Image featuring five illustrations from professional and child-made drawings. Title of blog: "The Power of Illustrations to Inspire Readers and Writers - Of All Ages"

The Power of Illustrations to Inspire Readers and Writers (Of All Ages!)

2 Comments / Writing Workshop /

“I’m trying to teach through Writing Workshop, but all they’re doing is DRAWING!” How often I’ve heard that comment over the years from parents and teachers who lament over children’s sketches and illustrations… when they’re “supposed to be writing.” But we can learn much from children’s drawings. Consider this drawing. Chat with the young artist. […]

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Featured image, "How Pop Tabs Help Children in Medical Crisis - And Amazingly Teach Math, too!" showing a pile of pop tabs

How Pop Tabs Help Children in Medical Crisis—and Amazingly Teach Math, Too

8 Comments / Service Learning /

Have you seen those Pop Tabs Collection Boxes for Ronald McDonald Houses? I used to wonder, “How can those little pop tabs actually help children with cancer?” …until I watched my inspiring colleague, Dori Gilbert, collect the tabs with her students. Dori happened to be my daughter, Tiffany’s kindergarten and first grade teacher. When Tiffany

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Featured image showing the title of this blog post and assorted children's drawings and writings about their fathers.

How Kindergartners Recognized the Importance of Fathers: Heartwarming Books About Dads

3 Comments / Inspiration /

What’s the deal with Father’s Day? I believe I’ve struggled more over this blog post than any other. Not because I didn’t have an amazing father though. Read on… Daddy Thankfully, I was blessed with an incredible dad who taught me the value of a penny, created a train visual for me to learn those

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Image of a small child hiding his face. Text shows the featured blog post's title: Understanding School Safety through the Eyes of Children.

Understanding School Safety Through the Eyes of Children

2 Comments / School Safety /

What a Discovery I Made! Illustrator Violet Lemay simply had to do something after the Uvalde school shooting. So, she began drawing pictures of the victims and sharing them through Instagram. (Image is from Violet LeMay’s Instagram account.) There, Alithia Ramirez’s father discovered her tribute and reached out. He felt connected to this artist named

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Featured Image for a Blog Post: "The Eclipse & Everything Else: How to Learn About Anything." Image shows a picture of a 3-year-old child wearing an astronaut suit.

The Eclipse & Everything Else: How to Learn About Anything

3 Comments / Inquiry /

Within a week, people throughout America will be enthralled by a solar eclipse. This celestial event will force the world to slow down and gaze into the Heavens. As an inquiry-based teacher for over 25 years, I would have researched and provided insightful experiences on how to learn about anything for my kindergarten and first

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Featured Image for the post, "Author Studies that Changed My Children's Writing: Laura Numeroff" alongside a child's author expert project on Laura Numeroff

Author Studies that Changed My Children’s Writing: Laura Numeroff

2 Comments / Inquiry into Authors /

From the Teacher’s Desk Author Laura Numeroff changed our first-grade world in Room #202. Every time I sat in our Author’s Chair to read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (or any of its subsequent variations), little ones squealed. Everything Starts With A Great Book You know the stories. Most of them start with

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Featured image showcasing the Unforgettable Grandparent Expert Projects, showing a child's sketch of his grandfather and two children's memories of their grandparents

Unforgettable Grandparent Expert Projects

6 Comments / Expert Projects /

“On rainy mornings my granddad used to ride a horse and carrage to scool.”             “Now Grandma liks Jesus music. Back then, she liked the Beetles Rock and Roll.” There’s just something magical about little kids explaining how their grandparents lived. One of my favorite studies in first grade was our learning about “Life Long

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