Our state had Dreambox for many years as a way to reach tier 2 and 3 intervention students. The state didn't fund Dreambox this year, but did replace it with Zearn. I've heard great things about Zearn, but I haven't had the opportunity to ever use it. If you have experience with it, will you give me your thoughts, any tips/tricks, and/or ideas on how best to share with teachers all the features? Thanks so much!
We use Class Dojo for points for our reward celebrations and while this has really worked for our students, I’m wondering how to specifically work with Kinder babies who sometimes struggle to focus. I’m helping a Kinder teacher and she has one that is just drumming to her own beat but isn’t learning. The teacher is in constant communication with the parent. I’m just wondering what might motivate her a little more than Dojo points!
What are some ways you spiral review throughout the year for students in math so that concepts stay fresh, and also students remained engaged?
I want to have some options for teachers as I coach them. I’ve done daily 3-5 questions review at the start of a lesson and I’ve added a review station to my station rotation. Just looking for other ideas!
I have a water table in my kindergarten classroom and my students love to use it during literacy and math times for a variety of letter and number activities. I also let them use it during our play time so they can explore how water moves and changes in different containers of different shapes and sizes. What do you add to your water table to keep it fun and interesting for your students?
Our Open House is this week. I have a presentation and a Kahoot for the parents to complete after the presentation is done. What are some other ideas that you have to keep parents actively engaged at your Open House?
Technology thoughts!
- What digital tool or app has transformed your teaching this year?
- How are you helping students use technology in creative—not just consumptive—ways?
- If you had one hour to show a colleague how you use tech in class, what would you spotlight?
How are you and your students using AI in the classroom right now?
Are you experimenting with it for lesson planning, writing support, research, creativity, or even student projects? I’d love to hear both the big and small ways AI is showing up in your teaching practice—what’s working, what’s surprising, and what’s still tricky!
During my dissertation work, I used a age appropriate mock crime scene to help my kinder students investigate some fairy tale crimes (Who stole the Little Red Hen’s loaf of bread), and am looking for other immersive experiences outside of mock crime scenes and escape rooms. Any other suggestions?
I'm looking to help some teachers improve questioning throughout their lessons. Are there any articles, websites, blogs, etc that you would suggest?
What are some fun math brain teasers that get kids thinking before the math block officially starts? I found one like this and loved it but I'm looking for some other ideas!
We have some high school athletes that come every Friday to open up car doors for car riders and then come play math games with our 1st and 3rd graders. Our focus this year is going to be on fluency. What are some easy to understand and play fluency games that you like to do with your students?
I love this site that goes along with the book Math Fact Fluency by Jennifer Bay-Williams and Gina Kling: https://kcm.nku.edu/mathfactfluency/. There are great games with PDFs here.
This year in my role as STEM Coach, I spend a good chunk of my time looking at and discussing assessments with my teachers. While I administered and wrote many assessments in my teaching career, I've been spending time researching more about creating assessments. I came across this article from Edutopia and wanted to share it because it had so many good ideas and reminders in it. I will be sharing it with my teachers in my next newsletter as well!
https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-teachers-improve-assessment-test-makeover
I am looking for some new loose parts! Do you have any favorites or recommendations?
I would like to engage my kindergarten students in more STEM activities. Any suggestions?
We host a STEAM night each year at our school and are always looking for large scale activities that families can engage in together. Have you been successful with any activities that you would recommend?
I am currently hosting a student teacher. What do you wish you knew when you were student teaching that I could share with them? (Other than joining us here!!) :)
What are some of your favorite STEAM activities that you like to do with elementary students (bonus if you can share something that could be done as a family!)?
We have adopted enVision for our Math Curriculum and text books this year. We are using Savvy as the adaptive practice for third through fifth grade. I don't know much about the program and as the STEM Coach, I don't have a class to play around with to see what it looks like. Any tips or tricks about using this effectively in the classroom? Teachers aren't happy about using it (our state had paid for Dreambox previously to this year and they are reluctant to change) so I'm looking for advice from others who have used it and seen growth for students.
