While April may technically be National Poetry Month, poems in the classroom should be year-round—in my humble opinion. Having poetry templates for elementary students on hand can make it a lot easier. Poetry gets a bad reputation–it’s not all flowers, butterflies, and rhymes. In fact, some of the best types…
Would you rather have 100 friends or 100 dollars? That’s the $100 question. For me, it’s 100 dollars because 100 friends is a lot of maintenance. I’m all about quality over quantity. But I’m asking because this is the type of question posed to my students every Wednesday for our…
What is it about a certain word that just makes you feel some type of way? For example, phonics just screams boring. Honestly? I blame Hooked on Phonics. It’s probably why the very term gives me a total outdated 80s vibe. Ironically, phonics are one of my favorite things to…
My writing nerd days started all the way back in 7th grade when I was cast as an alternate in the Power of the Pen team and in a strange twist of fate ended up advancing to the state competition. Not-so-humble brag aside, it lit the writing fire in me…
I spent way more time than I’d like to admit making word work activities from scratch for every single unit. Every time I introduced new word lists or phonics skills to my students, I’d create or buy new worksheets and games. It just wasn’t sustainable. Thankfully, by now I’ve long…
“But, Mrs. Waters…YOU’RE the teacher! I’m just a little old 6-year-old!” This is my all-time favorite reaction from a student when I told her it was her turn to teach the class. We were at the very beginning of our how-to writing unit, and I had totally bombed the first…
It all started when I unearthed the plastic set of drawers from our basement. A quick clearing of cobwebs, a brief dusting, and dishwasher run for the drawers, and my sight word station was as good as new. Hello, old friend! A quick back story first, though. This year, I…