Kids and young adults need social-emotional skills to be successful at school, home, and for the rest of their lives. These are the skills that help kids build confidence, understand their own strengths and weaknesses, collaborate with others, navigate social situations, develop strong relationships, and make better decisions. Without a doubt, these are critical skills […]
Teaching Kids Self-Love in the Classroom
Today’s kids and young adults have too much negative energy all around them. Whether it is negative comments on social media, means texts going back and forth, or just overhearing the daily news, kids are drowning in negativity. With all of that considered, it can’t be said enough how much kids NEED positivity in their […]
Clipboard Progress Monitoring
Progress monitoring is often a lot of work for educators. In this video, I explain how how to use clipboards in your classroom to help you manage student data and progress monitoring. I love this tip because it’s a simple solution for how to take quick and easy student data on the go! After watching […]
12 Things Special Educators Need
Being a special educator is an amazing title that comes with lots of prep work and responsibility! There are just some resources that a special educator really needs to have in their classroom to help keep them organized, data-driven, and their students on track. Whether you are prepping your classroom for the back to school […]
7 Tips to Survive the End of the Year
After state testing finishes, many kids (and adults) struggle to survive the last few weeks of school. Summer is coming and everyone knows it! Here are seven tips that will help teachers and kids have a positive and fun ending to the school year. 1. Assign end of the year projects. Kids love projects with […]
How to Progress Monitor Goals and Objectives
As a special education teacher, I work to stay on top of my progress monitoring for the kids on my caseload. Between juggling IEP meetings, parent phone calls and emails, collaborating with regular education staff, prepping, and teaching my daily lessons, it gets challenging. This problem is even more difficult at the middle and high […]
5+ Ways to Encourage Gratitude
Gratitude means feeling thankful and appreciative for what you already have. By just taking the time to recognize what we are grateful for, we can become happier, more relaxed, and keep a positive mindset. Encouraging kids and young adults to develop gratitude has been an interesting area of study. Some research highlights that getting in […]
Teaching Kids to Work Together
Having kids and young adults working in groups (and partners) is just part of everyday life as as teacher. It can feel wonderful when you see a small group of kids collaborating effectively and learning together about a new topic. It’s true that many kids really learn best from each other when compared to learning […]
How to Modify for Special Education
Supporting kids with special needs works best when both regular education and special education staff work together. That’s why it is helpful for all teachers to understand how they can modify and accommodate for students in their classrooms. For newer teachers, learning that you need to modify work for kids of various levels can be […]
9 Tips for Motivating Unmotivated Kids
Many kids and young adults struggle with motivation. These are the kids who are slow to start classwork, often don’t turn in homework, and may even seem to refuse to attempt any assignment they view as a challenge. It can be extremely frustrating, especially because these students are often bright and capable in their own […]