I loved to teach fiction narrative writing at the end of the year. Students are always excited to finally get the chance to make up their own stories and they find fiction narratives fun to write. It’s so easy to engage kids in fiction writing, even when they are otherwise distracted by sunny skies, so this is a great unit to teach after testing. Another great reason to teach fiction narrative writing in quarter four is that it reviews many previously taught skills. Your students will have already been introduced to crucial elements of fiction like interesting leads, details, and dialogue. Th ..read more

It’s that time of year again. Every teacher’s favorite season . . . testing season. But preparing for standardized tests doesn’t have to be difficult. Today I am sharing 5 easy ways to help boost writing test scores. I firmly believe that the best way to help your students become better writers is to make writing fun. Each of these strategies is designed to develop writing skills and increase students’ love of writing. We all do better on tasks we enjoy. 1. Keep things simple  This first piece of advice is counterintuitive to a lot of teachers. But it is good advice for any lesson, inclu ..read more

Leap Day is upon us! Get ready to celebrate Leap Day 2024 in the classroom with these FREE Leap Day Activities. What is Leap Day? February is the shortest month. It usually has 28 days. But every four years, an extra day is added to the calendar. And this is the year! It actually takes 365¼ days for the Earth to orbit the sun. A typical year only has 365 days. If we didn’t observe leap years, it would throw off our seasons. Of course, this would take a long time, say 750 years or so. But eventually, the seasons would even swap. Why Do We Celebrate in February? Adding an extra day to February ..read more

Close reading is an important component of literacy education. It’s essential not only for meeting state standards but also for deepening students’ comprehension skills. However, engaging young learners in this repetitive and meticulous process can be a challenge. Today, I’m sharing 3 tips for selecting the perfect texts for close reading that will help transform the process from a tedious task to a fun learning experience. What is close reading? Close reading is a special reading skill that encourages students to thoroughly dissect and understand a text. It involves scrutinizing words, phra ..read more

Teachers are always on the hunt for easy spelling activities. You want something fun that students will enjoy. But it has to be simple to implement. No one wants to clean up sand or shaving cream every week. You also want it to be effective at helping students learn their spelling words.  So, we created a FREE resource to help. This new resource includes FREE Spelling Activities for students in grades 2-5. These activities are all easy (no cleanup required). They can be used with ANY spelling list. Best of all, because these activities help students focus on parts of words, they also rea ..read more

Grammar – ugh! Every student’s least favorite subject. And many a teacher’s too. This is not a surprise because it’s often boring, tedious, and confusing to teach. But despite your misgivings, teaching grammar is still important in 2024 because it contributes to student success in a variety of subject areas. With the rise of technology and a series of digital aids that make perfecting writing easier than getting everyone logged into their Chromebooks, it would be easy to dismiss teaching grammar as no longer important. Autocorrect fixes most errors before you even see them. Spell check highli ..read more

Teachers have a lot on their minds in December. Holiday concerts, classroom parties, parent gifts, not to mention trying to keep kids focused . . .  One of the most common threads we see in our Facebook groups this time of year is teachers looking for suggestions for easy and inexpensive holiday gifts for students. Let me start by saying you DO NOT have to give your students gifts. Gifting is not a requirement. Even if other teachers in your building give gifts, even if you’ve given gifts in the past, even if your own children often bring home gifts from their teachers, gifting is always ..read more

I love teaching writing. And I am a big fan of writing workshop. So it’s no surprise that one of the most common questions I get asked from teachers is, “How do I teach text dependent writing?” There is a lot of pressure on teachers to help students develop this skill. In fact, I‘m being kind. Many teachers tell me that their admin expects students to master text dependent writing before testing season begins. Even students in third grade. That’s bonkers! Text dependent writing is a challenging skill, and it takes time to develop. But I know it’s all about those test scores. In many classroom ..read more

We’ve all been there—staring at a mountain of complex math curriculum, feeling completely overwhelmed. Your head starts to throb as you thumb through pages and pages of boring lesson plans, multiple problem sets, and homework sheets that go on forever, while you keep a running list of all the extras you need to create or find to keep your students engaged. If only there were a simple way to teach math! Great news! There is!  Our math bundles, available for grades two, three, and four, have everything– and I do mean EVERYTHING–you need to make teaching math easy.  Everything you need ..read more

Do you want your students to remember their spelling words after the test on Friday? Of course you do! That’s the whole point of teaching spelling. But, let’s be honest . . . that doesn’t often happen. So today, I’m sharing 3 simple spelling activities you must try this year to make sure that your students are actually learning how to spell and not just memorizing random words for the test. 1. Explicit Spelling Instruction The first spelling activity you must add to your lesson plans is explicit instruction. If you want your students to become master spellers, you need to intentionally teach ..read more