Happy Monday, y’all. I have a confession to make. I ran a red light on the way to work this morning. Yipes! It wasn’t a reckless move—well, I guess it ended up being reckless. I simply thought I was close enough to make it on yellow, realized too late that I wasn’t, and already had…
Classroom Management
Let Students Know You Love to Help!
Sometimes students who need the most help are reluctant to ask for it. I always want to let students know that I care about them and want to help. I created these cards with the Card Maker Tool from Mailbox Gold 101 Tool Kit in less than a minute. I will print on card stock,…
Potty Problems
It takes a particularly wacky sort of editor to have her blog picture taken in the company bathroom, but here I am. We do have really nice bathrooms here at The Mailbox. The walls and doors of each stall go all the way to the floor, so you really feel like you’re in a tiny…
Raise Your Hand!
For an upcoming issue of The Mailbox magazine Preschool edition, I’m writing a feature on one of those classroom management issues that every teacher of young grades encounters: how do you get youngsters to raise their hands instead of just blurting out their thoughts, answers to questions, or random information that happens to be on…
A College Refund
I feel that I should get a refund for all the college courses I took that didn’t actually help me in my career. And there were a lot of them. I changed majors and colleges, so I ended up going to school for an exceedingly long time. I loved it. I loved the books and…
Hallway Manners
I love it when I see a class of students quietly parading down a school hallway. It’s such an accomplishment for both the teacher and students! Hopefully by this time of the school year students are falling into a pattern of lining up quickly and quietly; and then again maybe not! How do you encourage…
Answer the Teacher Prep Critics
I took a nontraditional route to teaching. I’m sure you’re not surprised. After a decade as a cubicle dweller, two untimely layoffs within a year were enough to make me finally take the step I had been contemplating for a long time. With little advance preparation, I took the Massachusetts teaching licensure exam, which, when…
On the Verge of Wrapping It Up
Yes, unless you teach in a year-round school, that part of the academic year when you start looking at ways to wrap it up is here (or coming very soon). My three kids have already informed me of how few school days are actually left before summer vacation. I nearly had a heart attack! Mailbox…
What Traits Must a Teacher Have?
Without a doubt, the place where I failed most spectacularly as a teacher was at the corner of Organization Street and Process Avenue. I’m sure there were days when my students didn’t know what to expect from me; however, the work we did was consistent and the way in which we approached it rarely veered…
Keeping Mother Nature at Bay
Mother Nature has obviously never spent time at the front of a classroom or she would know better than to send snowstorms midweek. Likewise with Monday morning ice storms and Friday blizzards. I mention this because Mother Nature has been rather thoughtless the last few weeks here in North Carolina. Just this morning, area schools…