Books to help you recharge over the Summer

Hello Friends, it's Erin from The Elementary Darling. The countdown is on! I have about four weeks left before the end of the year, and this is the time that I start planning for the summer and organizing for the beginning of the year. I know some of you are thinking, "She is crazy!" and I might be a little bit, BUT the end of the year is the best time to organize and plan.  Last year, I wrote this post about what I do a the end of the year, and Kristin wrote this post, about planning during the end of the year.

But TODAY, I am going to show you my favorite professional development books. Obviously, I would recommend checking out one or two based on your needs, however they are ALL amazing!

For the teacher that needs to RECHARGE

I love anything written by Ron Clark, but Move your Bus is my favorite. I reread it often to remind myself to be a runner! If you don't know, his co-owner of The Ron Clark Academy is Kim Bearden, and her book, Crash Course will remind you why you went into teaching. It is my ultimate favorite! I also recently found the book Conscious Discipline, thanks to my friend, Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher. This book is all about teacher mindset. I just started it, and I am loving it!

Throughout this post, you’ll find Amazon Affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that helps keep my blog running and helps fund giveaways!

For the teacher beginning Reading Groups

These books are good for reading groups, or ideas for your groups. Even if you have been implementing reading groups for several years, I know you will find something useful in them! These two books are my everything when it comes to Guided Reading. Jan Richardson has everything you need, including strategies and printables in this book for every level of guided reading. The Daily Five book is great for anyone who uses a grouping method for reading.  I also LOVE Word Nerds. This book has amazing ideas for vocabulary instruction. While I would recommend it for 2nd grade and above, it could be modified for Kindergarten and 1st grade.

For the teacher looking for Math Group ideas

I LOVE this book! Debbie Diller is an amazing math group guru, and she has fabulous ideas in this book! It is for grades K-2, so if you have a book suggestion for 3-6, I would love to hear it!

For the teacher looking for Differentiation Ideas 

If you are a GenEd teacher and you have a huge range of student abilities in your classroom, these are my top picks! I got my gifted endorsement several years ago and the book, Teaching Gifted Kids in Today's Classroom is my all time favorite. It has so many suggestions to extend the learning of higher level students.  Advancing Differentiation and How to Differentiate Instruction for Mixed Ability Classrooms are both amazing and so helpful when your classroom ranges in ability levels.

For the teacher looking for IDEAS or Strategies

How many times have we all run out of ideas or needed new fresh strategies for teaching a topic?  I recently found these books this year, and I never knew what I was missing. THEY ARE SO GOOD! You can use these books no matter what ELA format you use. It is literally a book full of strategies for every level. They do cost a little more, but honestly, they are worth EVERY penny. You can find the reading one here and the writing one here. These two will be the ones that I will be reading over the summer!

What professional development books will you dive into this summer? Whether you are reading to recharge, learn new strategies, or try a new method, these books will help you achieve your goal! Do you have an awesome book that I didn't show, leave it in the comments below! Happy Reading!

How to Organize your Classroom Posters

Hello and Happy Sunday peachy friends! I don't know if you are like me, but I LOVE shopping for my classroom at the Dollar Tree.  They have some really great posters in the teacher section and I like to use them during my units. I started buying so many that I ran out of room to store them! They were literally everywhere: my car, my home office, and in random places stuffed in corners of my classroom. So this month, I decided I was going to organize my posters!

I am in the process of organizing them as I use them. So far, it has been awesome and I have zero complaints. I have a really small space in one of my closets to hang things. I decided this was the best use of my closet space for anchor charts and posters. There are no other spaces in my classroom to put a trash can or hanging spot, so I use what I have!

 I bought shipping labels that are 2x4 inches but you can use any size of label you prefer. I wrote on half of the label and wrapped it around the hanger. This way I know which two posters are on that hanger and I can pull out what I need.

I also got binder clips to attach the posters to the hanger. I can usually hang two posters that are laminated on there. The lamination makes it a little bit heavier, so I try to stick to two posters.

It really helps me to just grab what I need to post on my bulletin board. Sometimes I post them directly in the space, like my unit poster, and other times I post them under the anchor chart that I have made with my students.

What I like about this process the most is that it is simple and affordable if you have the closet space. How do you store the posters that you buy? I would love to hear your storage solutions in the comments below!

Building a Classroom Community during the Holidays!

Hey Y'all! It's Erin from The Elementary Darling. The holidays are upon us. I am so excited to spend some family time over Thanksgiving! During my Thanksgiving break, I always plan my December lessons and make a wishlist of items that I will need to complete crafts, snacks, or activities with my students.I send home my wishlist before December. Some may say that I over plan, but the holidays are crazy enough as it is. We MAP test and benchmark test in December. Add that to the crafts (that you strategically matched to your standards) and the excitement and it gets a little crazy in the classroom. So today, I am going to share my favorite idea to build your classroom community during the holidays!

With all of the business, my students started getting stress some of my friends needed a little reminder to be nice and thankful. I wanted to spread joy and love throughout my classroom while building our classroom community, because let's be honest, we work on this ALL.YEAR.LONG.

So I decided we would build our classroom community by writing nice things about our friends on our paper chain. TWO in ONE deal my friends! You get classroom decor AND kindness from students in one fell swoop.

We filled our room with these strips. Each day, the students would receive two pieces of paper. They were encouraged to write to different people each day, We filled them out in our "spare time" and I asked them to watch their friends to see all of the wonderful things that each of them were doing during the day. I read them and the kids loved hearing all of the fabulous things people were saying about them. I filled them out as well so that all of the students would have great things said about them.

Each afternoon, I would add the strips and the students would watch our chain grow and decorate our classroom. They loved it, and so did I. It really brought out all of those good Holiday Feelings. The best part is, you can do this for very little cost! You can use cut strips of construction paper. If you don't want to do that, you can get the ones that I used from Oriental Trading. They have some really cute ones here or the plain red and green ones here.

How do you build your classroom community during the holidays? Leave us a comment and let us know the wonderful things that you do in the classroom! Happy Holidays, Friends!

-Erin from The Elementary Darling

Ten ideas for student participation during Open House

Hey Y'all! It's Erin from The Elementary Darling! Summer has been flying and I go back to work tomorrow! so today I am going to chat about what your new students can do during Open House.

I have enjoyed my summer full of Target trips, dollar store hunts, and family time but as the school year rolls around, I get equal parts excited and anxious. Back to school time is fun but also stressful and this year I am moving to a new school and a new grade level.  Many of you are doing the same or even just one of those things, and while it is an exciting time, it is also a stressful time.

To help with the stress of coming back to school and having Open House (or meet the teacher, or sneak a peek) I also started doing stations in my classroom. Yesterday, Theresa shared her station idea with you all. If you didn't read it, head here.  I did something similar and you can read about those stations here on my blog.

The only difference is that I found that my parents were doing the stations, and my students weren't always participating. OR one parent was taking the student to do the stations (LOVE) and the other was filling out the paperwork. {This is the ideal situation for my classroom.} My school was a Title One school and we had a ton of information and surveys for the parents to fill out.

***Insert big idea here*** I decided that I needed some things that students could do while the parents filled out all of the paperwork! You can make these a station OR you can just have them set out in the room and let the students do them. {Side note: if you teach Kinder babies you may want to make it a station, so their parents can help them.}

Here are 10 ideas for student participation during Open House!

1.) Organize Supplies
I love Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher's idea of having the students take a scrapbook page to create a scrapbook. The students pick the color of their paper and they take it home to work on. I also love that she organizes her materials THAT NIGHT. This is a great activity for the kids to do! Everything is labeled and even if they can't read the words, you can put one of each item in the box and the students will know where to put the item.

2.) Selfie Wall
Almost every kid knows how to take a selfie. This selfie wall or photo booth is a great and easy way for the students to snap a picture with a saying. I just put second grade on mine, but you can do anything! I also had to use a selfie stick because no one was at school to take my picture so excuse the terrible pose :)

3.) Photo Booth
Another version of this is Chandra, from Teaching with Crayons and Curls, photo booth where she took a sparkly table cloth and the students used signs and got a picture. She did a  Party theme and it was precious!

4.) Meet the Teacher Chart
Kristin from School in the City created this cute chart to learn about the teacher. This would be cute for the kids to look at during open house. It is also easy to make for all grade levels!


5.) Estimation Station
The students grab a post it note and write how many skittles they think are in the jar with their name. I check them all when Open House is over and I put all of the post its on an anchor chart for our math focus board. The student who gets the closest answer wins the jar on the first day of school! It makes an awesome first math lesson and gets the students excited.

6.) Post it Note Anchor Chart
This is an easy and fun way for students to answer a question. They love choosing their post it note, and most grade levels can answer the question on their own. K-1 babies will need some help on this one, but even pictures are cute.  My first graders did pretty well with this, the year that I did it!

7.) Choose your back to school gift!
Sometimes I have my students' gifts on each desk as they walk in, but I think this year I am going to let them choose their own gift. They are either going to pick based on marker color or based on paper color, but who doesn't love a choice?!?! You can find these editable marker papers here in my TPT shop for FREE!

8.) Scavenger Hunt
I have seen so many different scavenger hunts for students. I love the ones with the pictures, especially for the K-1 babies. There are too many to choose from, so my suggestion is to get on TPT or Pinterest and find the perfect one for you and your classroom!

9.) Find your seat or choose your seat.
This may seem like an easy one, but many students, like us, are anxious. They may want to sit closer to the teacher, or the board and choosing his/her desk is an easy way for them to get excited for the year. My suggestion is to write the names on the name tags, have the students choose their name, and then place it on the desk they choose. If you need a more controlled environment, I understand! The students could just find their desk. Make sure to leave them something fun like ready confetti,  jitter glitter, or a present to make them feel comfortable.

10.) Meet the Teacher
Wait, they need to actually talk to you? YES! And this is the cheapest and easiest suggestion of them all! It is so important to take the time to talk to the student. Many times, the parents take over, and the kids just sit there. Have some "go to" questions to ask the students that are easy to answer.
*What did you love about First Grade? (their previous grade)
* What are you excited to learn about?
* Do you love science? We are going to do some fun science experiments!
*Did you get anything special to start the year off with?
*or my Favorite- Do you think your mom and dad are ready for you to Second Grade?

Just remember, these are suggestions. I don't think all of this is possible during one open house. It's like Target, just pick the one or two you need. {Who am I kidding, I need everything at Target.}

Good Luck!



Spring into April- Four Free Poetry Apps

Hello Friends! It's Erin from The Elementary Darling, and my peachy friends and I are sharing our favorite new ideas to get you through the month of April!

Today I am here to share four of my favorite FREE poetry apps!

I teach first grade and I was searching for the perfect app for younger students to learn about poetry. Thankfully, I came across these wonderful apps from http://www.readwritethink.org/. They are available for ipad and android so they are perfect for any device. What I like about them is the fact that they are easy for the students to use and the app organizes the poem for the student!

1. Haiku

This app reminds the students to count the syllables, and provides a space for them to brainstorm words.

2. Acrostic Poems

This app provides the student with an example of  an acrostic poem. It then leads them through a brainstorming session, and gives hint words for the acrostic poem.

3. Theme Poem

The theme poem app provides the students with different shapes. The shapes include sports, school, and other kid friendly shapes. The students choose a shape and describe that shape.

4. Diamante 

This app also describes what a diamante poem is and takes the students through the steps to create a diamante poem. It even labels each line and what the student should include in the poem.

All of these apps allow you to save them to the ipad, which would make them easy to save to your computer and print or email! This way, if you only have one device , the students could use this as a center or with a partner! Another great resource for poetry apps is this post from Erintegration! 

Stay tuned for more ideas this month from the Peach! And if you try any of these fabulous FREE apps, let me know!

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Sweet Treats: A Love of Regrouping

Hello February and Hello Friends!

It's Erin from The Elementary Darling and today I am thrilled to be sharing a fun math freebie with you all today!

First, I want to share a freebie with you that you can use this week!

We have been regrouping our little hearts out over here! I created this sheet that you can use with basically anything! All you need are some little hearts or other form of Valentine container. I got mine from the Dollar Tree a few years ago, but Target has had come cute containers in the Dollar Spot lately!  You could even just decorate a cute paper bag with a numbered heart! Inside each heart you put a problem. You only need six problems for the center. I used regrouping with addition and subtraction, but you could put any type of problem that you are working on in the hearts. I added a page without the directions for regrouping, so that you can put regular problems in the hearts as well.

Click on the picture below to grab this freebie!

Now, check out this fun idea my sweet firsties did this week!

This was a fun activity my students completed this week. I cut some hearts out. (They loved that.) So easy and simple!
I made three bags
1. Signs (addition and subtraction)
2. Two digit numbers
3. Three digit numbers

This is how I differentiated. Some students took two numbers out of bag 2, some took two numbers out of bag 3, and some students took one number out of bag 2 and one number out of bag 3. This allowed me to challenge some students with three digit, while others just practiced two digits.

The students glued the numbers on and the sign. This helped them practice lining up the numbers in the correct columns.

They had to complete one and get it correct before adding to their heart. They turned out so cute!

Happy Valentine's Day, Friends!








For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Pin this image, so you can come back!