This week we NEED to talk about parent contact. While student connections are oh-so important, do you ever stop and think about making connections with the parents too? Parents need the connections too I learned pretty quickly that it is essential that you communicate with parents. For me, just chatting at the pick up line seemed okay my first couple years, but after getting fed up with being bombarded with emails and phone calls made me reevaluate what I was doing. Sure, I was sending home quick notes that our school would mass produce that let parents know important events coming up but they weren't effective. Bottom line is that parents weren't … [Read more...] about Parent Contact Made Easy!!!
Classroom Management
Student Connections
Are you ready for some back to school madness? I am teaming up with some AMAZING bloggers to give you some of our top back to school tips so you can start the year off right. Oh, and make sure you keep reading – you MIGHT find a chance to win yourself a $100 TPT gift card. How it works: Each blogger is writing a tip that they think is GREAT for back to school. Make sure you head to each blog to read all of the tips! Here, we are going to talk about Student connections With building student connections, I truly believe that you need to have a talk about FAMILY. No, I am not talking about your family or your students’ family. I am talking … [Read more...] about Student Connections
Flexible Seating – Is it for you?
It's all the rage these days: Flexible seating. What is flexible seating? Flexible seating is where you give multiple options for your students and where they want to be seated. Some might choose to sit at a desk, others might choose to sit on a couch if you have one, others might even choose to sit on a bean bag. There are no more assigned seats and it is supposed to give you classroom a new level of comfort. The whole basis behind this is, kids probably don't want to sit in a hard chair at a desk all day. With flexible seating, you are eliminating that and giving your students options. What do you use for flexible seating? Stools … [Read more...] about Flexible Seating – Is it for you?
The Classroom Management Guidebook
Happy Classroom Management Monday friends!!! This Monday I am so excited to share with you something I have been working very hard on. I have created a Classroom Management Guidebook just for you. As much as it pains me to say it, the new school year is inching closer. While I know you are probably soaking up every bit of relaxation you can get, it is important to start thinking about some sort of plan for next year. I used to fly by the seat of my pants when I first started teaching and for the most part, it worked okay for me. That was until I got a class of students who REALLY needed some structure. That ended up being the worst year I have … [Read more...] about The Classroom Management Guidebook
Time Management
What do you use for time management in your classroom? Do you rely on just what is written in your lesson plans? Or maybe you just go with the flow of the day. I have a confession... When I first started teaching, I was awful at time management. I never seemed to get ANYTHING done in time. Or there were things I didn't even get to because we were so busy with other stuff. When every one was done, we would finally move onto the next thing. I rarely got everything done and I was always playing catch-up. It was awful! I asked for help with my time management After hearing about the other teachers getting everything done, I went to my instructional … [Read more...] about Time Management
Changing the Lighting in Your Classroom
How could changing the lighting in your classroom help with behavior?! Well, as you may know, I spent an entire summer researching ways to dramatically improve my behavior management plan after a truly horrible year. With this research, a topic kept coming up that I knew would - an influx of students with autism. I saw a couple of articles that stated since the spectrum was so large, we sometimes aren't certain whether a child is on it until later or maybe not even find out at all. If these students are on it, little triggers can agitate them. And the biggest agitator could be THE LIGHTING IN YOUR CLASSROOM! It was something I knew I had to … [Read more...] about Changing the Lighting in Your Classroom