Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay I realized that I never truly appreciated the change of seasons until I became a teacher and observed the children’s excitement grow with each new discovery of a new season approaching. Their...

“Forty-one students? How do you expect me to teach 41?” complained the first-grade teacher in her students’ hearing. How did this make them feel? Some children felt unwanted, and many years later related this story, remembering the teacher...

While the boom in tech gadgets and computer apps has created many pitfalls, the same technology offers powerful, useful tools to teachers and administrators. Here are a few tools that have proved helpful for me. All of these tools are free...

I tried something new this winter. Since I love plants and gardening, it seemed like a good idea to try growing lettuce in the classroom. So at the tail end of Christmas break I seeded lettuce into a five- gallon fish aquarium as well as a...

Photo by Ekaterina Kartushina on Unsplash I’ve appreciated the letters and emails with updates and encouragement that I’ve seen other school leaders sending regularly. Here is a quote from a superintendent in one of our local districts:...

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. But I typically ponder the highlights of the past year and consider new goals. How carefully can you tiptoe around that "resolutions" word?!! :) Resolutions and goals can almost become one and the same...

Riley was lying across his desk today, on top of his teddy bear, with his head and feet completely off the floor. He was in kind of a V shape. He stayed like that for quite a while. I just ignored it. Conner raised his hand and asked,...

February school days are their own kind of special. The holiday excitement has worn off, the days are still short and chill, and the school term is barely half-way done, with the second half stretching into the dim future. I sensed early...

It’s summer vacation! Yay! Let’s sleep in till noon, watch videos, and hang out on the living room couch. Or not. Researchers, educators, and parents are becoming increasingly concerned about what they call the “summer slide,” and they’re...

Last year, I was introduced to the book Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Skills by Sherry Parrish. While this book has many ideas for helping your students learn number sense, I want to highlight the section...

Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash When four- and five-year-old children think about school, what do they imagine? Do the smatterings they hear from older siblings, cousins, and friends give them a fun picture or a bleak one? I was...

I used to live near a hardware store that employed a man I’ll call Tom. Tom seemed to be in a foul mood every time I saw him. With a scowl, a quick step, and a loud, curt voice, he gave the impression of wanting to get this over with so he...

In the black of before-six one morning, I woke riveted by a thought. I grew up in a culture of gratitude. At home, at church, at school, I always heard, “Thank you.” Thank you for what You’ve given us. Thank you for the abundance of...

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash “I’m thankful for vultures!” We were making a list of things we were thankful for and “vultures” was one item listed. (Have you ever thanked God for vultures?) When I wondered about this, the child...

Several weeks before the end of school I entered a fierce battle, and I was losing. Nights found me lying awake for hours, consumed by fear. Fretting and worrying. Rehashing scenarios, imagining new ones. My body reflected the results....

I just read a devotional titled “Feeling Underappreciated?” There are times I feel like I don’t matter, or what I do doesn’t really affect anyone, and it would be nice for someone to acknowledge this or that area of my work. I thought this...

Correctly citing sources is often one of the least-understood parts of writing a research paper. This article will investigate reasons for citing sources, examine some misconceptions about plagiarism, discuss the definition of plagiarism,...

Photo by Tanya Gorelova from Pexels RAD, ODD, FAS are letters that may be attached to students in some of our classrooms…letters that mean extra stress for the teachers and administration in those classrooms and schools…letters attached to...

Giving Caleb handed me a tiny scrap as he walked past. I wondered why he was giving me this trash. He muttered, “Look inside.” I unfolded it to find a note he had written, “I luve you.” Not trash after all, but a treasure! Today I received...

There’s Johnny again, browsing through Chapter 14 during your class discussion of Chapter 9. He is not reading the words; he is looking at the pictures. No Johnny anywhere has ever idly flipped through his textbook reading paragraphs here...