I recently discovered Pinterest and at first glance, I really wasn’t that impressed. It seemed like yet another social networking site that I could live without. In fact, it seemed so similar to Tumblr that I wrote it off for several months. But I have finally come around to sing its praises. Pinterest is basically…

Welcome to Teaching Tip Tuesday! Every week I share with you a tip that I hope you will find useful in your teaching. You can visit the Teaching Tips Archive to see all of the tips in the order I have posted them over the years. Please check that page as I will continue to…

I found this on The Canadian Cave of Cool and immediately thought about how it could be applied to the classroom. So let’s just rewrite these 12 rules for teaching students. 1) Respect their need for privacy.  I don’t think we need to see everything that our students write. We could encourage them to write…

I found this lovely graphic on Tumblr and I just had to highlight it here on this blog. A lot of people don’t understand what teaching is all about. I come across people who frequently belittle my chosen profession or who really don’t understand why I do what I do. Here is a great video…

Here it is, the only audio or video response worksheet you will ever need.  Well, maybe that’s a little presumptuous but this worksheet does have multiple applications and uses. It wouldn’t hurt to have a class set of these on standby for those days when you end up watching a video or listening to a…

I’d like to share with you a game that I designed for the Smartboard. I’ve played it with several classes over the past two years and it has always been a hit. I got the idea of it from this electronic game that I saw in the toy store one day. I have seen many different…

A Smartboard is a great tool to have in the classroom. It lets us do much more than a regular blackboard or whiteboard. Today, I am going to show you how to use the built-in picture library. Say you wanted to get an image of a soccer player for a lesson. Without a Smatboard, you…

Has a student every complained to you that they can’t read your handwriting on the board? Here is a simple solution to that problem. If you have a Smartboard in your classroom, chances are you are familiar with the Notebook software but you might not be aware of this special feature that will allow you…

Clothespins and binder rings are quite handy to have around the classroom. They are relatively inexpensive and can be used throughout the entire school year without having to replace them. Here’s a way to assign your students to reading centres for the day. All you need to do is write the name of a student on…