The year is barely over, but for some reason your brain is already bypassing summer and heading into the planning of next school year. Why in the world does this happen EVERY STINKIN’YEAR?!?!

…because we are teachers and that is how we operate, the year ends and all we can do is think about: what we will do to make our students learn the content better, how we will make that tricky lesson go smoother, and what new tool we will find to organize and make life easier. Tell me I am not the only one!

While I am just embarking on the nutty task of helping my own kiddos prevent the “summer slide” my mind is already focusing on what is to come in my future. I will be home one more school year with my littlest, and then I plan to head back to the classroom where I will put all of my lessons back to good use. I think my son will be relieved that he no longer has to put up with being my lesson/activity guinea pig. While I will be excited to get back to the classroom, I have loved this time with my kiddos, and refining all of my classroom tools has been an awesome perk!

So while I know your brain is going one billion miles an hour in preparation for next year, take a break and check this out…

I utilized my Boxcar Children novel unit with my intervention students-6th grade students reading between 4th-5th grade. It was the perfect tool to focus on the mystery genre and keep them encouraged about the reading process. This crew needed both fluency and comprehension work, so we read aloud, answered the reader response questions independently, checked our answers as a group, then read the next chapter independently. It was the perfect way to navigate through this text.

I created this close reading informational text bundle when my son began quizzing me over his NFL and MLB cards. He is a fact kid. This fun pack includes 9-one page informational text passages with text-dependent questions, graphic organizers to support informational text, and answer keys. Some of my students tend to struggle with nonfiction and this was a way that I could really reach my struggling male readers. They want to talk about athletes all day and this is the tool that allows them to do just that, but also work on their reading comprehension.

Journaling is an essential within my classroom. It is a practice we focus on once a week. I have also found that after state testing, students can get uninspired to write. They feel as though their work for the year is complete. I created this tool as a means of keeping my students motivated to write through the end of the year by thinking about the summer fun that lies ahead.