Welcome to a new school year! This is always my favorite time of year! I love to generate new ideas and set up my classroom for a new group of students. With each new school year, I get more organized and can focus on different parts of my classroom. This year, I will be opening…
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The Beginning of my Flexible Seating Journey As I began using blended learning in my classroom, I knew I needed to work on shifting the mindset of not only myself, but my students as well. In order to have a true blended learning environment, you need to give your students control over the pace, path…
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Starting with FlipGrid I had first heard about the program FlipGrid from a few different colleagues in my county and then saw teachers posting about it on Twitter during EdcampMD. Then while planning an EdCamp for my local teachers union and I had asked FlipGrid for a couple licenses for giveaways (having no idea what…
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My school doesn’t celebrate by having a Valentine’s Day party, however, we do allow the students to pass out Valentine’s Day cards and non-food items. We do not allow food items because of allergies the students might have. I went to my local Dollar Tree (which I am obsessed with!) and snagged all of the…
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Building student agency in your classroom is extremely important to build independent learners and give back some of the responsibility to the class. Using classroom jobs is one way to allow for you to work independently with a small groups while the class still functions and completes their work. I created these job necklaces to…
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Personalization is all around us. We see it in our everyday lives, from the stores we shop in to the restaurants we dine at. Recently, Vanguard teachers embarked on a journey in downtown Frederick, a historic, bustling area unique to Frederick County, to explore the world of personalization. Frederick County was founded in 1748. Today,…
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Want to get your students excited about reading? Need a fun and creative way to get them to “try” different books. The kind of books that they would never pick up on their own, something out of their comfort zone or genre? Host a classroom Book BBQ! In the beginning of the school year, I…
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Are you using a Blended Learning model in your classroom? Have you ever tried TenMarks as a personalized math tool? If so, check out this TenMarks Tracking chart resource I created to help guide my students independent work time. I needed a way to help my students make goals and track their progress during their…
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This year I started full blown Flexible Seating… and I love it!! As I started I knew I would need to adjust and create things to help my students. The first thing I needed to make was a parent letter and student contract. I also needed to create a way for my students to…
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List of Recommended book for K-3 – Financial Literacy Bunny Money – By: Rosemary Wells If you made a Million – By: David Schwartz Lemon and Lemonade – By: Nancy Loewen Once Upon a Dime – By: Nancy Kelly Allen and Adam Doyle Arthur’s Pet Business – By: Marc Brown Pizza at Sally’s – By:…
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How many of you have spend $100’s maybe $1000’s of dollars on ink! I know I go to the store and spend at least $65 on ink each month. Some slow months I can make it last a month and a half. =-( The days of spending $780+ a year are OVER! I can tell…
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Need a FUN way to celebrate your students after a job well done? Try making V.I.P. boxes for the students to use. I got a couple small bins and filled them with ‘fun’ school supplies that the students don’t normally have like smelly markers, small colored staplers, stickers, colored post-it notes, crazy pens, highlighters, and…
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Have you ever dreamed of having a student directed Market Day? Having your students go through the process of creating a business to open at school is a very rewarding project. This can be done in as little as 1 month or ran all year long. Cereal Tic Tac Toe Creating classroom designed money Creating jobs …
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