​​Meet the Teacher Night is an exciting event that sets the tone for the upcoming school year. It's a wonderful opportunity to connect with parents, share important information, and make your students feel welcomed and valued.

​Here are some tips to ensure your Meet the Teacher Night is a success:

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner, and we all know what that means: rainbows, pots o' gold, adorable leprechauns, and green everything. It's ALSO a great opportunity for students to pick up new skills with fun St. Patrick's-themed activities in a variety of subjects.

​Learning Place Value is one of the most important building blocks to a good Math education. After all, without it, learning any other basic Math skill is virtually impossible. I want to see each student have the best opportunity for success in Math - and in life. Therefore, I’d like to share some amazing some great ideas for hands-on place value practice for Fall. If you are looking for some options to help your Elementary or Homeschool students learn Place Value, you’ll love these Craftivities I have to share. These making learning fun! Not only that, we’ll talk about how your students can color their Craftivities and turn them into classroom decor, cards, and even gifts - all designed to show off their work while celebrating the Autumn!

One of the happiest sights to see in the Springtime is a big, beautiful butterfly. These fluttery, flying “flowers” are so popular with kids, they can actually be a useful tool in the classroom. Whether you are an elementary school teacher or a parent in a homeschool, there are so many ways to incorporate butterflies into your lesson plans.

Oh the joys of the end of the year, and for many of us state testing. For our students, this time can be stressful and even defeating if they are not ready. While I see the benefit of having students practice their stamina and working silently. I have also found ways to get students motivated to not only work hard on math, but they will also be begging for more practice.  

​I think most of us can agree that the days of teaching a math lesson to a whole group are gone. However, making our groups can seem like a daunting task. When I first started teaching I was given scripted lessons that I had to teach directly from. This definitely left many students out, since we were not able to full differentiate like we do now.

Throughout the years I was able to grow as an educator and math teacher. Through a lot of trial and error I was able to come up with a math block that not only allowed me to keep up with my district pacing, but also allowed for me to 100% meet the needs of my students.

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The first time I heard about standards based grading I thought it was a horrible idea. Why would we not average grades? How am I going to keep track of where students are? How will students be held accountable for their learning? These are all valuable questions and I'm going to go through how I ended up 

As teachers, we all know that the most important thing to help with classroom management is having a routines in place. When our students know what to expect and what they are supposed to do, everything runs smoother. Morning are no different than any time of day. 

The very first thing you need to have is to ensure that everything is set up before you leave the day before. This allows for you to walk in and start the day. I usually try to get to school early to get work done before the kids come in, however, I am never working on what I need for that day. I am always planning ahead. This allows for problems to arise and to still be prepaid for the day. 

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Coming up with a location for a trip can seem like a daunting task. You have to take so many things into consideration, educational, fun, cost, and more. 
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Questions to ask a location: 
1. Cost of trip for each student? Cost for chaperones? 
2. What programs do they offer? 
3. Are chaperones free? 
​ideas for place

Permission ships 
lunch count 
Don't for to share plans with other staff 
send home reminders the week and day before 

chaperone pack, communication 

schedule, name tags, 

Look into school rules, some don't allow students first names to be on tags. Include school name and school phone number

This can be a good trip or a bad trip it is u

Separating? have chaperone check in points 
Buddy system, buddy check 

Students will be tired, have low key plans like activties in pack 

, make a thank you for location from students Have a small thank you gift or note for chaperones

Field trips are a lot of fun but also a lot of work. Plan some self care into the end of your day 

Ask just about any teacher and they will tell you the most important math skill is place value. I know that in my classroom we spend more time on place value than anything else for most of the year. If a student doesn’t understand it, then almost everything else in math will fall apart. With that, I continue to have my students practice their skills throughout the year. Below is a round up of the winter activities I like to use. The great thing about these activities are that they can be used with 2, 3 or 4 digit numbers so it is super easy to differentiate for your individual students.

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100 Days of School is such a fun day to celebrate in our schools.