The Blog - It's All Primary

Selling on TPT – A New Seller’s Guide

If you are thinking about selling on Teachers Pay Teachers or TPT, you are in the right place! This guide will help you get going on your teacherpreneur journey. I will include some Youtube videos when you need some visual guidance. Table of Contents What is Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT)? Teachers pay teachers is a … [Read more...]

Teaching Math in Primary Grades: A Teacher’s Guide

Teaching math in the primary grades can be life changing for your students and you. Yes, I am shocked how often I hear grade one students share how they "hate" math. How can that happen so soon in their learning? What happened the year before? Well, despite that, we have the opportunity to change their opinion. *This blog … [Read more...]

Teaching Y as a Vowel: The Phonics Skill We Often Skip

This past week, our class participated in a district-wide writing assessment. As I looked through the papers, I kept seeing the same spelling errors — "mi" instead of "my," "ski" instead of "sky." And I had to be honest with myself: had I ever actually taught Y as a vowel explicitly? Not really. I had mentioned it. We had talked … [Read more...]

Teaching CVC Words: The Progression Every K-2 Teacher Needs

If you've ever sat across from a little one who could rattle off every letter sound but still can't read the word cat, you know exactly why teaching CVC words is more than just pointing to letters. There's a progression, a specific sequence of skills that makes all the difference between a child who guesses and a child who … [Read more...]

Activities to Reinforce Sight Words

(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases) This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Part 1 covered what to do before teaching sight words. If your school uses a required program or curriculum, teach what's required — but no curriculum is perfect. Very few programs provide interactive activities for reinforcing … [Read more...]

What To Do Before You Teach Sight Words

Are you a new teacher? Part of your language arts curriculum could require you to teach sight words. These sight words are usually a list of words deemed appropriate by your school, district or country, for your grade. Different lists include: Dolch™, Frys ™, and the Common Exceptions lists. While there are benefits to teaching … [Read more...]

Assessments To Use When Teaching Math in the Primary Grades

Assessments to use when teaching math should be varied. We are going to talk assessments here but if you are looking for information on how to teach primary math, go to Teaching Math in Primary Grades. Just as we will have different learning styles in the classroom, we will see different ways in which students will express … [Read more...]

Ice Breakers for the First Day (or Week) of School

Depending on how your first day (or week) of school looks, include some ice breakers. Ice breakers can help some students very quickly find like minded potential friends. They can also be quite intimidating, if you are trying to force your students to share too much about themselves too soon. A level of trust needs to be … [Read more...]