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Articles

Middle school students collaborating

Strengthening Students’ Speaking and Listening Skills

Having productive conversations requires students to listen deeply, reflect on what is said, express ideas clearly, sustain attention, ask insightful questions, debate respectfully, and develop comprehension of information taken in. These essential listening and speaking skills need to be taught and practiced and will help students have successful conversations both…
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Nov 12 2019
Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Making Learning Meaningful: It’s All About the Why

A few years ago, as I looked around the fourth/fifth grade combination class I taught, I saw a student staring at her math notebook and slowly shaking her head. I wandered over to her and said, “You can always talk to me if something is puzzling you. I might be…
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Jan 12 2016
Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Doing Language Arts in Morning Meeting

Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is a great way to set a positive tone for the day of learning ahead while also having fun and building community. It’s also a great way to give students rich experience with the language arts. Into each meeting component—greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message—teachers…
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Feb 05 2015
Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Pen Pals With a Twist

Not long ago, my second grade classes started pen pal projects. These weren't your usual pen pal ventures where children write to students in another state or country. These had a twist. In our Pen Pal Notebook project, the students write a letter every Friday to an adult at home:…
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Sep 18 2014
Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Morning Meeting Lesson Plans . . . Where to Begin?

Do you think a lot about how to create Morning Meetings that positively impact each day and prepare your students for the learning to come? I'll share a little secret that has worked for me: Try planning Morning Meeting after you do your lesson plans for the rest of the…
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Apr 15 2014
Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

The Hot Seat

Are you looking for interactive learning structures that will help your students gain a deeper understanding of content while also developing and practicing higher level thinking skills? The Hot Seat is a strategy I've used successfully across disciplines with 3rd and 4th grade students. I borrowed it from Jeffrey Wilhelm,…
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Apr 07 2014

Books for Hopes and Dreams (2012)

Recommending children's books that teachers can use to begin talking about goal-setting and with their students has become an annual ritual for me. (Here are my picks for 2011 and 2010.) This year I found so many that I can't even share them all! Hope and optimism are apparently alive…
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Aug 15 2012
80 Morning Meeting Ideas Grades 3-6

Sharing Idea: Who Remembers My Favorite Book?

Here's a Morning Meeting sharing idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3–6, by Carol Davis: Who Remembers My Favorite Book? Playing a fun remembering game builds on children's listening and memory skills. How to do this around-the-circle sharing: Tell students they each will have a turn to share…
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Mar 27 2012

Greeting Idea: Backward Day Handshake

Here's a Morning Meeting greeting idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2, by Susan Lattanzi Roser: Backward Day Handshake Greeting Students pass along a friendly handshake, but say the greeting backward. How to do it: Choose a student to begin the greeting. The first greeter shakes hands with…
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Mar 13 2012

Guided Discovery: Paper, Scissors, and Glue

One of my favorite Guided Discovery lessons led children to explore ways they could use paper, glue sticks (or glue), and scissors. I was always amazed at what children could create with these simple materials and the many techniques they used to make two- and three-dimensional works. The experience expanded…
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Oct 06 2011

Books for Guided Discovery: Crayons

Use a book to kick off a Guided Discovery lesson or to reinforce learning from it. A great read-aloud can open children’s minds to the magic and possibilities of the material you're exploring. Take crayons. Most children have seen them or drawn with them. They may even think they know…
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Sep 22 2011

More Books for Hopes and Dreams

A recent post on Facebook for more ideas about books to use with hopes and dreams made me think about why some stories work so well to inspire children to think about what they want to accomplish in school and beyond. I think it's because so many great picture books…
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Sep 09 2011

Back to School with Children’s Books

Reading aloud can be a powerful way to build community and shared understanding at the beginning of the school year. My classes and I used to laugh and talk all year about the picture book Table Manners by Chris Raschka and Vladimir Radunsky, and the first chapter book we read…
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Sep 01 2011

Do You Teach Writing?

Always on the lookout for resources to help teachers, I recently found a gem: Day by Day: Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice (Stenhouse, 2010). Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz—the "Two Writing Teachers" bloggers—have rounded up a huge amount of detailed information and presented it in an…
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Aug 02 2011

Celebrating Friendship

Take time at the end of the school year to help children reflect on how they have worked to get to know each other, efforts they have made to be kind, and the friendships they have formed. Here are two tales of unique and unlikely friendships that you could use…
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May 20 2011

Read-Alouds for Remembering

How has your class grown this year? What acts of kindness have they done for each other? What have they learned? What do you hope they will remember? Children's books can be great vehicles for exploring these sorts of questions during the last weeks of school. Here are two great…
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May 18 2011

Fruitful Mistakes

Recently I left my coat in a classroom in northern California, lost the cover for my Blackberry somewhere between California and Greenfield, Massachusetts, and made a pot of soup for dinner that was inedible. There was a time in my life when mistakes like these would have left me undone.…
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Mar 31 2011

Read-Alouds: Duck! Rabbit!

Before I moved to California, I had the pleasure of being part of a children’s book club—a group of adults who gathered together once a month to read and discuss children’s books. Last summer I got back together with those friends and learned about many recent publications, including a new…
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Oct 12 2010

Read-Alouds for Rule Creation

Classroom rules work best when students understand why rules exist and how rules will help them, as individuals and as a group. I have found several children's books over the years that help inspire conversations about these topics. Here are some suggestions: Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller. When his…
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Sep 16 2010

Books for Back-to-School: School Poems

I’ve been having fun writing about books for the first few weeks of school, and today I have another collection of poems to share: Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems for Two Voices by Betsy Franco, illustrated by Jessie Hartland. I love well-written poems for two voices because…
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Sep 09 2010

Read-Alouds for the First Day of School

The other day Jen Audley sent me a link to a blog entry about the first day of school that really got me thinking about the children who come to our classes and how thoughtful we need to be from the moment we meet them. Carol, the author, respectfully questions…
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Aug 16 2010

Books for Back to School: Falling Down the Page

I love visiting bookstores, especially children’s bookstores, when I’m traveling. This summer, while I was on the road for work, I discovered lots of new books. (Truth be told, I also spent a little more than I should have on books for my toddler at home!) Over the coming weeks,…
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Aug 06 2010

Summer Reading: Access & Choice

I’d just read Tina Valentine’s post called “Will Your Students Keep Learning This Summer?” when I happened on another article on the same topic in the current International Reading Association newsletter. “Stopping Summer Slide” cites research conducted by Anne McGill-Franzen,  Richard Allington, and colleagues at the University of Tennessee. They…
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Jun 25 2010

Will Your Students Keep Learning This Summer?

Did you know that two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading can be related directly to unequal summer learning opportunities? Even though I've seen firsthand how students can lose ground in their learning over the summer, that statistic shocked me. It's cited in the June edition of The Whole Child…
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Jun 15 2010

Read-Alouds for the Last Day

What do you read to your class on the last day of school? I always put so much energy into that last choice. I wanted a book that would celebrate the community we had built, the friendships we had made, the values we had discussed . . . and at…
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Jun 01 2010

Energizers! Spelling Stroll

Energizers are usually more about giving children quick movement and breathing breaks than they are about academics. Still, it’s possible to work in a little academic practice, as long as the focus remains on fun, refocusing, and relaxation. The "Spelling Stroll" energizer fits that bill very nicely, especially for children…
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Mar 15 2010

Here’s an Idea! Songs in Other Languages

Singing a familiar tune or chant in another language can enliven a Morning Meeting, be a fun energizer, and help meet the needs of the growing number of second language learners in our classrooms. Although they sometimes laughed at my poor accent, the children in my class who were native…
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Oct 14 2009

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