By Rachel Lynette
It was 2008, my first year teaching kindergarten, and building rapport with students was not at the top of my to do list. I was excited, nervous, and mostly just lost! It wasn’t my first year of teaching. I had been in the classroom for four years; however, I taught Pre-Kindergarten and at a private preschool. This was public school. To top it off, I
Self-regulation is the ability to calm yourself down when you are upset and cheer yourself up when you are down. In the classroom, students may need help with self-regulating their emotions and managing their behaviors. The ability for students to learn how to manage their own emotions and behaviors can be vital for them to be able to learn in a school environment. Teaching students
Minds in Bloom is excited to welcome Michelle from The IgnitED Teacher to our blog today! Michelle has written a really helpful post about classroom management tips for high-poverty students. Classrooms where the population of students is at-risk tend to be common places for struggles with behavior management, which is often understandable when you consider that students frequently choose to misbehave to distract from the
The last few weeks of school are a great time to do some of the those fun enrichment activities that you may have had to put off in order to fit in all that is required. Make some memories, get outside, and start thinking about the long days of summer ahead. Here are some ideas! Write a Letter: Some ideas include having students write a letter
We are so excited to have Tanya from The Butterfly Teacher guest blogging for us today! Tanya has written an excellent post about an important topic: getting your students to listen without yelling. Give her post a read, and we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Let’s begin with a little visualization exercise: Imagine Teacher Tanya saying very calmly to her students, “Ok,
Today’s guest blogger is Leah from What’s New with Leah. Her post is all about the five essential steps that the most effective classroom managers take to ensure they’re maintaining a safe environment conducive to learning in their classrooms. I’ll never forget my first teaching job. It was at a troubled urban school. I was a 23 year-old grad student with absolutely no teaching
Minds in Bloom is excited to have Jordyn from Grade 5 Greatness guest blogging today! Please enjoy her heart-warming story about how she changed a student’s life by believing in his ability to succeed. What do report cards, Honduran money, and believing in someone have in common? My school created a program where each teacher had a special student to serve as
As the teacher, you are the primary architect of your classroom culture. You make the rules. You decide which behaviors are rewarded – even subtly with a smile or a few encouraging words – and which are discouraged. You can add community-building elements to lessons – even small ones, such as Turn and Talk or reminding students that mistakes help us to learn. You can choose how you
Minds in Bloom is delighted to welcome Dr. Erica Warren back to the blog today! Dr. Warren is sharing an insightful post about how mindfulness promotes learning, including specific strategies teachers can employ. We know you’ll find this post really helpful, so enjoy! The metacognitive skill, mindfulness, is a gift you can teach your students, and it will serve them throughout their lives. Mindfulness is
Today, we’re welcoming a duo we’re sure you’ve heard of–the Wise Guys! They’re sharing their expert opinions on how you can increase student engagement in your classroom. All teachers struggle with classroom management. Whether it be the anxious student, or a class that can’t stop moving, teachers find themselves wondering what they can do differently. We have created a list of our top five tips
When students come into your classroom, how do you want them to feel? Happy? Excited? Respected? Safe? All of the above? When you’re putting together anywhere from 15 to 30 different personalities in a classroom, it can be hard to help every student feel so positive. I’m Cait from Cait’s Cool School, and I’m excited to be here with you today to share some of
Today’s guest blogger is Lynea, and she has an excellent post about bringing mindfulness into the classroom. Please enjoy reading about a topic that you might not have ever realized is so important to the classroom environment. As a school counselor working with behavior disordered children with histories of trauma, I found that the children often came into class with sad things on their minds.
Today, Minds in Bloom is welcoming back Steph from Forever in Fifth Grade. She’s sharing a fun activity that you can do at the end of every day to make sure your room gets cleaned up. Your students will love it! I’m so excited to be guest blogging for a second time and talking about one of my favorite things…cleaning! Back when I
Hi teachers! I’m Retta from Rainbow City Learning, and I’d love to share some ideas with you about building loyalty in your students as you think about how you’d like your teaching year to go. Thanks so much to Rachel for inviting me back! Loyalty is a feeling of strong support for something or someone. What could be better? Students who support you and what
One of the nice things about task cards is that they can be used without a lot of preparation or planning as a filler activity, at centers, or when you have a sub. Those activities can be real lifesavers (especially when you are having one of those weeks), but by taking a more intentional approach, you can use task cards for so much more. You’ve
Hi everyone! My name is Bex, and I am so delighted to be here on Minds in Bloom today with some tips for you on how to set your class up for success with a substitute. Thank you, Rachel, for having me! Teaching is a tough job! It is even tougher when you are sick or when you have to go out to a meeting
