The first three steps of the RULER method–recognize, understand, and label emotions–seem fairly straightforward and academic compared to the next two–express and regulate. Here is where the emotion comes out, and there’s a lot of potential for both healing and harm. So if there’s danger in expressing emotions, why should we (teachers) even go there? Because one way or another, kids are going to express their emotions. The questions isn’t if our students will express their emotions, the question is: will they express themselves in ways that are helpful or unhelpful? So in this post we’ll talk about helping students express their emotions in ways that are appropriate, healthy, and…
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How Genre Study Promotes Problem Solving
I’m going to finish up this loooong series on genre study with a few short posts. This one is simple: Year long genre study promotes problem solving in your reading workshop. Almost every reading teacher teaches genre, but we don’t always teach genre for all it’s worth. Sometimes we do this: We set up a bulletin board, download some genre anchor charts, go over the charts with students, and ask them to identify genre here-and-there throughout the year. This approach helps students identify genre, but it doesn’t do much else. Their understanding of genre will remain superficial. If they do a lot of reading, their understanding of genre will deepen,…
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A Non-Designers Guide to Creating a Simple Brand for Teachers Pay Teachers (Steps 1-3)
Branding isn’t just for hardcore TpT sellers, it’s for everyone. Here’s why simple brand can benefit you, even if you’re a novice TpT seller: With a brand, you’re never starting from scratch. When you create new resources you already have fonts, colors, and templates picked out. A brand makes your resources stand out. You want buyers to recognize your logo, colors and cover designs. A brand makes your store look cohesive. That being said, here are three posts to get you started: First, choose a color palette. Next, choose a font family. Finally, create a template for product covers. Voila! You’re a TpT pro.
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Labeling Emotions, Social-Emotional Learning (RULER, part 3)
All this talk about social emotional learning may make you nervous. Sure, you say, I’m a professional…but I’m not a professional therapist. Fair point, but emotional intelligence can be taught–and you are a professional teacher. All this to say that this next skill, labeling emotions, is the easiest to teach using traditional (read: non-therapy) teaching methods. Labeling emotions comes down to developing and using an extensive emotional vocabulary. And whomever you are (assuming you’re a teacher), you have a lot of experience with expanding student’s vocabularies. Labeling Emotions: What it Means & Why it’s Important We label an emotion when we describe it using the most precise word we can…
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Sketch Your Genre Unit in 6 Steps
If you want to teach your reading curriculum through a series of in-depth genre units (if you want to implement genre study), here’s your planning mantra: Collect, Immerse, Teach, Notice, Define, Analyze. In this post, I’ll summarize each of the six steps and explain how you can organize your lessons (all lessons, even the ones that aren’t genre-specific) logically across a unit. Here we go! Six Steps to Genre Unit Collect Quality Texts: This part is all you, the teacher. When you begin planning your genre unit, collect a big ol’ stack of grade-level picture books from the genre (bring one of those plastic crates on wheels to the library…or…
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A Regular Person’s Guide to Creating a TpT “Brand,” Step 3: Create a Template for Product Covers
Now that you’ve chosen a color palette and a font family, you’re ready to create a template for product covers. Creating product covers has been challenging for me. I feel more confident creating resources than I do with the packaging (I’m not a designer!). I used to start from scratch each time I designed a cover. Now, I use a simple template for most of my covers. It looks something like this: This template gives me space for a title, a subtitle, and an image. The two text boxes prevent me from squishing as many words as possible onto the cover. Here’s how some of the finished products look: How…
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Understanding Emotions, Social-Emotional Learning (RULER, part 2)
Once we’ve recognized (noticed) our feelings, we can try to understand them. This can be more difficult then it sounds, especially at school. Classrooms are busy and emotional resources are stretched thin (1 teacher:26 kids). Understanding takes time and energy, and both can seem like limited resources at school. But there are things we can do to help ourselves and our students increase our capacity for understanding. Here are some tips: Ask Thoughtful Questions & Listen to the Answers Sometimes we need to talk through our feelings in order to understand them. When kids are overwhelmed by their feelings, they may need an adult to scaffold this conversation for them.…
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How to Prepare & Conduct an Excellent Read Aloud
I’m a great big fan of genre study, and genre study relies on genre immersion (reading the genre throughout workshop: read alouds, guided reading, independent reading, etc.). One of the best ways to expose students to a new genre is though daily read alouds. Teachers love sharing awesome picture books with students, but sometimes the the purpose of read alouds become muddy. Are read alouds meant to mini lessons? Are they like a whole group version of guided reading? Are they just for fun? The first step to planning an excellent read aloud is to remember what read alouds are for. What Are Read Alouds FOR? It’s useful to refer…
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A Regular Person’s Guide to Creating a TpT “Brand,” Step 2: Choose a Font Family
To reiterate, this short series is for non-graphic designers who simply want to make their TpT products attractive, recognizable and cohesive. I’m using “branding” very loosely (and somewhat skeptically) here. So, step 1 was to choose a color palette. Step 2 is to choose a font family… About Font When I began creating products for TpT I was lost when it came to font. I mistakenly thought that a bunch of random fonts thrown together on the page would make products look more exciting. Instead, it just made them look busy. I’ve seen lots of people on TpT and Instagram who use cute (purchased and downloaded) fonts really well. These…
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Recognizing Emotions & Using the Mood Meter for Social Emotional Learning (RULER, part 1)
The RULER method for social emotional learning begins with recognizing emotions. Recognizing emotions simply means noticing the emotional territory we’re in. It doesn’t require us to name the emotion (that comes later), just notice. How Will Recognizing Emotions Help My Students? Recognition is the first step toward healthy expression and regulation. Ignored emotions become exaggerated, painful, and uncontrollable. Noticing a feeling, especially a negative one, can alleviate some of our emotional distress. When students notice they’re feeling a strong emotion they can: Reflect on what they need from themselves or others. Communicate their feelings. Ask for help if they need it. How Can I Help My Students Recognize their Emotions?…