Teachers are never really off duty. Summer holidays are not just a two month vacation with no worries. Many of us are planning for the new school year in September already. We are gathering resources, working on long range plans, writing lessons, and planning units. Most teachers take classes or sign up for courses over…

“Work to Learn – The person who does the work is the ONLY one who learns.” I can’t take any credit for creating this motto. That goes to Harry K. Wong. When I discovered this quote his the amazing book, The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher, I set to work right away…

Image via Wikipedia The end of the year is always a busy time for teachers. I haven’t had the time to write a new Teaching Tip for you this week, so I decided to dig through the archives and repost this one from nearly four years ago. It’s a great game you can play with…

Today, I would like to share with you an invaluable resource for teaching vocal music. I inherited it from a retiring teacher years ago. These used to be on overhead transparencies. A few years ago, I scanned them into my computer so I could use them on the SMARTboard. The Rhythm Pattern above is ta, ta, ta, ta (which…

It is important to have a few Goldilocks tasks in your teaching reservoir. These are quick assignments that your students should find neither too hard nor too easy. These are just right tasks. Here is one that I have found to be particularly useful for students still mastering sentence writing. The task involves reading the…

Image via Wikipedia As a teacher, it is important to capitalize on teachable moments. A small discussion, comment, or even an action from a student can lead to a brilliant impromptu lesson. Case in point, last week I noticed that a student in my class was applying chapstick to her lips every few minutes. Her…

Welcome to Teaching Tip Tuesday! Before we get started today, if you haven’t already, please take a moment to complete this survey. Thanks! And now for today’s tip, How to Fit Small Group Instruction into Your Routine. 1) Remove Timelines Instead of having a specific time and duration for tasks, allow your students to have some autonomy…

Greetings Chase readers, I was very happy to come across the Teaching Tip Tuesday post which talked about using the A.P.E. strategy for teaching kids how to properly answer a question. I am a recent teacher graduate doing an inquiry about A.P.E. and having a very hard time finding research and literature on the effectiveness…

In a previous Teaching Tip Tuesday post we looked at how you can divide students up according to their reading abilities. Today we will look at how this same strategy can be effective across the curriculum. Try dividing students up according to learning styles. I have a group of students in my class who are very…

Image via Wikipedia No one likes being told when and how to do something. I know that I sure don’t. If I have a task that I need to do, I usually figure out a way to do it effectively and efficiently. I’m sure our students work much in the same way. That is, if we’d…