online learning
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I know that Scholastic Book Fairs aren’t equitable and show loads of privilege, but I’m still going to recommend books to my young readers and their families. So I learned how to make Instagram Reels. Whew! I *truly* understood how my grandparents must’ve felt when they learned how to email. It took me DAYS to…
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Our beloved post office transformed into a theatre recently! To help build students’ background knowledge, we watched a video of a backstage tour of a theatre and I’ve been reading at least one picture book a week about theatre. We’ve been so inspired we even wrote our very first play about our shared reading text,…
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One of the many (endless?) struggles of remote teaching has been how much of my students’ days do I fill with learning? I, of course, want to grow their brains, but I also don’t want them to be in front of a screen *all* day. Another aspect to consider is their families: Some families want…
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Last weekend I attended the first-ever virtual Saturday Reunion from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Lucy Calkins had very powerful closing remarks that landed just right. Teaching is tough in The Now. Our elementary schools are about to bring back K-2 students (mostly) full-time. Lots of changes ahead for everyone that I know we’ll…
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Since it is the most gorgeous time of year in New England right now, I decided that next week’s theme will be AUTUMN! To get students in the writing mood, I *highly* recommend taking them OUTSIDE for a nature observation walk. Check out the poems I selected and my resources and ideas for teaching them…
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It is officially back to school season–my favorite time of year! It sure is different and full of new obstacles, but one thing I know for sure is that elementary teachers everywhere are bringing their all like they always do. I’m in awe of what my colleagues and others did from March to June, and…
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The cover of my digital writer’s notebook. Click it! Even though I love physical writer’s notebooks, I knew that, under these unprecedented circumstances, a digital writer’s notebook would be useful. I used this link from Slides Mania to make my digital writer’s notebook, and instead of using tabs, I created a table of contents with…
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Summer reading is a passion of mine. I’ve developed a summer reading launch unit for teachers to use in the past, so I adapted it for quaranteaching. The goal of the units, one for primary and another for intermediate, is to set up students for success for summer reading: figuring out their best reading routines,…
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Last week, I hosted a PD for my staff on creating Bitmoji digital libraries that you can access HERE. Before showing them how to build their Bitmoji digital libraries, I sprinkled in some PD on classroom libraries, how to curate a collection, and digital book platforms. Together with the how-to portion of the session, I…
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This week, the second grade team at my school asked for online book club info, so I rounded up my go-to resources in my free version of Padlet (I maxed out my Padlets, and I refuse to pay $8 per month right now): videos of book clubs in action for students to analyze and infer,…
A SEA OF TALK 