You know that song, A Few of My Favorite Things? I’m flipping the script today and telling you about some of my least favorite teaching things. Spoiler alert: lanyards in the classroom are NOT on this list: Bathroom passes. If we could do one of those black light tests for…
Picture this: It’s a hectic morning and you have approximately 30 seconds to use the bathroom, heat up your coffee, and check your mailbox before the students start trickling barging in for the day. And then you see it. Little Michelle’s birthday is today. And instead of visions of sprinkles…
The Magic Number is all about value. As teachers, we value a lot of things. Special pens, our favorite pad of sticky notes, and our 12 minutes of lunch. But the hottest commodity in teaching is time: precious, precious time. Losing even a minute of time doing something trivial and…
Assessments in the classroom take time. Which, to be honest, presents a problem during back-to-school season. Let’s start with a little math problem, shall we? We will assume the average class size is 25 students. In years past, I completed these assessments during the first 2 months in my first…
Indoor recess has been plaguing most of us for months, but soon, outdoor recess will be part of our day again! So many reasons to rejoice, but let’s not forget that it can bring us challenges too. Outdoor play is glorious, but coming back from recess? Not so much. In…
It’s the end of the day and your class is restless. Your students are tired of the same old brain breaks. The dismissal stampede starts in 10 minutes and you need stability and calm. You started your day with a smooth routine and paperless morning meeting–why not end it with a…
It’s true. And if we are being technical here, I should say: Sub plans WERE ruining my life. I’ve always been a Last Minute Lucy, and would suffer through DAYS leading up to my absence with this storm cloud of unwritten sub plans following me everywhere I went. Painful, I…