This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Happy Go Teach Conference [HGT] in Raleigh, NC. This conference was created by Jen Jones of Hello Literacy and Kayla Delzer of Top Dog Teaching in efforts to provide a flipped professional development [PD] session where best practices are modeled and participants are active in their…

Most teachers have a section in their classroom that contains books for children to read, whether for academic learning purposes or pleasure. However, the majority of these teachers struggle to utilize this space in an organized, efficient manner. As a result, books are lost or ruined and students miss out on reaching their potential through…

As a teacher, the #1 priority during the Back-to-School season is preparing your classroom. The tricky part comes when district/state requirements leave you in professional development [PD] sessions during your contracted hours, meaning you have little to no time left in the day to work in your classroom to prepare it for students. Administrators are…

  The above pictures of my sweet baby Lily at 9 months is the inspiration behind this post.  I happened to be rushing around downstairs preparing dinner while my little one ran around holding her stuffed giraffe singing her made-up melody when all of a sudden it went quiet. If you are a parent, you fear…

Happy Back-to-School season! One question newer teachers always ask their colleagues is: “What do I do the first week of school?” My answer is always the same: “Routines and procedures sprinkled in with content.” [See a list of popular routines and procedures here.] What I mean by this is as educators we have to prepare…

Thrifty Thursday Each week I bring to you helpful tips to become a more effective educator on the Always A Lesson fan page on Facebook. (Give it a quick like by clicking here!) I decided to start grouping my social media posts into a blog post incase you might have missed anything. Time to get caught up:…

Summer is winding down and the upcoming school year is rapidly approaching. Teachers are trying to balance their time between setting up their classroom and attending professional development sessions as well as numerous meetings with school personnel. Most schools host a “Back-to-School” night prior to the first day of school so that parents and students…

It’s quite the oxymoron to ask teachers to vote for the best teacher in the school, one whom they have never seen teach because they are busy teaching themselves. Go figure. I can’t understand how and why this has become a best practice in schools to have teachers vote for who they think deserves the…

Graphics courtesy of Erin Waters Holy Cow! I have been podcasting for two years now- can you believe it? Check out my podcast’s 1st birthday blog post here. Thanks to all of you who have supported the Empowering Educators podcast, subscribing to get weekly episodes right to your devices and leaving thoughtful reviews on iTunes…

 Graphics by KG Fonts The summer is often a season of transition for many educators. Such a transition requires an interview and if one is lucky enough, they are called back to perform a short demonstration lesson (or ‘demo’ for short). This allows the leadership team to see a teacher in action and determine if…