Adam and Trisha Teach

Hey there!  Adam here... Gosh, it seems like FOR-EV-ER since we've posted on this blog.  Well, we've been crazy busy living life, enjoying our family, traveling (me), and teaching (Trisha).  We have been getting amazing comments on pictures and posts and thought it would be well worth it to start these posts up again for all of you who enjoyed reading them so far!  Nothing too fancy in this one, except a little video I'm sharing with you about an awesome promotion, but this little post is serving as our way of letting you know we haven't stopped our mission to help teachers!  Our friends at ESGI are helping teachers every single day, but right now they're helping children in need as well!  Take a look at this video, then head over to esgisoftware.com and use the promo code GOODNIGHTADAM to get all the amazing stuff I mentioned in the video! Watch the video here: ESGI + PAJAMA PROGRAM

Have you ever thought about publishing a class book? My team just ordered kits for our classes to publish books! It's so easy, and the kids will have such pride when they see their stories in a book! Studentreasures provides all the materials you need to turn your students into published authors! The publishing kit is FREE for teachers! If you publish, your students will have a chance to order a copy of the book, and you will get a FREE class book for your classroom! Order a publishing kit now, and you'll earn a $10 Amazon gift card when you publish! https://studentreasures.referralrock.com/l/PG46YCTU/ There are lots of ideas to do with book publishing. One of my favorites is to have a Book Release Party when the books come in! Add a few decorations, invite parents into your classroom, and let the kids share their stories! It's such an amazing way to show kids how important writing is! Use this link to get your FREE publishing ki...

2018 has definitely been a year of ups and downs for us at the Peterson household.  We've experienced a ton of change this year, both positive and negative, and each experience has reminded us how much we have to be thankful for! The changes started to hit hard when I (Adam) made the decision to leave the classroom after 13 years in the same Kindergarten room.  This was a decision that brought us closer together as we hashed out every possible (good and bad) situation through many late night talks, number crunching, and discussions with family and friends.  In the end, taking this leap of faith prevailed, and I have been lucky to create some awesome relationships with teachers across the country through my workshops and social media outlets.  While never questioning the decision, there was one conversation that proved to me that the decision I made was definitely the right one.  In August, I was speaking to the Cleveland Metro School District Pre-K teache...

Chicago Toy and Game Fair Favorites! It's no surprise to those that know us that we have a dedicated "GAME CLOSET" in our basement!  We absolutely LOVE playing board games and card games!  It's not uncommon to find us and our two kids huddled around a game each night of the week before bedtime, but we also love to share this passion with our students in the classroom, too! We recently visited the Chicago Toy and Game Fair as a family, and we were all amazed by the awesome new games available on the market!  We picked some of our favorites that work for both home and school, and we've listed them below in no particular order! 1. Word Search Game (Goliath Games) Word Search Game is a "Fast-Paced, Multiplayer Word-Finding Game!"  It's a fun, new twist on the classic word search!  Play as a family or small group and search for common words from multiple lists!  *The picture below uses an Affiliate Link for us. 2. Wing It Wing It is ...

We all know that involving parents in the classroom, and at home, is a very important part of a child's education.  Finding a way to do this isn't always easy...UNTIL NOW!  We teamed up with our amazing friend Deedee Wills to create a product that makes parent involvement simple and purposeful!  Our School To Home Connection Pack includes all the activities you need to get started!  We've included some super fun ideas for reading, science, math, and more!   MYSTERY READERS! In Trisha's classroom Mystery Reader Mondays are one of her students favorite parts of the week!  Each Monday she has parents (or other familiar adults) volunteer to come read a book to the class.  We've included all the pages you need to explain the program to your parents and get them signed up.   The students love using the "Who will our mystery reader be?" pages to try and guess who it may be that's coming in to read for the day!  The varie...

For years in Adam's classroom, he has created sight word games as a way to review with his students.  Honestly, who hasn't created their own sight word games to review with their students?!  There are so many fun ways to get kids to review their words, but Adam stuck with one simple game that changed themes throughout the year!  This took away the need to constantly teach new rules and left more time for practicing the actual skill. You've all played similar games before with this same idea in mind.  Students sit in a circle and pass a can around.  Inside the can are sight word cards and some fun themed cards.  If a student pulls a sight word card, he or she reads the word and keeps the card.  BUT WAIT!!!!  What if the student can't read it???  I knew this question would come up, and here's the simple answer:  LET A FRIEND HELP!  BUT WAIT!!!  ISN'T THAT CHEATING?!  You know just as well as I do that kids learn best ...

Last week my 2nd grade classroom was transformed! In my first room flip of this school year, I decided to redo a favorite flip from last year...Mario World!  This originally stemmed from an idea we saw from our friends, Hope and Wade King, but I adapted it for me and my classroom! The setup was SUPER (no pun intended) SIMPLE! We used blue and green plastic tablecloths from Dollar Tree, gold paper plates, and shipping boxes that we had saved.  You can see exactly how we hung the blue tablecloths in this video. The kids had no idea this was happening and were simply told to wear red or green to school that day. Throughout the day, we incorporated all of our current curriculum goals and standards into some fun activities!  The activities were all hidden inside the coin boxes that were hanging or stacked around the room!   Inside the boxes, the kids found and completed the following games and activities. 1. Stomp The Goombas Each student had a reco...

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs  was one of my favorite childhood books, and I've always wanted to use it with a weather unit. As our weather unit was approaching, it was time for a change! On the Sunday before starting our weather unit, Adam helped me to make some huge clouds to hang in my classroom. It took some time, but it was definitely worth it! The kids were so intrigued as they walked in on Monday! We started the week learning all about different types of clouds. We read lots of nonfiction text and worked through some nonfiction text features. Then, we did our phonics lesson with shaving cream to represent clouds. It always amazes me how such a simple change in a lesson gets the kids so engaged and involved! As the day went on, we dug a lot deeper into our nonfiction text and did some cloud writing. Later, we did an experiment showing part of the water cycle. At the end of the day, I read the beginning of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs . After reading the pag...

We are always trying to find ways to incorporate games into our lessons.  Whether it's board games, card games, team games, or whatever, play is an important part of our classrooms on a daily basis!  This year, we decided to take it up a notch and incorporate BIG games into our classrooms!  We found some giant versions of some of our favorite games and even had a friend of ours make a special one for us!  We brainstormed ways to create fun, engaging lessons using these games, and then we brought the fun to life!  Here are just a few of our favorite BIG games to play in our classrooms! 1. PLINKO Our good friend, Kyle, brought Plinko to life for us! In Trisha's 2nd grade classroom, the kids loved playing Plinko with different money values.  Drop some Plinko chips and add up the money totals!  Who can figure the values the fastest?  Talk about a fun, competitive way to learn money!  In Adam's classroom, the kiddos used Plinko as a way t...

If you are currently an ESGI user, you already know how awesome it is!  This software has revolutionized the way we assess and differentiate our instruction in our classrooms! If you are not currently an ESGI user...NOW IS THE TIME TO SIGN UP!  If you register for a FREE trial before May 15, 2018, your normal 60 Day trial will be extended through AUGUST 31, 2018!!!  You'll also get $40 off your first paid year, an ESGI ALL-STAR TEACHER shirt when you purchase, and...(insert drum roll here)...YOU'LL BE ENTERED FOR A CHANCE TO WIN AN ALL EXPENSES PAID TRIP TO A CONFERENCE OF YOUR CHOICE THIS SUMMER!  Two of the conferences you can choose from are TEACH IT San Antonio or SDE's NATIONAL I TEACH Conference in Las Vegas! All you need to do is click the ESGI banner to the right to sign up for your FREE trial!  That will automatically enter you using my promo code: TEACHERSLEARN2 GOOD LUCK!  Hope to see some of you on the road at Teach It, Differentiating ...

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. Befor...

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 possi...

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 t...