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 […]
Executive Functioning Strategies for the Classroom
Many kids and young adults would benefit academically and socially by improving their executive functioning skills. These skills include: planning, organization, time management, task initation, working memory, metacognition, self-control, sustained attention, flexibility, and perseverance. If you need more background on each of these specific skills, read my post on Executive Functioning Skills Explained. Strategies to […]
10 Ways to Promote a Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset means understanding that you can develop your own strengths and weaknesses through hard work, dedication, and grit. By teaching students to have a growth mindset, kids and young adults can better learn to work through challenges and overcome adversity in their lives. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed […]
Executive Functioning Skills Explained
Executive functioning skills are getting a lot of attention right now in education. Honestly, it’s not even the amount of attention that they deserve, though. Executive functions are essentially the building blocks for completing all tasks in life (in school and beyond). If you think of executive functioning, you might just think of a student […]
Organizing Task Cards
Task cards are fun, versatile, and really easy for teachers to use in their classrooms. With more than just a couple sets, organization of those task cards can be a pain, though. Here are some fool-proof strategies for keeping your task cards neatly stashed away until they are ready to be used. Plastic Baggies. Place […]
How to Use Task Cards
Task cards are an easy, simple, and practical instructional strategy to incorporate into your classroom. There is some prep work and set up required by teachers, but once you have a system in place, it is easy from there on out. Best of all, kids love using task cards. Task cards really do promote student […]
Top 10 Middle School Keys to Success
I absolutely love teaching middle school. Sometimes, though, when people hear that I teach middle school, they seem to feel bad for me. Like middle school is some type of unknown vortex for kids. Maybe that’s why I love it so much. It’s a time of creativity, instability, and the unknown. It’s a time when […]
Why It’s Okay to Reduce Homework
As teachers, we all want our students to learn, practice skills, and thrive. Time is certainly limited in our classes. Even critical academic time gets interrupted with so much from assemblies, to guest speakers, and even standardized assessments themselves. So, homework often seems to be a great way to get kids to practice those skills […]
Simple Study Strategies Still Work!
With all new technology, I sometimes forget that some of the best study strategies for my students are the old fashioned ones. Making flashcards out of simple note cards is actually my favorite study strategy. It causes the student to be active in writing out the questions and answers by hand. This alone allows students […]
Helping Kids Get Organized!
As a middle school teacher, organization is one of the biggest areas that I see kids struggle with on a daily basis. As adults, most of us have already established our own routines that work for us and help us be organized. It’s our job as teachers to help students find those strategies and routines. […]
