Friday Five: Back to School After Winter Break

Going back to school after winter break can be ROUGH! We’ve all been there. Transitioning back into the new year can be tricky. The kids are still in vacation mode, and you might be too. Here are five tips to help reign it in and get back to business after a long break. Getting Back to School After winter Break One Catch Up With Each Other You just had a break! Take a minute to catch up and share all about your holidays. As an international teacher, students often travel to different countries and places over breaks. We usually get… View Post

Parent Communication Log with Google

Parent Communication Log- I NEED IT TO BE EASY Using Google Forms as a parent communication log is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. It is so easy and super helpful!  A few years ago, I was about halfway through the year when I realized that I wasn’t keeping logging any of my parent communication! Eeek! It wasn’t that I wasn’t communicating with parents. I wasn’t making any record of it. I tried to jot down a sticky note and put it in a file, but it wasn’t working. It wasn’t easy enough for me, and all those… View Post

New Years Resolutions for Teachers

Happy New Year! Well, teacher friend, we made it to January! It’s time to look forward and set some new years resolutions for teachers! My teacher life in 2019 with such joy and a renewed passion for teaching. I am approaching the second half of the school year, feeling so refreshed as an educator. My teacher resolutions will look so different from ones  I’ve set in the past.  There have been years though where I haven’t hit January feeling the way I do now. We all go through different seasons of teaching. A lot is coming up for us in… View Post

The Best Gifts for Teachers

What Are The Best Teacher Gifts? It’s that time of year, and gift buying is in full swing. What are the best gifts for teachers?  I have zero expectations of receiving gifts. It is always nice to receive a gift from a student, but it is by no means necessary. Trust me when I say that teachers are not in teaching for gifts. The most memorable and best gifts I’ve received have been so small but so meaningful. I’m not a parent, but I can imagine in some communities gift-giving is a huge stressor. I have spent hours scouring Etsy… View Post

How to Plan Seesaw Posts

Using Seesaw Seesaw is one of my favorite new tech tools in the classroom. It makes communication between home and school seamless. I started using it a few years ago, and I have improved so much! Let’s talk about how to plan seesaw posts to enhance your parent communication.  I initially began using Seesaw as a first-grade teacher. Our kindergarten program was Reggio Emilia inspired. A large part of the Reggio approach is using pictures as documentation to show learning. Parents received a file folder filled with photos that documented each week’s learning. I couldn’t compete with that! The grade one… View Post