Choice Lit Topic: Community Building
It’s one of the big paradoxes of literacy instruction – students best learn how to read and write independently when they have a strong community of support in classrooms. How teachers build those thoughtful, kind, and challenging classroom communities is explained in these resources.
Results
Fostering Thinking Through Play
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. Fred...
Last Chance Workshop
The narrative writing unit had gone on for way longer than I had planned. I had a stack of papers that demanded feedback and not enough time to give them...
Nonfiction Research Group in Fifth Grade
Katherine Sokolowski meets with a group of her fifth graders who are all researching the use of nets in fishing and the environmental effects of the process. She works to...
Lester Laminack on Bullying (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Franki Sibberson chats with Lester Laminack about bullying. Lester is the author of beloved books for children and teachers, including Saturdays and Teacakes and Unwrapping the Read Aloud. You...
Writing for Reflection at the End of the Year
The end of the year is a struggle for me. I worry I haven’t taught enough, talked enough, or shared enough. I want to keep them with me. I know...
Amazing Race
At the end of the school year, I am always looking for ways to keep my students motivated. Anything that can inject some energy into a lesson, or better yet,...
Purposeful Partners
What teacher hasn’t experienced the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) position shifting that happens when students are asked to turn and talk? If kids haven’t already chosen a spot on the...
A Place to Belong
It is early spring, and like all teachers, I am gearing up for the wild ride of school days that race like two-track roller coasters starting in April through the...
Picking a Partner: Demonstration Lesson and Debrief
In this demonstration lesson from a K-2 classroom, Joan Moser leads students through guided practice in picking a partner.
SITO: Self-Imposed Time-Out
Last school year was my most challenging in terms of classroom management. I was faced with more students who had greater emotional needs than ever before—students neglected by absentee parents,...
Stamina Bubbles
I sat down next to Sarah to listen in on her reading when she whispered, “Why do you always say 'Happy reading!' to us when we begin?” Her question caught...
A Fiction Writing Field Trip
Every year in writing workshop, my students beg to write fiction. They are well versed in narratives, memoirs, and informational texts. I know I have to teach these units; the...
Like Teacher, Like Student: Finding Emotional Support in Schools
I walk back to my kindergarten classroom and noticed my entire shirt is damp. Gabe’s panic attack before physical education class ignited many other students’ anxieties, and as we waited...
A Booklist for Grandparents Day
Grandparents are special people for many children. Sometimes they are baby-sitters or day care providers. Sometimes grandchildren live with their grandparents. Sometimes they live far away and only get to...
Speed Dating Books
I come back from lunch to join my second block of students, whom I always greet with “Did everyone have a good lunch?" There are the usual grumblings about the...
Why I Stopped Asking, “Where’s Your Pencil?”
In college I became a brain research junkie. I blame my dad. He was an elite pistol shooter, winning national and international titles and obliterating records. He believed in practice...
What Difference Does Difference Make?
One of the most important conversations I have with my students at the beginning of the year is about being different, embracing the ways we are different from others, and...
I Don’t Want to Know What You Did Last Summer: Rethinking Narrative Nonfiction
Maria is already on her second page of writing. She has a lot to say about that family vacation to the beach. She is eager to share the shells she...
Growth Lines
When we began to remodel our home recently, we realized that the opening between the dining room and the kitchen had pencil lines vining up the wall from the late...
Doodlebug
Mrs. Cox was my second-grade teacher. Tall and lean, she had a wide grin and a crazy mess of bright red hair that matched a smattering of freckles all over...
Easing into Workshops: Routines in Third Grade
This quick and silent time-lapse video shows the arrival routine in Leslie Lloyd's third-grade classroom. Students arrive at different points during a 15-minute stretch each morning, and read the board...
