Category Archives: Teacher Tips

5 Tips for a Proactive Assistant

Assistants are amazing support for students and teachers. Following these 5 tips, they become doubly appreciated. 1.  Arrive on time; early enough to look over the day’s task. 2.  Gather your materials. Take on that task to relieve the busy teacher of responsibility. 3.  Remind and reinforce your expectations as you begin with students. 4. … Read More »

ABC Books for All Ages and Stages

ABC books bridge all grades. They present everything that’s great about children’s books: a single storyline or theme a predictable format (A-Z) a consistent text (wordless, simple words, phrases or sentences) illustrations that enhance the words multiple choice in topics (animals to science and math to poetry). When students write their own, they experience success… Read More »

Strategic Tips (Part 1: Introducing Lessons)

Eye on Education posted a great article online* about maximizing lesson plans. Here are their suggestions for introducing lessons. 1.  Create a novel approach to grab students attention. 2.  Keep the lesson relevant to your students’ lives. 3.  Use verbal AND written instructions to accommodate varied ways students take in information. 4.  Model your thinking… Read More »

Got a Minute?

Students in groups need ‘clues’ about the expectations while they are in groups. No one likes to surge ahead blindly. So, what do group leaders need to share? Outline your expectations and judge your time constraints. It’s a challenge to make everything fit. Check out this example for a 35 minute group beginning a new… Read More »

In-Between Times

Planning lessons is important for your students.  In-between times, the transitions, need to be planned as well. That’s the time when you can ‘lose’ some students to dis-behavior. When are the transition times? * arrival, departure from the classroom * beginning and end of small groups * lining up for leaving/returning to the room *… Read More »

Gearing up for Genre

The new Common Core States Standards (CCSS) uses a variety of genre in it efforts to engage students and help them read and think. As you introduce the word ‘genre’ and the various types of genre, consider creating a class chart of the characteristics of the various genre.In doing so, you will also be working… Read More »

What Kind of Learner do you Teach? (Part 3)

The last two blogs addressed two extremes of learning styles. With two seemingly opposing learning styles: analytical and global, how do you cover their best way to learn? By creating options. Primary teachers most often teach to the multiple intelligences and a variety of learning styles in an effort to reach the variety of young… Read More »