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Welcome back to my three part teacher planning mini series! This is part three, all about classroom organization ideas. Throughout the series, I have talked about teacher planning tips that have worked best for me over the years to help keep me organized. In the part one, I talked about planners and annual plans. In part two, I talked about different strategies such as batching and work flows. If you missed them and would like to catch yourself up, you can find part two HERE and part one HERE :) Today, I’ll be sharing some classroom organization ideas and tips and where I store all of the photocopies that I batch copy. How I Store My Copies in an Organized Way A couple years ago, I bought four little units of 3 drawers each. The drawers are each a bit wider and longer than a piece of paper. I keep them on a shelf behind my desk, and that's where I keep my copies, guided reading books, read alouds, etc. Each day has its own drawer, and anything I need for ...

Welcome back to my mini teacher planning series! I've put together my best teacher planning tips that have worked for me over the years. Last post, I talked about picking the right planner and how I do annual plans. This blog post is part 2 of 3. If you haven't read the first post of my teacher planning tips yet, you can find it HERE :) Teacher Planning Tip #4: Check Things Off As I said last week, I have my annual planning pages printed and added to the front of my planner. I refer back to them throughout the year. If I don't have them right in front of me like that, I KNOW I won't remember to check. I need to set myself up for planning success since it doesn't come naturally to me. This is one way I do that! Throughout the year, as outcomes are taught/evaluated, I cross them off. If we didn't get to one, I circle it. That way, I can quickly glance through it and see where I’ve deviated from my plans. Maybe we did plants in the fall in...

Teacher planning is NOT something that comes naturally to me, and is something I have spent many years improving. Luckily, I have compiled a list of super easy lesson planning tips that will be useful for any teacher! When people who don't know me that well call me organized, I laugh out loud. It is NOT my default setting and I've had to work VERY hard to look organized 😂 I definitely do see the value in planning, however. So, even though it's hard for me and I would waaaaay rather fly by the seat of my pants, it's a skill I've worked hard at improving over the years. I've come a long way - from lesson ideas written on sticky notes, to planners abandoned by December, to actually using a planner for the whole school year, and learning how to plan annually. I might not be the BEST person to learn planning from, but if you're like me and this is a struggle, the tricks I've found to make it work might be a better fit for you than advice fr...

One challenge you’ll definitely face every single September (especially if you are a maternelle teacher)?, Getting your French primary students to show active listening in the classroom! This can be a tough job for even the calmest 5 year olds, but if your students don't understand much French yet, getting them to listen is not going to be easy. To them, you likely sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown! Fortunately, I've been around the block a few times. As always, I am here to share my best tried and true tips with you. Over the years and via much trial-and-error, I have found what I consider the best way to get even my youngest students learning active listening skills. This idea can work as early as the first week of school. My solution has three parts. In this blog post, I will explain all three of them to you. I'll also give you everything you'll need to get started in your own classroom! Part 1: Co-create a poster For me, the tric...