April Desktop Background

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Here is the desktop background I'm using this month… super cute and Springy! :)


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Desmos in Elementary!

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If you are an elementary teacher, the tool Desmos Activity Builder might be new to you. While I see most current activities for middle and high school, don't let this deter you from giving it a try! There are some interesting and powerful ways to leverage this digital activity builder for you classroom. I've started making a few activities myself!

Some of the best things about Desmos is that you can use it on any device, it's free, the teacher dashboard/controls are awesome, and the activities you can build let you see student thinking in the moment! (Check out my blog post about 9 criteria to see how I judge formative assessment tech tools.)

I made a few screencast videos to help you get started and get some ideas of how you might use this in your K-5 classroom:


Getting started and adding card sorts to your activity options:






Adding a card sort to your activity:






Teacher Dashboard and Controls:





The power of sketch and sketch overlay:

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Block Schedule Planning

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I had an opportunity to teach on a 45-minute traditional class period schedule and a 90-minute block. Both models have their pros and cons. I think my own preference is block schedules because you have so much more time to dive into content. There are fewer transitions and it just seems calmer and more conducive to learning.

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I developed the following sample block plans based on 85 minutes. So, if you have 60 minutes you can think about cutting out one of these pieces. If you teach 90 minutes, add 5 minutes to o…
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The Low Kids and The High Kids

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Teaching is challenging and personal and important work. Every teacher I work with is doing their best, want to do their best, and do all of this with a kind teacher heart. I love teachers, in fact I still identify as a teacher myself. When people ask what I do, I say I'm a teacher. Because even if I'm a coach or a math coordinator, at the center of my work is teaching.

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These are real questions and fears we all have. And sometimes, being in this work means we develop some short-cut ways of describing the complexity of what we see in front of us. It's normal and natural as humans to look for patterns in our experience and categorize things. If we didn't our brains wo…
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