Blog

Happy New School Year! January 1 marks the beginning of the calendar year, but for teachers the new year is NOW, in September!  Some of the same things we do when the ball drops in Times Square, we can do at the beginning of the school year. Now is a great time to set your own professional goals and put systems in place to help you achieve them. There is so much to plan for that it can feel overwhelming. You already have plenty of mandatory school and district goals. So, select one thing for yourself that you would really...

It’s that time of year! It’s time to set up your classroom.  A great classroom design provides a variety of learning spaces depending upon the type of work to be done: whole group, small group, or independent work.  Similarly, your classroom library should be organized so that students have choice in the kind of reading work they want to accomplish. Here are a few tips to help you set up your classroom library: LEVEL:Levels are important, but it’s not how we select books in real life. We don’t walk into the public library and ask the librarian to point us...

Pump students up for summer reading! As the school year winds down, parents and students often ask for a summer reading list or suggested reading for the next year’s grade level. In addition to recommending good reads, you can also teach students a few habits that help them sustain their school year reading work AND enjoy it!   Make it Social! Summer is a time to hang out with friends. Books are meant to be talked about with friends. What a perfect combination for summer reading! Encourage your students to make plans with friends to talk about their books. Even...

Top 3 Reasons Characters Matter and Why We Love Them We learn about their lives. When we pick up a book, we often look for ourselves in it through the characters. We wonder if they like the same things we do. Do they act the same ways we do? When they do, it can be very validating to us. When they don’t, it can make us more intrigued and interested in other types of people. We get to go on a journey with them. As a reader, we are along for the ride. We follow characters to places we have...

Go ahead and sing Kool & The Gang’s "Celebration" song over and over because Children’s Book Week is almost here! From April 30-May 6, we celebrate the books out there that help students learn how to read, learn about the world, and learn about themselves. It is great to have a dedicated week to celebrate reading, but we really should celebrate reading in classrooms ALL YEAR LONG! The end of each unit is a great time to invite students to reflect, share, or think about the next steps in their reading journey.  The celebrations can be some sort of gathering...