Adam and Trisha Teach

No matter how engaging you are, or how captivating your lessons may be, students always begin to get a case of the dreaded Spring break fever this time of year.  We both try our hardest to keep students excited about school on a daily basis.  We create engaging lessons and incorporate fun into every subject!  One subject that we found harder to motivate students in was writing.  No matter how much we tried to make writing fun, we still found the students weren't as excited as we were.  So, to help create a bigger buzz about writing we decided to make our students actual writers.  We're talking actual, published  writers!  Talk about excitement!  The day the students found out that we were creating an actual book with their writing, their whole attitude changed for the better!  We've both done this in our own way that we'll explain within this post, but we also understand that there are many other possibilities out there as well. Before we get into the publishing aspe

If you know me, to say that I lack organizational skills that most teachers have is an understatement.  My friend, Kim Adsit, always says she's Type A and I'm Type Z!  Proof of that can be found in a corner of my classroom dedicated to my "stuff".   As hard as it is to believe when you look at it, I do know where everything is in that corner and how to quickly find anything I may be looking for.  One of the reasons behind the mess is that I'm never back there.  I'm always out with my kids around the room or working in small groups at my table.  Due to my lack of organizational skills, I like to think I'm a little more accepting of having messes in my classroom like the one pictured here. To an outsider, this probably looks like a huge mess of things that just weren't put away.  It is, in fact, quite the opposite.  These are what my whole group lessons look like most of the time.  I make it a point to keep my kids as involved as possible.  They are

If you're on the same schedule as our school, you're probably getting close to another round of Parent-Teacher Conferences.  We both love P/T Conference time as it gives us a chance to share all of the wonderful things the kiddos in our classes have been doing.  Seeing the parents smile when they see their child's progress is our favorite part!  It's such an important part too.  Too often conferences or meetings are called because something needs  to be discussed, which is why, no matter what topic is being discussed, it's important to start every meeting off on a positive note!  That's why the word "progress" is such a powerful word.  In most assessments there is an end goal or a growth goal that is set for the children.  Depending on whether or not they met such a goal, they'll get a rating that could mean many different things.  Those ratings sometimes come across as negative when read by parents.  So, what if instead of focusing on that compute