If you're like me, the holiday break gets you thinking about changes, updates, and renewed goals for the classroom. What worked well this semester? Who are the students I still need to reach? How will I reach them? It's almost as if teachers come up with their own New Year's resolutions just for school, which I think is very healthy and reflective! If one of your "school resolutions" is to stock up on new writing resources, I have something perfect for you! I have always been a fan of teaching the 6+1 writing traits, and I finally got around to creating my own posters. I hope there are some ha ..read more

Every year, I tell my writing students that publishing is my favorite step of the writing process. There's just something about having all the messy revising and editing over with and being able to write the "best version" of your story on a fresh, clean page! Kids sometimes ask: A final draft has to be mistake-free, right? Wrong. Even the best writers still have room for improvement when the final draft has been published. Students (and teachers) also tend to concentrate mostly on conventions when they strive for "mistake-free" final drafts, but our budding writers should be thinking of all ..read more

It's hard to believe I've had my little TpT Store since 2011. For the first time this summer, I'll have the opportunity to attend the TpT Forward Conference in Austin so I can learn how to create even better resources for my students and yours! (I'm traveling alone, but I'm actually content with that since I'll be able to focus! I'm a super nerd like that.) As I mentioned in a post from last summer, The Wild Card by Hope and Wade King inspired me to take some major risks and incorporate classroom transformations this year. Believe it or not, I did SIX this year, and my students loved every min ..read more

One of my goals for next year is to help my students really strengthen their sentence control. Many teachers feel daunted by this, so it's no wonder the confusion trickles down to the kids! Understandably, it's hard to keep it all straight: simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, fragments, comma splices, run-ons, etc. On top of that, our budding writers are expected to vary their sentences throughout a written piece! It's like the never-ending writing skill, but it's vital in fourth grade and in life. One thing I can do over the summer (that I actually enjoy) is beef up my co ..read more