On Instagram, I do a series called Teaching Tip Thursday. Today, I wanted to share with you some easy teaching tips. These tips can make your life as a teacher easier and more powerful! Teaching Tip 1- The Morning Routine I truly believe something that makes teaching easier for me is the morning routine that I complete BEFORE I leave for school. When I wake up each morning earlier then I need to and complete a few tasks I am a better and happier teacher all day. I can 100% tell when I ... Read More about Easy Teaching Tips and Ideas

March in upper elementary is full of test preparation and rigorous content! It is that point in the year where we have taught all the reading skills and now it is time to challenge those kiddos! I am going to share a list of all the things I like to accomplish in March! St. Patrick's Day Themed Activities I love a good theme in my classroom! To celebrate St. Patrick's Day we... Make traps for STEM and write about why they would work. Read a picture book each Friday and do a ... Read More about March Ideas for Upper Elementary

Theme is a TOUGH concept to teach students! One of my favorite moments is when I see a kiddo finally understand how to analyze theme because I know it takes a long time to get there! Today, I wanted to share with you some of the things I do to teach theme! Theme is Not a Word I truly believe that theme cannot just be one word. I teach my students that theme is like "family makes us stronger" or "teamwork helps you succeed". I think that theme is more than just friendship, etc. and ... Read More about How To Teach Theme

Teaching students how to use context clues to define unfamiliar terms is a hard and necessary skill in upper elementary. I spend one week really working hard on this skill and then I will review it all year long! I am going to walk you through different activities I do in my context clues week. At the bottom, you can grab a FREEBIE, plus the skill pack! Monday-Introduction When students enter my room I have ten HARD words placed around the room. I tell the students they have ten minutes ... Read More about How to Teach Context Clues

Teaching students through an engaging transformation that is cheap and fun is the way to go! Construction is big in my community so I decided to bring it into the classroom. We used this as a review week for all subjects! We completed rigorous and engaging work that all had the construction theme! Setting up the Transformation To set up the transformation I did the following things: Printed off clipart of different machines to add around the room (these are provided in my ... Read More about Construction Transformation in Upper Elementary