ...
Why Intervention Should be Skill Based
Over the past several months, I have been sharing quite a bit about best practices that surround the concept of math intervention. We have discussed strategies for improving number sense, getting started, and what to do when your students are all on different pages. Today, I want to discuss why I believe that a skill-based approach is the best one to take. SKILL-BASED MATH ...
Building Staff Culture
If you are interested in implementing some small things that go along way to increase positive staff culture, then this post is for you! Personally, I believe administrators should take charge of implementing (though I’m not sure if many administrators read this blog) these school-wide activities because I think it has a greater impact on the entire staff culture. However, I do think ...
5 Steps to Effective Small Group Instruction
Anyone who has taught a day or two can tell you that it is a rare event that you might teach a new concept and 100% of your students master said concept. I would say that 99.99% of the time, there is a student or a group of students who are not ready for mastery. Potentially they have gaps in the skills needed to master the concept, or maybe they just need more time. Today, I am ...
