Teaching
As an educator who loves to share tips for teachers both inside and outside the classroom, you can follow this page to find all my education-related posts. You will find tips, tricks, lesson plans, inspiration, and more.
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Teaching Tip – Visual Prompts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I don’t expect my Grade 3 students to write a thousand words but I do want to see them writing. Perhaps with a little encouragement, they will write longer and more detailed compositions. This is one of the picture prompts I have used in my classroom…
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Teaching Tip – Get Them Writing
Image via Wikipedia Our students need to be writing every day. Unfortunately, some of my students don’t see a purpose behind their morning journal. I have students who simply won’t start writing anything. They will talk to their classmates, play in their desk, sharpen their pencils for the third time, or anything else they can…
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The What-if Activity
Image by Team Tanenbaum via Flickr “Ask your students this question: What would you do if someone gave you a hundred dollars? If you’re doing this with teenagers, make the amount a thousand dollars. Ask them to write down their answers so that you can discuss them. Here are some questions to guide that…
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4 Ways to Sustain Your Enthusiasm for Teaching (Guest Post)
It may be clichéd and trite, but it’s also true that teaching is one of the most satisfactory professions there is – you’re making a difference in the lives of ardent students, you’re providing them with knowledge and facilitating their desire to learn, and you’re a guiding force who makes a difference in their lives.…
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Teaching Tip – Take a Break
Image via Wikipedia Teaching can become an all-encompassing profession. It is so hard to fit everything we need to do into the small amount of time we have at school. Most teachers I know either come in early, stay late, or take work home with them. Many teachers actually do all three. I know that…
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5 Tips to Motivate Reluctant Students (Guest Post)
Every class is a mixed bag – some kids are naturally talented while others get to the top through hard work and effort; some are innately enthusiastic while the rest need a little nudge to get them going; and some are lazy even though they have brains, while others cannot be more than mediocre no…
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Teaching Tip Tuesdays – Great Websites
The Book Chook – This is an amazing blog run by Susan Stephenson. She is a teacher, a writer, editor, and reviewer. She has a passion for children’s literacy and literature. You can find lots of useful posts here that can inspire you in your classroom. Sean Banville – Search through the archives on how to…
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The Colourful Parking Lot
The yellow lines separate.A red car by a school.Black concrete,green cars blend in to the treesby a lonely, cold puddle. That poem was written by my class yesterday. I really love what we are able to accomplish in this guided writing activity. Our goal was to write a colour poem. I started off the lesson…
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Teaching Tip – Using Math Support
Did you know that most math textbooks these days come with all kinds of resources and support? Some math textbooks come with a CD-ROM. Others allow access to a website where you can download and print off worksheets. I like to use these resources to create new worksheets based on the lessons I have taught.…
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Teaching Tip – Super Doors
A few years ago, when I was teaching Grade 4, I looked at my classroom door and had an epiphany. As I stared at the blank and boring door, I thought of a way I could spruce it up with a bit of colour and share my love of comic books at the same time. The…