Distance learning is on everyone’s mind. It brings up a lot of questions for teachers and one of them is–will I be able to recreate the classroom magic via a computer screen? Sigh. I don’t know. While digitizing reading quizzes I’ve been trying to add things to make assignments more visually appealing. It’s a small thing, but absent bulletin boards, pillows, quiet places, etc. we’re really relying on the small things. One fun thing to do is design a themed header for Google quizzes (through Google Forms). I did this for my The Girl Who Drank the Moon and Charlotte’s Web quizzes. I like the way they turned out! I…
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“To Do” vs. “To Be”–Planning in the Time of COVID-19
I spent the last week of December writing a long, extensive list of goals for 2020. The goals encompassed all aspects of life. By January 1 I had 10 pages of personal, spiritual, professional, relational, financial and parenting goals. Some of the goals were task-oriented, others were more values-based. Either way, I was ready for 2020. Then came the pandemic, tanking TpT sales and a sudden move. So while my values-based goals have become more relevant, my task-oriented goals have become less relevant. I’ve had to adjust my goals and expectations, and with the uncertainty looming over the 2020-2021 school year, more adjustment is sure to come. So I’ve been…
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Expressing Emotions, Social-Emotional Activities, RULER
This summer I completed a series of social emotional activities built around the RULER method for social emotional learning. Over the next few weeks I’d like to share them with you! You can purchase the activities in my TpT store, or use them as inspiration for your own activities. This post will focus on expressing emotions. This was one of the more difficult units to create–expression is valuable, but also risky. We want to help students express emotions in a way that is most likely to yield a good outcome. This unit helps students think through two things: Methods/Options: HOW can I express my emotions? Problem Solving: Which method/option best fits my situation right now?…
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Help Students Read Every Day while Learning From Home: Distance Learning, At-Home Reading Workshop
When school closures rolled across the country last April, teachers quickly adapted to provide digital resources for their students. We were all in survival mode, and a lot of these activities amounted to digital busy work. It was the best we could do. But now we’re faced with the daunting reality of intermittent school closures, or models that combine face-to-face teaching with digital teaching. One of the greatest challenges, I think, to digital teaching is the loss of a daily, reading practice. At school you can monitor and assist student’s daily reading. You can develop reliable routines that help students build reading stamina. But when kids are learning from home,…
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Labeling Emotions, Social-Emotional Activities, RULER
Last month I completed a series of social emotional activities built around the RULER method for social emotional learning. Over the next few weeks I’d like to share them with you! You can purchase the activities in my TpT store, or use them as inspiration for your own activities. This post will focus on labeling emotions. This unit is my favorite in the RULER bundle because it’s all about building an emotional vocabulary, and it lends itself well to some of your usual vocabulary activities. Here’s a peek at some of them: Here’s another feelings journal that expands on the ones in the recognizing and understanding units. Now students find themselves on the mood meter,…
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Recognizing Emotions, Social-Emotional Activities, RULER
Every school year is emotional, but 2019-2020 took a unique toll. We don’t know what our world will be like in the fall, and we don’t know what our classrooms will look like, but we do know students will need a lot of support–academically and emotionally. Last month I completed a series of social emotional activities built around the RULER method for social emotional learning. Over the next few weeks I’d like to share them with you! You can purchase the activities in my TpT store, or use them as inspiration for your own activities. This post will focus on recognizing emotions, which you can learn more about here. The…
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Are You Teaching Face-to-Face or Remotely? Either Way, These Resources Have You Covered.
There’s so much uncertainty about the upcoming fall. Will most be kids in the classroom, or at home? What will classrooms look like? How will we keep kids and teachers safe? All of this makes the already hectic back-to-school rush even more difficult. For my part, I’ve been updating TpT resources so they can be used in the classroom or at home. My main goal (and hope!) is to provide digital resources that structure meaningful reading in the classroom and at home. As I update products I’ll include them here on this running list. The resource fall into these categories: Reading Workshop Routines Reading Instruction/Genre Study Repeated Practice/Test Prep Social…
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Helping Kids Keep a Journal During COVID-19
Now is a great time to encourage kids to practice habits that are truly useful in their daily lives. And nothing is more daily than a daily journal. Keeping a journal helps students process a confusing time, record history from their perspective, and remember a significant time in their own lives. A journal also helps kids reflect on how their personal lives are impacted by global events, and share their feelings with adults who care about them. Want your students to keep a journal? Here are some tips to help them get started! Make it Manageable: A basic structure helps kids get started, but too much structure makes writing burdensome.…
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15 Whimsical Places for Kids to Read While Learning at Home
Practice may make perfect, but repeated practice gets old quickly. How do we keep our kids and students reading day after day? Teachers have lots of strategies for keeping reading fresh. One way is to encourage kids to have some fun when choosing a PLACE to read. At school, we fill our classrooms with props for comfortable reading–pillows, bean bags, camping chairs. Students can choose silly places to read (underneath the teacher’s desk is a favorite). All of this helps break up the monotony that comes with any daily task. Here are some ideas, kids can read… Under a tree. Next to an open window. In the kitchen, while something…
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Use This Hand Drawn Chart to Make Distance Learning Easier
In elementary school, the first six weeks of school are all about building routines. In reading class, this means teaching students to read a book each day, for a sustained period of time. Over the last couple months, all of our routines have been upended. Students have lost the reliable reading routines their teachers worked hard to build, and parents have seen their own routines turned upside down. How can parents manage their child’s schooling while juggling everything else? Here’s a teacher trick… The “I Can” chart. An “I Can” chart lists things students CAN DO during a given part of the day. Kids respond well to positive commands (“read…
