Teacher fail truth time. Today, I’m here to bring you five of my favorite face-palm moments. Why? Well, because I like to keep it real around here. Because teaching is messy. And because, truth be told, I’m the kind of gal who falls a little closer to the “charmingly disheveled” mark on the organizational spectrum than the “my life is an effortlessly blog-worthy masterpiece” mark…

Small group time is one of my favorite times of the day! I love meeting with the kids and listening to them talk about math or reading! It used to be a real grind figuring out what I would do during that time, but once I got a system down, it really became the highlight of my day…

Today I invite you on a tour of my classroom library! I will show you how I organize my books, share links for purchasing materials and furniture that I used when I set up my library, and even tell you about my Classroom Library Labels. I have so much to share so let’s jump right in…

At the beginning of this school year, I started tackling my long to-do list. While the boys were at school, I was at home working away on my blog and creating resources. After a while, I lost the motivation to create. It became a struggle to blog and create resources, because I wasn’t able to use them to help a room full of students master a difficult skill or engage them in a new way…

Cooperative learning can be a powerful tool for energizing a classroom, motivating students, and raising achievement. However, it’s not always easy to get kids to work together effectively. After a particularly chaotic lesson, you might even get so frustrated that you’re tempted to give up completely and assign seat work for the rest of the year! If you feel this way, don’t give up just yet…