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My Blogging Journey
For those of you that are thinking of blogging, or for those of you who are just curious to know a little more about where I’m coming from, I thought I’d tell you my story. Let’s Take it Way Back I went to college to become an elementary school teacher. I thought I was destined to become Miss Honey from Matilda. But, as we have all learned, God had other plans. After college, I began subbing and working as a paraprofessional while I worked on my Masters. Because, that’s what I was told, you HAVE to get your Masters Degree. Due to some unforeseen circumstances (which is a long story…
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How I Accommodate Students During Tests and Quizzes
In my position, I provide inclusion support to special education students. This involves a lot of co-teaching, modifying assessments on the go, providing accommodations, and sometimes it feels like I’m constantly juggling. Many of my students struggle with showing what they know during a test, and I juggle with the balance between helping them show what they know and providing them too much help that it is not a proper assessment. Here are some of the things that I do when my students are taking tests. Separate Setting Many of my students benefit from taking their tests and quizzes in a separate setting, more specifically in my classroom with me…
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6 Tips for Starting a Successful Blog
Starting out, I tried to create this blog three times before I did it correctly on the third try. Here is what I learned from my mistakes, these are my 6 tips for starting a successful blog! Do your research When I started my blog, I went with the “dive right in” approach. This, very unsurprisingly, was not the right technique. Before you start your blog, do your research. Surf the internet and find other blogs that you like. You obviously do not want to copy someone else’s blog, but you want to get ideas of what you can do, what you can’t do. Also, you want to know what…
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The 10 Best Books I Read in 2017
Not only am I a teacher, I am also an avid reader. Each year I set lofty goals on Goodreads.com and then I read voraciously to try and meet them. This year I set a goal of 50 books, but I was sidelined from six months of migraines and fell behind. I plan on setting the same goal next year and with the migraines at bay, I hope to reach it! Personally, I am always looking for new books to read so I compiled a list of the best books I read in 2017. Some of these are new, some are old. Most I read for the first time, but…
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High-Stakes Testing
Like most states, my students have to participate annually in high-stakes testing. My eighth graders are responsible for taking two days of ELA testing, two days of Math testing and two days of Science testing. It is spread out to three weeks, two days per week, and it’s going to be a long few weeks! Preparation How do you prepare your students for high-stakes testing? My students are in middle school, so this is their sixth year doing testing like this. They seem to go on autopilot; they just want to get through the test and on to whatever is happening later in the day. With math, we work really hard to…
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Special Education Pacing: Do We Rush or Not?
Special education pacing can be challenging when you are trying to find the right balance. One of the decisions I struggle with the most is whether to focus on understanding or getting through the curriculum. This is a struggle I have mainly with math. I work with students who often require extra practice and more taught lessons to understand something. But, when you slow down to be able to do this, you are risking running out of time to finish the whole curriculum by the end of the year. Sub-separate Teaching – Special Education Pacing Last year I taught a sub-separate math class that had less than ten students. It…
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Tips for Time Management
There’s never enough time! I feel like any teacher can relate to the problem that there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done that we need to. This is not just a “teacher problem” but probably something a lot of people struggle with. Right now I am coming up to first-term progress reports for my students on IEPs, and I know just how time-consuming it will be to write progress notes for every goal for each student. On top of that, the rest of the world does not stop; I am still expected to be co-teaching, providing accommodations, modifying assignments, modifying their tests and quizzes, and continuing…
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Great Middle School Bulletin Boards
Selecting a great bulletin board for my classroom is something I struggle with yearly. I teach eighth-grade inclusion and because of that, I am often working with students on all five of their subjects, not one in particular. This makes selecting a content area bulletin board difficult because how do I choose between the different content areas? Because of this, I decided that it would be most beneficial for me to use bulletin boards that promote kindness, growth mindset, or something else that will encourage them to be better students and people. One of the first bulletin boards that I really liked was this one: I liked this…
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Tips for a Successful Monday
If you are anything like me, you hate Mondays. After having a relaxing weekend filled with family and friends, you have to get up early again and start a new week. Here are a few tips to help you get your week started right, and have a successful Monday. Prepare on Friday When you leave on Friday, do not leave yourself heaping piles of paperwork and a messy desk. Before you leave, do your weekly cleaning. Before I leave for the day on Friday I make sure my room is ready for the following week. I start by cleaning all of my desks. It is cold season and with a…
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Special Education Organization Essentials
Organization is one of my biggest challenges as a special education teacher. Between work samples, reports, IEPs, modifying their work, study guides, graphic organizers, and checklists; I feel like I am constantly drowning in paperwork! Every year I find a new way to organize myself that I think is going to be the trick to keeping myself organized. But, every year something does not work the way I expect it to, or there is something that I just do not keep up with. After a lot of trial and error, here are the best products I have found for organizing my classroom. Bankers Box Eight Compartment Literature Sorter I love these…
