Teaching With a Mountain View

General You know those teaching ideas you implement and think, “WHERE HAS THIS BEEN MY WHOLE CAREER?!” Yep.

Classroom I just finished my 17th year in education, and I can say without a doubt that there actually ARE some Amazon teacher purchases that are worth your while to put in your classroom. I can also definitely say that there are some things I would never purchase again and some that I see shared that just aren’t practical for today’s classrooms.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I have a soft spot for the little classroom moments that build big things and have a real, lasting impact. I also feel incredibly passionate about students’ personal growth (I recently earned my Master’s of Education in Social Emotional Learning) and giving them tools to develop their sense of self.

If there’s one piece of teacher advice I wish someone had told me during my first few years of teaching, it’s this: you do NOT have to figure everything out on your own, and you don’t have to pretend like you already know everything. We ALL have so much to learn, no matter where we are in our education journey.

The end of the school year is always so full of energy — but as teachers, our to-do list is also very, very full. I always love being able to give my students a small gift at the end of the year, but finding the perfect student gift that is super easy to put together can be a tall order. This year, I really wanted something my students would enjoy but that was also easy (and affordable) for me to put together.

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End of the Year In 2010, I was finishing my first full year of teaching third grade, and I knew I needed something fun and exciting for the end of the school year — I’m talking the very last minutes of the last school day. I decided End of the Year Awards were going to be the best way to end the year, but as I started searching, the options for End of the Year Awards were minimal.

As the school year winds down, keeping students engaged can feel like a challenge. Testing, field trips, and summer anticipation can make it tough to maintain focus. But over the years, I’ve realized that implementing the perfect novel study at the end of the year can be a game-changer in the very best way! I recently posted on Facebook, sharing some of my favorite end-of-the-year novels and asking fellow teachers to share their favorites, studies, and read-alouds. The results are incredible.

General | Test Prep I just finished preparing a group of students for a standardized test, and they CLUNG to this test prep strategy, so I knew I had to share it! I’ve been using this strategy to prepare students for state testing for YEARS and have shared it a few times here and there, but this multiple-choice test prep strategy is so powerful that it officially needs its own post! In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly how the Pink Elephant Test Prep Strategy works, why it’s so...

For the past several years, I have been inspired to create a March Madness-style Picture Book Showdown for my school (and classroom). It has now become something I look forward to so much — I enjoy everything from picking the books to be featured, reading them with students, and finalizing the winner of the Picture Book Showdown! Here are the details of how I run this fun event! I have done the picture book showdown both in my classroom and for the entire school.