Topic: Elementary

What are the different types of play and when do they make sense? Learn from the authors of Purposeful Play about fantasy, rough-and-tumble, constructive, and games with rules.

Pay attention to the ways in which children are playing and making meaning.

What does purposeful play mean? Authors Kristi Mraz and Cheryl Tyler describe in this video blog.

Assessment is the bedrock of good teaching. By utilizing a variety of assessments, we get a multidimensional mathematical profile of each student.

Providing young children with lots of opportunities and encouragement to read unfamiliar books helps them to become adventurous, confident readers who are highly engaged meaning-makers.

Read-aloud time is an opportunity to mentor children in the mindset, habits, and strategies of proficient readers.

Children not only need to write, they also need direct, explicit instruction in the skills and qualities of effective writing.

In what ways can an understanding of the relationship between reading and writing make planning more efficient?

Using routines give students with learning disabilities precisely the support they need in four key ways. Here’s how it works...

There is a pervasive belief in our culture that being good at math is an innate ability. As teachers, we need to reinforce a growth mindset in our students. Here's where you can start...

As teachers, we must cultivate the structures and beliefs in a classroom community that lay the foundation for the mathematical growth of our students. Our foundation is built on a set of nine key beliefs.

Teaching elementary school math can be unpredictable and challenging, but you're not alone. Here are a few tips and tricks that keep us going when the going gets tough!

At the beginning of the school year, one of the most important things we do as teachers is get to know our children. It is during this “get to know you” time that we can easily learn about our students’ confidence levels.

One of the most important factors in successful student-centered instruction and learning is perseverance. If we let our students give up after the first try or get overly frustrated when they make a mistake, we are doing them a great disservice.

In order for students to learn and understand mathematical concepts, they must live in classrooms that support cooperative learning and mathematical discourse. Students develop an understanding of mathematics when in an atmosphere where they feel safe to learn, take risks, make mistakes, and grow.

Teaching questioning skills is not an easy process. It involves patience, scaffolding, and focused instruction. Asking a question is not something that a lot of our students know how to do innately, especially at the primary level.

As students move up the grades and further in their history educations, they will be expected to write about it in increasingly sophisticated ways.

It may seem strange to think about cultivating focus. Although natural abilities can vary, focus can be improved, cultivated, and taught.