Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies

Every Thursday, we bring you a weekly bonus episode highlighting new and favorite teacher-approved tips you can apply in your classroom as soon as today.  This week's tips are: [00:54]: Tip #1 - Use a visual nudge to keep kids on track. [4:21]: Tip #2 - Guest Tip from Jennifer of Everything Just So - Ways to create small tweaks to your lessons for boosting student engagement. To hear more abo...

We’ve talked a lot recently about having a balance between enjoying your summer and preparing for the school year. If you’re looking for an easy way to prepare and learn new strategies this summer, our favorite way to accomplish that is by reading a professional development book for teachers. To help you get started right away, we’ve compiled a list of books we think you’d enjoy. Find a list of al...

Every Thursday, we bring you a weekly bonus episode highlighting new and favorite teacher-approved tips you can apply in your classroom as soon as today.  This week's tips are: [00:53]: Tip #1 - Give yourself a permission slip. [4:06]: Tip #2 - Guest Tip from Jessica of Ideas by Jivey - How to incorporate mentor sentences into your lessons. To hear more about these tips, head to the show note...

Our recent episodes have revolved around having a productive summer as it pertains to getting tasks done for school in the fall. And while we value spending time preparing for the fall, we know that you’re more than just a teacher, and summer is the perfect time to focus on yourself personally. While we’ve shared many teacher tips for summer, giving a gift to your future self might be the most ful...

Every Thursday, we bring you a weekly bonus episode highlighting new and favorite teacher-approved tips you can apply in your classroom as soon as today.  This week's tips are: [00:54]: Tip #1 - Make a time filler activity kit . [5:44]: Tip #2 - Guest Tip from Sara of The Stellar Teacher Company - Build sentence writing skills. To hear more about these tips, head to the show notes: https://ww...

We’ve talked in recent episodes about how to have a productive summer, whether that means relaxing by the pool or already preparing for the next school year. In Episode 64 , we talked about your summer to-do list and in Episode 65 , we shared how to have recovery and readiness. Now, we want to get you motivated to actually accomplish summer things for teachers. Resource of the Week: Word Sort Visu...

Every Thursday, we bring you a weekly bonus episode highlighting new and favorite teacher-approved tips you can apply in your classroom as soon as today.  This week's tips are: [00:55]: Tip #1 - Take the time to recognize your school support staff. [3:18]: Tip #2 - Guest Tip from Kelsey of Wife Teacher Mommy  - Approach summer in an intentional way. To hear more about these tips, head to...

Over the years we’ve learned that when it’s officially summer for teachers, there are two types: I don’t want to talk about school or I need to do things for next school year now. And whichever summer teacher version you are is what you should do. However, we think a mix between readiness and recovery is the perfect combination. In today’s episode, we’re sharing how to have a teacher summer plan t...

If you’re anything like us, you want to thoroughly enjoy your summer break because you earned it! However, we tend to stress when we get back to school in the fall having not done anything school related. So if we choose to do school tasks over summer, we want those tasks to leave a big impact. In today’s episode, we’re sharing how your teacher summer to-do list will get you prepared for next year...

The end of the school year is approaching quickly, so it’s time to begin thinking about celebrations! Since you’ve been coming up with fun ideas all year long, we thought we’d help you by sharing ideas from our Teacher Approved community. With the help of them, we’re sharing 10 creative ways for celebrating the end of the year. Resource of the Week: Summer Review Packets For all the resources ment...

The end of the school year is a time for celebrating and reflecting on how the year went. And while most celebrate with end of year classroom awards, we believe it’s time to retire that tradition. In today’s episode, we’re sharing 5 reasons why end of year classroom awards shouldn’t be done, and sharing a meaningful replacement tradition instead. Download our free Awards Reflection Activity here !...

With the end of the school year just ahead, you’re probably thinking about vacation, resting, and anything but next school year. However, that’s exactly what we want you to do! Although it might not seem like it, there are some tasks that you can take care of now that will help you when you return to school in the fall, which we are outlining in this episode. For all the resources mentioned in thi...

The weather is getting warmer, the trees and flowers are blooming, and the sun is staying out longer, which means spring has finally sprung! When spring arrives, it usually gives people the urge to clean their homes, so why can’t the same be done for classrooms? Approaching the end of the year is the perfect time for spring cleaning your classroom, so we’re sharing 6 tips for freshening up your cl...

We have to be honest. When we first set out to discuss decodable texts, we didn’t anticipate having multiple episodes on the topic. However, as this continues to become a hot topic, we want to continue to share our knowledge and ideas we’ve learned to help you. As we’ve established what decodable means, our final episode covers what makes a good decodable text. Resource of the Week: DLITE Days Bun...

As you all know by now, incorporating decodable texts in your classroom is a necessary part of your curriculum. But with this heightened topic, there’s a lot out there that aren’t accurate decodable texts. In order to help you decipher between correct and incorrect texts, we’re sharing the 3 things that need to be included when choosing decodable texts. For all the resources mentioned in this epis...

The new craze of the science of reading has reintroduced the educational world to utilizing decodable texts. And while elementary teachers use decodable texts, there are many inaccuracies and questions about them that need to be answered. In today’s episode, we’re unlocking the power of decodability and asking the question, what does decodable mean? Resource of the Week: Cumulative Reviews For all...

As dedicated teachers, we’re always trying to find new and engaging resources that are effective for our students. With the access to information at the tip of our fingertips, it’s hard to distinguish between quality and inaccurate educational resources. Therefore, we’re sharing 5 tips on how to find quality teaching resources online. Resource of the Week: Spring Fluency in a Flash For all the res...

We have to confess something - we’re both suckers for personality frameworks. We believe they help pinpoint strengths and weaknesses that help you be more productive and successful. Although we enjoy them all, we love Gretchen Rubin’s 4 tendencies. So today, we’re going to dive into her personality framework and how it assists you in thriving as a teacher. Resource of the Week: Word Family Workshe...

If you’ve been in education long enough, you know all too well about the pendulum swing, trends, and buzzwords surrounding education and new ways to teach. Well, to be honest, that’s exactly what we thought of the science of reading when we first heard of it, the newest trend. However, when we actually started reading and learning about it, we realized it was just a body of research around the top...

You’ve hit the time of year where the newness of teaching has worn off, your kids might be a little too comfortable with you and their peers, your classroom is cluttered from all that you’ve collected since the beginning, and the days are long and draining. So how do you break this feeling since the year isn’t over yet? You name what matters most. Since March can bring never-ending days and put yo...

Today is such a special episode because we are celebrating 1 year of the podcast! This is something we always dreamed about doing, but never thought it was possible. We love helping and supporting teachers with our effective teaching tips and strategies each week. To celebrate, we’re revisiting our top 10 teacher approved tips with you! For all the resources mentioned in this episode, head to the...

Some days our students are in a funk, some days we’re in a funk, and some days, we’re both in a funk. When that happens, what do you do? When you’re having a bad day of school, it’s difficult to see past any solution other than just trying to make it through. We’re here to tell you that you don’t have to suffer through the day. Instead, we’re sharing 4 ways to hit the reset button on a rough day o...

For the past few weeks we’ve been taking a deeper dive into classroom transitions. We’ve covered two different characteristics of transitions: having clear beginnings and endings and ways to have transitions unfold rapidly. To wrap up this mini-series, today we’re discussing the final characteristic of classroom transitions, which is minimizing the downtime between activities. Feedback of the Week...

Today, we’re continuing our conversation from last week that’s all about classroom transitions. Several studies have noted 3 characteristics of efficient transitions. Last week, we explored the first characteristic, which was having clear beginnings and endings. In today’s episode, we’re sharing tips on making sure your transitions unfold rapidly. Resource of the Week: Chunk Spelling System See ou...

When thinking about all of the different elements of an effective classroom, we tend to plan for the big items: procedures, routines, and activities. And while those are important, have you ever thought about the transitions between each activity or procedure? It’s not a teaching element that gets much thought, but having effective classroom transitions makes for a smooth and efficient all-around...