For Teachers

Outgrow your own best teaching…today!

Pots of Gold

My kindergarten room had a rainbow theme, so I used as many colorful metaphors as possible. Even though I’d been reassigned to kinderland, I still had the coaching itch that needed to be scratched. But I didn’t have any time in my day for coaching, so passive coaching through my Pots of Gold were born. Each month, I shared a one-pager of PD on hot literacy topics. Here is my growing collection:

When I officially returned to my coaching role for the 2021-2022 year, I decided to create a corresponding interactive bulletin board copies of the resources I mentioned in the Pots of Gold for teachers to TAKE. I’ve refined the look over time:

THEN, I resurrected my lockdown passion project, “Teach from A to Zine” series, to make a complementary zine for each Pot of Gold.

The FINAL iteration was a podcast. I’d wanted to do a podcast last year and even had my friend write and record a theme song for me (“Something whimsical that people will still take seriously,” I’d instructed him. He NAILED it!), but my kindergarten reassignment put the plan on hold. Finding out about Anchor, a free podcast creation platform sealed the deal.

Now, teachers can CLICK the literacy info in the Pot of Gold, READ it in the zine, SEE in on the bulletin board, or LISTEN to it on the podcast. Multimodal, UDL goodness!

Poetry Resources

Pot of Gold Professional Learning

Can’t stop, won’t stop my rainbow theme! Every month (maybe more in The After), I’ll share a bite-size professional learning gold nugget that I’m calling the Pot of Gold. I’ll share it via email with teachers, but I’ll also post on my coaching blog and hard copies with a QR code around the school in high-traffic areas. I’ll choose a topic that I’ve heard some scuttlebutt about at Center, and then I’ll make a one-pager for quick osmosis. My plan is to always follow the same structure: What is it? How can I start? Why should I? These three questions guide most of my minilesson and small group teaching points, so it only makes sense to use it with you, too! Check out all of the golden nuggets below: 

If there’s a topic of interest you’d like me to dig into, just let me know!

Summer Reading Launch Units

I created end-of-year reading units to launch summer reading. The goal of each unit, one for primary grades and the other for intermediate, is to set up students on a path to do their best summer reading and included a summer reading info session for families and personalized follow-up over the summer.

Digitial Bitmoji Library PD

Possibly the most fun PD I’ve ever led! 

Online Book Club Resources

When I first learned we might be starting quaranteaching, I immediately suggested online book clubs. Later, I gathered my favorite online book club resources to my faux Padlet.

Word Wizard

Vocabulary instruction is my new mission in Longmeadow, so I created this example of how to do vocabulary instruction remotely.

“History in the Making” Journals

I first heard about pandemic journals on Twitter, and I knew right away that I wanted as many students as possible to experience them, so I created this PD for my staff.

Reading Marathons

Reading Marathons are a fun way to teach and support stamina.

My first High Quality Teacher Share (HQTS) in Longmeadow was Making Literacy Toolkits. Every session ran like a workshop, where I did a brief minilesson on the kind of tool they could make or shared resource they could lean on, and the rest of the session was their tinker time. Info from every session was shared on this Padlet.