By Rachel Lynette
Minds in Bloom is pleased to welcome Tasia from Great Minds Teach Alike! Tasia has written a fantastic post about how you can use social media networks for parent communication. Lets face it: With all the responsibilities of being an educator, communicating with parents usually falls to the bottom of the bottomless list of things a teacher has to do. I’ve found that with
Hi! We are Mollie and Amy from Two Nutty Teachers Teachin’ from the Same Tree, and we have been playing the “What If” game for quite some time… What if we completely emptied our classrooms and created a new environment that felt inviting, comfortable, and highlighted all of the things we feel are key to student success? This year we finally got brave and took
Minds in Bloom presents this inspiring post by Jennifer Martinez on using a positive news board in the classroom. Let us know in the comments if you give it a try! Remember Stella? You know, from that movie a few years ago? She lost her groove and took a trip to Jamaica in hopes of finding it again. Ever feel like you’ve lost your
Minds in Bloom presents Laura of First Grade Spies, with her post on small group instruction. Enjoy! I love working with small groups of students! Working with small groups gives me the opportunity to really get to know my cutie pies, to gently guide them through their journey of discovery. It’s such a great feeling to be sitting in the “front row” and seeing that
Minds in Bloom is happy to present Jen Bradshaw, the author of TeacherKarma, with her inspiring and informative post. We know you’ll find it useful! Boost learning by teaching students to set their own goals. For the past six years, I have had the opportunity to be a Literacy Coach and RtI (Response to Intervention) Specialist on a kindergarten through fifth grade elementary campus.
Minds in Bloom presents Literacy without Worksheets with her post on classroom management. Enjoy! Classroom management can be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. As teaching becomes more stressful with increased accountability standards and high-stakes testing, a well-managed classroom is key to maximizing student learning opportunities. The more time teachers have to spend correcting behaviors and getting students’ attention, the less time students have to learn (and this leads
Minds in Bloom is happy to introduce our readers to Jennie of A House Called Home with her inspiring post on helping struggling students. I have three daughters. They were each adopted out of foster care around the age of nine. They all had something in common: They hated to work. I heard the excuses as to why they couldn’t do it, and I
Minds in Bloom is happy to present Erin Beers of Mrs. Beers’ Language Arts Class with her post on improving behavior management. With the beginning of the school year comes excitement, anxiety, and a yearning for wanting order as soon as possible. While classroom and behavior management differs greatly in the various school and classroom settings, it is an essential component to running a successful learning environment with
Let’s focus on the classroom procedures that we need to teach our students each and every year. Clearly, this is one of those situations where a stitch in time saves nine…so let’s get sewing: Like the Boy Scouts – Be Prepared Try to anticipate every situation that will come up regularly or semi-regularly in your classroom. Imagine a typical day and write down every procedure/routine
A week ago, I published a post with ideas about how to handle students how are being mean, rude, and disrespectful to each other. The post began with a question from 4th grade teacher, Jenny Eldridge. The ideas all came from other teachers who stepped up to offer suggestions. A few days after the post went live, I received an awesome (and well written) email from
I often post questions from teachers on my Facebook wall. It is always amazing to see the helpful and insightful answers that other teachers post. A few days ago, a teacher named Jenny Eldridge had a great question about how to keep her students from being mean and disrespectful to each other. I was so impressed with the answers that I decided to post some
We all have good days, we all have bad ones, and that is certainly true for your students. However, it is not always easy to pick up on the mood of every student in your class. Here is something fun and simple to try for a week or so to help you to be more in tune with how your students are feeling – and
I’m Susanna from Whimsy Workshop Teaching, and I’m thrilled to be back sharing more ideas with you today! This time I want to pass along some teacher time savers. There are many new ideas that I come across or create myself that truly improve the efficiency and productivity in the classroom. I often wish I’d discovered them when I first started teaching; I could have
This was originally posted on Alex Winninghoff’s Facebook profile. She has graciously allowed me to turn it into a guest post. At the time it was written, she was working with high-risk populations at a high school near Seattle. Yet another example of the amazing effect that a dedicated teacher can have on her students. A student gave her dad her straight-A progress report and
If you have been doing this hop from the beginning, then you probably have a ton of great ideas by now! I hope that you will find this one useful, as well. You may think of Secret Student as being just for little kids, but it can be a powerful motivator for older students, as well. Think about the feeling you have just before
Brain breaks are so, so so important! According to pediatric occupational therapist, Loren Shlaes, When we are forced to sit still for long periods, we are either in one of two states: the just right state, meaning that our bodies can support our ability to stay present by remaining effortlessly aroused and upright, or in a sensory needs state, which means that we cannot attend because our bodies
