As a middle school ELA teacher, I became aware very quickly that there are NOT enough minutes in a class period to possibly address all of the Common Core State Standards. After experimenting with a variety of different lesson planning and scheduling strategies, I landed on this. Whether you call them warm ups, bell ringers or do nows- ... read more
Fact Fluency and Number Sense in Sixth Grade
A while back I took stock of what we were doing as a math department to improve kids' math fluency. It seemed that every year we had a chunk of kids who came up to sixth grade with amazing fact fluency. We had another chunk who fought with basic addition and multiplication much like struggling readers fought with multisyllabic words. I ... read more
3 Steps to a Classroom Reset
Do you want your students to behave or do you want more than that? If you spend all day managing behaviors, you are EXHAUSTED by 3:00. I know!!! I've been there. It takes so much mental energy, so much executive functioning to anticipate every fire that might start- and to put out all of the ones that do. So, take that after school nap ... read more
Classroom Success Stories: Running on Autopilot
On task behavior starts with shared a value for learning Classroom management or dumb luck? One of my goals as a teacher was always to have one of those classrooms that could run on autopilot. You know the classroom- you walk in and hear a low hum of learning. Different students are engaged in different activities, in different ... read more
Engaged in Math Class
There are three groups of kids sitting in front of me every time I teach a lesson. I think I've finally figured out how to get all of them engaged in math class!! There are the kids the standards had in mind. Engaged. These kids are ready. If the lesson is adding fractions with unlike denominators, these kids understand the difference ... read more
3 Keys to Teaching Fractions
If you're thinking about fractions, you might be a 5th grade teacher... Thanks to the Common Core State Standards, fifth grade now throws the wildest fraction party on the block! I taught 6th grade math back when that was fraction central, and I learned 3 key things along the way. They have been just applicable in the 5th grade classrooms ... read more
Talking About Fractions in Math Class
"The ones that are doing the talking are doing the learning." I know that. But, no matter how many times I say it, the impact on student learning in front of me is profound and somehow surprising. There is no example stronger than that of talking about fractions in math class. I've spent most of my career spending part of every school ... read more
Fractions and Decimals Made Easy
If teaching fifth and sixth graders has taught me anything, it's that fractions and decimals can be ABSTRACT and TRICKY... and that kids have to be developmentally ready to perform operations on them. The good news is- the standards aren't encouraging us to get kids to add, subtract, multiply and divide 5/32 and 16/71! We make equivalent ... read more
Classroom Word Game
You know that buzz of collaboration and learning that you hope for everyday? It happens when we play this game. Every. Single. Time. If you like Boggle, you'll love this game. Word Wrangle is a fun classroom word game inspired by my love of Boggle and also my love of quiet. Once upon a time, I bought SIX Boggle games for my first year ... read more
Building Community through Discussion
Class Discussion Norms (In my class, these become our Community Norms and replace any “rules”) Equity of Voice: Monitor your airtime. As a group member you are responsible to be a speaker AND a listener. You are also responsible to invite others to speak. Equal(ish) airtime is the goal. Our community values all voices. ... read more
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