What does a day look like in my classroom? How do we organize and structure our time together? These are two of the most common questions I receive each week, so today I wanted to share with you a ...
Blog
Reflecting our Our Learning: Plus and Delta
From Morning Meeting to Dismissal our school days are packed with important learning and some days it all seems like a race. Taking the time to slow down and reflect on the day is often placed on the ...
Number Talks: How and Why?
Number talks (Kindergarten, 1st Grade & 2nd Grade) offer a bridge between conceptual understanding and mental math. During mini-lessons and Guided Math, I am ALL about manipulatives. Base 10 ...
Differentiating Math Centers with Dice
Differentiation - a word that drives fear into the teacher heart and requires a dramatic eye-roll during a staff meeting. So many times when we hear DI, it seems like this burdensome task is ...
Book Recommendations: Student to Student
Motivating students to become wild readers is always one of my top priorities each school year. From ridiculously engaging read-aloud voices to weekly themed shelves, I am willing to pull out all the ...
Sound: 1st Grade Science
Our school has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards and one of my favorite units in 1st grade is our Sound Unit. NGSS asks that students conduct experiments to explain that vibrations make ...
Making 10 Centers, Mini-Lessons, & Online Tools
10 becomes such an important benchmark for students, especially as we head into addition and subtraction. Becoming fluent in 10 is a fantastic tool for mental math, and when students begin adding ...
Narrative Writing Mentor Texts
Narrative Writing Mentor Texts This year our 1st grade team has transitioned to using Mentor Texts to teach and guide students through our writing genres. It's my first year knee-deep in mentor texts ...
Library Book Display Shelf
Over the summer I shared with you all some of my favorite classroom resources and things I consider 'must-haves' for our primary classrooms. At the *very* top of the list was a library display shelf ...
10 Frame Song & Printable Lyrics
Music is my go-to resource for helping student internalize difficult material, for smoothing and quieting transitions, and for adding excitement to our classroom. My 1st graders absolutely love Hedi ...
Apps for Making 10
The second week in October, our 1st grade focus was working with numbers to 10 - subitizing, multiple representations, and later in the week making 10. 10 becomes such an important benchmark for ...
1st Week of Daily 5 Choices
If you've read my blog before, you probably know that I use a Daily 5 structure to organize our reading time. I love the freedom, choice, and time spent reading/writing it offers my students. One of ...