Being a 3rd grade teacher for years, I know firsthand about the battle that students face with solving word problems. For many students, a paragraph of complicated math concepts and verbiage are enough to send them into an anxiety provoked tailspin. No matter how much I encouraged kiddos to take it sentence by sentence or reference…

Click the image above to snag this product! For the longest time I fought with data practices. I hated the word data. I hated sitting in PD about data. I hated tracking data. I HATED DATA! Now that I got that off my chest, I have a confession to make…. I appreciate data. I mean,…

This past year I dove into Facebook Groups. I have met lots of inspiring educators, but I have also come across quite a few S.O.S. requests from teachers in the area of Literacy. It seems many teachers across the country are given too much freedom in the classroom without any clear expectations. You might think this…

Gain Research-Based Techniques and Tools to Boost Teacher Performance and Proficiency If you are interested in becoming an instructional coach, come along the journey with me. I will show you what coaching is all about from start to finish. I provide tons of free resources just for taking the course. You won’t regret the knowledge…

I have been selling educational materials on Teachers Pay Teachers for quite some time now- May 15, 2012 to be exact. When I started, I just put up anything I had on hand that I had created for my classroom or school. They weren’t pretty, but I figured “hey, if I needed this, someone out…

Graphics created by Alina Veja, Aileen Miracle, Teacher Laura, and Glitter Meets Glue   Planning is the foundation of a successful lesson. But it has gotten a pretty bad rap lately as administrators and state regulators clamp down on teacher freedom to instruct students. Despite its decrease in favoritism, planning can be creative and joyful…

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…

As teachers, we are used to multi-tasking and managing numerous responsibilities without missing a beat. The fact is we are a talented bunch of people who should not limit our influence to the classroom solely. Get Started I began the journey to entrepreneurship (or in education we refer to this as edu-preneurship!) two years ago…

One of the best assignments I ever created for my kids was a weekly current event project. Our school had a subscription to Time for Kids and I would create daily assignments students had to complete and turn in by Friday morning. The articles in Time for Kids were age appropriate and enlightening to what…