“Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down” as The Carpenters once sang.  Well, for me they are half right.  The latter part on Mondays definitely gets me down!  I used to dread Rainy Days because that meant we weren’t able to get outside to release some of that bundled-up energy, however lately with these […]

Although Earth Day is Every Day in my mind (right?), the official annual date of April 22nd is approaching fast! I love teaching my kids to appreciate and take care of our Earth. But, there are so many ways to get students active in keeping our Earth sustainable; how can you ever narrow it down […]

Spring is in the air and I am ready to bring out the fun science projects, read-alouds, and outdoor activities. This time of year has us wearing many hats and needing a variety of activities for our students. Our folders contain review activities to get us ready for the end of the year testing, quiet […]

Typically, as teachers, we put more time and energy into focusing on the students that have fallen behind or are struggling.  That’s where our focus lies, however, that doesn’t mean we ignore our middle-of-the-track or high flyers.  Yes, we want to make sure that those struggling students progress. It is also important to spend time […]

For many of us, our reading block lasts anywhere from 90-120 minutes every day.  That time is extremely important because it is the one time during the day that is protected and uninterrupted.  However, our reading block can seem like a huge chunk of time to keep students engaged.  For me, the time goes by […]

Teaching the writing process to emergent writers is one of my favorite activities to do each school year.  The growth that is seen from learning how to form letters of the alphabet to writing complete sentences and stories is amazing.  But how do we get there? How do we take these young writers and scaffold […]

It is the phrase that we all dread “Your class has to go on quarantine for the next (insert number) days.” We have to prepare to continue instructing our students during the quarantine time. Right now, teachers have enough to stress over! Let Education to the Core help alleviate a little bit of that. With […]

Students with Dyslexia are sometimes the most challenging students to figure out! They seem brilliant at specific tasks but then never master the alphabet. They can recite facts about things that are so unbelievably high, but they can’t remember numbers past 20. Some of these students don’t appear to retain information daily, although we repeatedly […]

Drawing has been and always will be such a calming activity for me. As a child, I was always doodling in my notebooks, drawing the same things over and over again, until I liked what they looked like. Then I’d move on to the next. It makes me wonder, where were directed drawings when I […]

The topic of homework seems to be a hot-button issue in education lately.  Do we give it to students?  Do we not?  If we provide it to students should it be graded?  Extra practice?  Family involvement?  I mean the questions can go on and on.   So, I did what I do best when I don’t […]

Do you all have a set of student whiteboards for all of your kids in your class? I have tons of student whiteboards, but in all honesty, they don’t get nearly the use that they should each day. Does this sound familiar to any other teachers out there? I have store purchased ones, handmade ones, […]

Teachers, there is so much on our plates this year. It feels like every teacher could use a 4 week paid vacation to the tropical destination of choice right about now. Anyone else? The work we are doing is so important, but the stress of being a teacher is no joke. We are always striving […]