Community in the Classroom…what is it, and why is it important?  Simply put, community in the classroom is the culture of learning and expectations that each teacher sets up for their own classroom. The goal of community in the classroom is to enable students to learn, feel secure, and grow to their highest potential. In a classroom with community, students can easily learn, grow, and thrive! Why is Community in the Classroom Important?  Effective teachers in every grade, from K-12, will tell you that from Day 1 of the school year, establishing community in the classroom should be y ..read more

I’m always looking for new fun and engaging problem-based learning activities to incorporate into my classroom. When I learned about Tract I was intrigued with this unique concept and knew I had to find out more. I’m excited to share what I learned about Tract and how you can incorporate it in your classroom. What is Tract? Tract is an online platform whose goal is to engage students in project-based learning by putting them at the center of the learning process. There are two key components of Tract that make it different from other online learning platforms. First, are the teachers. The tea ..read more

Now more than ever, it’s important for our students to be hearing information about nutrition and healthy eating habits as often as possible, including in their classrooms. As teachers, we all know how important repetition is for learning. The same is true when our primary students are learning about nutrition and healthy eating habits. It’s never too early to start getting your students excited about being healthy. While this may seem like one more thing to add to your plate, I assure you this amazing Let’s Eat Healthy program from the Dairy Council Of California will fit perfectly into your ..read more

Prior to this spring, I would have told you that the thought of never going outside was ludicrous.  Then the Covid pandemic hit and now I realize that anything is possible.  Even though we are on summer break, as a kindergarten teacher I am still trying to find fun ways to help my students process all the changes in our world while facilitating learning opportunities at home.  I am so excited to partner with the makers of OFF! ® Repellents who created “The Never Starting Tales” to provide some fun and engaging learning activities for my students and you ..read more

Using a Cricut in the classroom can be a huge blessing! Don’t believe me? Let me show you exactly what I mean! Saving Money using Cricut in the Classroom My Cricut has allowed me to make staff, student, and room mom gifts cheap and easy. Here are a few examples: Make Christmas ornaments as gifts for your students or have the students help make them as family gifts. Many times you can find ornaments for a great price at dollar stores and then affix vinyl to your ornaments. Create Christmas stockings to help decorate your classroom for your students. I also found stockings at the dollar store ..read more

I have never seen my students more excited about writing as when I told them we were going to write a real book together.  You guys – their eyes lit up and a giant smile grew across their face.  Then one of my sweet kiddos asked “A real book?” “Yes!” I responded with excitement, “a real book like this,” and I held up one of their favorite classroom read alouds.  They cheered and high-fived each other.  Publishing a class book was not only fun but it was super easy with Studentreasures.  This post is sponsored by Studentreasures – but rest assured that I only recommend ..read more

As a kindergarten teacher one of my primary learning goals during the year is to teach my students to read.  However, learning to read is hard.  And humans, in general, do not gravitate towards things that are hard to do.  In fact, doing hard things often creates negative feelings. I don’t want my students to think negatively about reading – I want them to LOVE reading.  That is why I take intentional steps to instill a love of reading in addition to teaching the how to. Here’s a few things I do: 1.  Model It! You might not think they are watching or listeni ..read more

Let me just lay it out there – indoor recess is not for wimps!  I remember my first year teacher and my first indoor recess.  That is a day I don’t ever want to repeat.  From that day forward I vowed to be prepared for indoor recess! Today I want to share my best tips and tricks for indoor recess. Coordinated Movement in the Classroom Kids need to move and trying to keep that from happening just doesn’t work so well.  So instead, let them move.  I’ve learned that just like any other activity in the classroom, it is important to teach your students the procedures for m ..read more

Sometimes in the primary grades we get so focused on teaching the decoding skills that come with learning to read that it becomes easy to overlook reading fluency. Today I am so excited to share a fun and engaging way to work with beginning readers on their reading fluency. If you would have asked me as a first or second year teacher if my kindergarten students could perform a readers theatre I would have told you ‘NO WAY!’  But over the years, as I’ve gotten more confident with myself I have dared to try many new things in the classroom.  Some of them were flops – but some of ..read more

It’s November here, and that means one thing in the United States . . . the start of the holiday season.  November is the month of Thanksgiving and there is no better time to teach our students about what it means to be thankful or have gratitude.  Teaching thankfulness is my goal in November. Should I Teach Thankfulness? You might be wondering if it is really necessary to teach the concept of thankfulness.  Is that our job as classroom teachers?  Can you even teach someone to be thankful?  I get where you are coming from as these were questions I asked myself when I ..read more