Classroom management woes? We’ve all struggled with students' behavior in the classroom at one time or another.

The backbone of your classroom, the part that supports everything else you do, is your classroom management system. Honestly, just about any system can work, if it fits you and your teaching style. The key is your system needs to be simple, easy to use and manage all day, and sustainable over the long haul that is a school year.

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I know you've heard this before, but teaching really is a marathon, not a sprint. 

In order to not just survive but thrive in the midst of the marathon, good classroom systems must be in place and that includes your classroom management system. In this episode, we'll chat about a simple system to make managing your students' behavior a little bit easier. In fact, if used consistently, your students will learn how to begin to take responsibility for their behavior.

Listen in to the full episode to f...

Let’s talk about your reading block…Some of the questions I get asked all the time are:

How do you fit everything into your literacy block?  How do you decide what to do, not do (ie.. prioritize)? And what’s your schedule during your literacy block?

When I first started teaching it wasn't long before I realized I needed to be clear about the most important things my students needed to know in order to read and write well, the sequence in which to teach them, and more. It's a lot! Don't worry, I have a plan to share with you.

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I'm not going to kid around and tell you it's easy to teach literacy. it's not. You have to have a long-range plan before you can plan weekly and daily lessons. That might mean you planned it all out over the summer or you will plan by the quarter or trimester. We'll do baby steps here. I'll break it all down over a few episodes. 

Today, I have the skinny on planning your literacy block no matter how much time y...

As teachers, we talk a lot about classroom systems and procedures. But...

do you know what systems and routines you should have, how to teach them and how long you should expect to spend teaching them?

Today, I have the skinny on all my classroom systems, routines, and procedures and how I incorporate training my students during the school day and over the first weeks of school.

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Teaching classroom systems or procedures is a foundational piece of a well-run classroom.  

It's impossible for students to know what to do if we don't train them. The last thing we want is to leave the details of how things should be done in our classrooms to chance. Imagine driving down the road and having to just use "common sense" to figure out what the best way to drive your car is - no training necessary. It would be a disaster on the road! The same is true for your classroom. 

Be specific about what you want students to do and how you want it done...

The Science of Reading is the latest in literacy education. But...is it for real or just another education bandwagon?

Every few years there’s a new reading or literacy bandwagon to jump on. The buzzwords and “acceptable” techniques abound. Phonics, whole language, close reading, balanced literacy, Accelerated Reader, IXL, Reader Rabbit, Reading Recovery, phonemic awareness to name a few …and the MOST RECENT ADDITION to the list…the science of reading. 

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Well…I’ve been around the block a few times and let me tell you, I’ve seen it all [and quietly ignored much of it and done my own thing for years once I realized what real reading instruction looked like]. You see, years ago, when I realized my youngest son had dyslexia [and apparently my father as well], I started to question all of the things I thought I knew about literacy and learning to read.

So, if you ever wonder if your students are learning to read despite your efforts instead...

The importance of self care for teachers is a given. We all understand we need to take care of ourselves. But...

Does self care in your regular teacher life seem like an impossible dream? It can. It is hard enough to do all the things every day as a teacher, and possibly as a mom to boot. Making time to take care of yourself might seem overwhelming in the midst of all the overwhelm, but it's essential. 

This episode is all about helping get started in making self care a HABIT and not just another thing on your list to remember.

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In order to get started, I have some questions for you.

I'll give you a few of them here and you can get the full list when you listen to the episode.

• What makes your day, any day, better?
• What are the bright spots in your day?
• Do you have any lulls in your day. You know, those moments when you fell totally done in?

***The ultimate goal is to help you stay on an even keel whether your day is going gre...

You don’t need to build your own binder, create cute labels, do elaborate décor,  or spend hours creating or tons of money purchasing décor for your classroom to be organized and ready for the school year.

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Don’t get me wrong, I love decorating a classroom. I do. Having a space I enjoy being in makes going to school just that little bit more enjoyable. But it’s not the most important thing!

Today, let’s take a hot second to talk about some essential pieces I do first(like planning routines for an organized classroom), before all that fun décor, that will make your year so much easier.

Listen in to the full episode to find out:

• What you should be planning long before you plan your classroom layout and decor.
• Why you need a plan and a routine for things like unfinished work.
• Which spaces in my classroom I fully set up FIRST.
• 3 essential routines that can make or break your day.
• My 7 classroom organization tips that will save y
...

We’ve all asked that question at some point in our teaching careers...how do you organize your classroom library? 

Honestly, it's not always a one-and-done situation. We may organize our classroom library differently depending on the grade level we are teaching, our goals for our students, the skills we want them to learn, and more. In fact, there are so many ways to organize your classroom library that it can get confusing and overwhelming. 

So, if you're pondering reorganizing your library, setting up a classroom library for the first time, or just want to be able to use and manage your classroom library better, this episode is for you!

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Classroom library organization is more than just how you group and store the books. 

Sometimes I think teachers get caught up in sorting, cataloging, and creating organization for the books. All the while, the other pieces that go with managing a fully functional classroom library effectively and e...

I am sure you already use scaffolding strategies to help each of your students learn.

Let’s face it, a classroom of students [just like any workplace] is really a hodgepodge of readiness, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. In order to help all of our students learn, we have to be able to scaffold instruction in more than one way.

Today, I have the skinny 9 ways to scaffold instruction.

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Before we begin, I just want to say thank you to everyone who entered the gift card drawing to celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast. The winner of the $100 TeachersPayTeachers Gift Card is Aimee Dunford. Congratulations, Aimee!

What is scaffolding instruction? Let's begin with a definition:

According to EdGlossary, "Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process." 

There are lots of ways to scaffold in...

You have probably heard of task cards or even tried them in your classroom. But, do you honestly know a lot about the best ways to use task cards in your classroom?

Not to worry! Today, the 100th episode of The Teach Joyully Podcast is all about how to use task cards. 

To celebrate to 100th episode of The Teach Joyfully Podcast I'm giving away a $100 TeachersPayTeachers gift card. Down below  are the all details to enter the drawing.

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Teaching with task cards might seem like it just makes things more complicated or maybe task cards feel like one more thing to do. 

I get that. I do think task cards make formative assessments so much easier though. So it might be more work upfront until you get the hang of creating task cards, but in the long run, those task cards will pay off big time.

Like anything, learning something new or adding in a new piece takes practice. This piece gets easier the more you do it.

Don't forget to grab the sa...

News Flash! I have shouted at my class. Ok, who hasn’t, really?! In fact, I've had my share of classroom management problems too.

So I know from experience when it comes to behavior management in your class, yelling [more than on rare occasions] is a sign of a deeper classroom management problem. I don’t do a lot of classroom management episodes, but truly behavior management is something that pervades all areas of teaching and needs to be discussed in the context of various teaching times and situations so you can simply teach.

 In case you haven’t guessed….Today, we’re talking about classroom management strategies in the literacy classroom.

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If you find yelling is not a rare occurrence for you, to have to shout to gain back control of your class, or you find yourself lecturing about behavior more than you’d like…then you already know [deep down] that you’re struggling to maintain control of your classroom. You KNOW that your students d...