Life in the Classroom

The Truth About Teaching They don’t tell you in college that no matter how hard you try, you will inevitably fail as a teacher. There are times when I wonder WHY IN THE WORLD am I here? WHAT am I doing? I’ve learned the following things during my teaching career: 1.      There is a such a thing as a stupid question! One time…ALL THE TIME…I was writing something under the document camera in my journal and I had a student ask… Do we write that down? I’ve learned not to even answer that question anymore and let the kids who have common sense answer for me. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU NOT WRITE THIS DOWN WHEN I TOLD YOU TO TAKE OUT YOUR JOURNAL AND PENCIL? I understand that they are only in elementary, but SERIOUSLY! Usually, there is always someone who answer the question for me and I don't have to acknowledge it. 2.      One way to get a kid to stop doing something is to STARE at them. Once they realize that you are looking at them, ...

When we begin our year off learning new addition strategies and we add them to the anchor chart as we go. Eventually, this is hung up in the classroom for students to reference throughout the school year. We also are able to use this for our Number Talks during the week. Students can use any strategy they'd like to help them solve a problem that is posed. If you want to see an example of a Number Talks activity, you can click the link above and it will direct you to YouTube.

We recently ended our unit on magnetism in second grade! They always enjoy using magnets in the classroom! We learned how magnets are used in our every day lives and then they explored things are magnetic and things that are not magnetic by going on a scavenger hunt around the classroom. We created the above anchor chart. They added their observations to the chart by drawing on a sticky note and labeling their picture.