As I write this, it still strikes me as crazy to be talking about test prep in February. In the past ten years, it seems like the test prep season has become longer each year as districts put more and more pressure on staff. It’s because of...
Truth be told, I’m not much of a bulletin board person. I don’t find any joy whatsoever in putting them up, and I’d honestly keep the same boards up for 10 years if I could! My first few years teaching, I resisted the fabric...
It’s hard to believe that my first year teaching 5th grade was ten years ago. My sister, who just graduated from college, called me this week to let me know she had received a job offer – to teach 5th grade. I couldn’t be happier...
For years, I dreaded the week before the state test. There were SO many standards students still needed to master before the test came, and I knew I didn’t have enough time. After a while, I realized that putting that much stress on myself and...
In 10 years of teaching, I’ve found that my grading philosophy sometimes defers from what’s expected from administrators and parents. We give students tests ten times more than we did when I started teaching. Of those tests, many of them...
We’ve all heard it… the suggestion to write an individual plan for every single student in your class in order to differentiate instruction. The last time I heard this, I went into panic mode. I had 96 students and about 20 minutes of...
