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Back-to-School Edition
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ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2024
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Every back-to-school season is a fresh start for students and teachers alike—even if you loop grade levels with all your students or changed grade levels and have a few familiar faces in the classroom.
What can you do right now to build community and create a classroom that will motivate, inspire, challenge, support, and sustain everyone? We’ve gathered tips and ideas to help you figure that out. Read the full article for inspiration!
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Everyone is abuzz about actively engaging all students this year. Read on for tips and ideas you can use right away!
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Download New Engagement Strategies!
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Active Engagement Strategies—That Work!
During this summer’s Superkids Schools Conference, second-grade teacher Lisa Lisiecki, School District of Thorp, Wisconsin, shared strategies she uses to get students actively engaged—and practicing—what’s taught in lessons. Perfect for more than just word work, Lisa’s engagement tips can be adapted for other subject areas and grade levels. Download the list and find a new share or practice strategy to fit into your daily routines!
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Download Skills Practice Strategies
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Seize Every Moment
Consider this math: if you convert 10 minutes of transition time per school day to instructional time, you will have accumulated 30 extra hours of instruction per year!
Think of some activities in your classroom that historically have included waiting—lining up, class restroom breaks, walking to/from recess, etc. How can you convert those two-minute blocks of time into opportunities to practice critical skills? Download 7 Ways to Tuck In More Skills Practice to kickstart your thinking!
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Fun Fact: Field bees leave the hive daily to forage for pollen and nectar they bring back in “pollen baskets” on their legs.
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Inspired by the field bees, we’ve collected ideas from classrooms across the country to share with you!
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Fabric Withstands Heavy Use
Ms. Witt found a large piece of black fabric at a summer yard sale and used it—instead of paper—to cover the bulletin board where she displays learning targets in her third-grade classroom.
“Fabric resists tears better than paper and won’t fade in the sun, so the board will look great all year long,” she told us.
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Take-Home Folders
A parent reached out to share her love for the take-home folder her son’s teacher created! The clear front cover enables the teacher to slip one spelling, math, or word study activity inside for practice at home. The inside features one pocket for papers to “keep at home” and one for papers to “return to school.”
Families know to expect this folder every Monday afternoon, and students know exactly which tray to return it to on Friday morning.
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No Lost Dice!
Alli Kind, a member of our Building Fact Fluency Community on Facebook, posted an innovative solution for keeping dice contained when playing math games: roll dice by shaking them inside a small, lidded cube. Because these DIY containers quiet the dice, too, there is more space for mathematicians’ voices during game play!
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Have you had a positive experience with a Zaner-Bloser program or curriculum? We’d love to hear about it! Your school’s success could be featured in a video and shared with peers at other schools to help them inspire more “aha” moments! Contact us to learn more.
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Enjoy a taste of Zaner-Bloser with these free printables.
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Postcard Notes Home
If strengthening the school–home connection is one of your goals for this year, you’ll want to grab this printable! Jot down a quick note about something a student did well and send it home with other important papers for families. Students will love “eavesdropping” since they can see what is being said, and families will love the positive feedback! If you write one card per day—or five at once each week—you’ll easily accumulate six or more per student throughout the year!
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Be Internet Awesome
Our friends at Highlights and Google teamed up to create this magazine chock-full of resources to help kids be confident and safe while navigating the digital world. Find activities for school and home to help students and their families make smart decisions about what to share, spot suspicious websites, create good passwords, and more!
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Gratitude Journal Pages
Make gratitude a habit with a quick writing activity near the end of the school day. Download and print these simple prompts to help students reflect mindfully on their growing awareness, confidence, and persistence, too! Display them together on a classroom bulletin board or allow each student to collect their own on a binder ring.
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What you do matters, teachers! We asked teachers to tell us what keeps them motivated year after year. Here’s one story—unique in its details perhaps, but universal in its truth.
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Lasting Impressions
I always love hearing from former students, but a message I got from Isabella, a student I taught at Vanderlyn Elementary School in the early 2000s, proves you just never know how far a small act as a teacher can take a student. She sent pictures of a notebook I’d gifted her with a note on the first page, “No matter what you decide to be, never stop writing.”
Isabella told me she’s taken long pauses from writing but never stopped completely. Now she’s in the middle of a PhD program and knows she’ll get through the daunting process of writing her dissertation because she’ll simply keep writing!
—Ms. Collins, Savannah, GA
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Teachers’ Corner: The Bee’s Knees!
Looking for a few extra resources to make your classroom a little more you? Shop the Teachers’ Corner for a collection of reliable, proven, ready-to-use learning resources all under $300. Choose handwriting, writing, vocabulary, social-emotional learning (SEL), phonics, student materials, and more!
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We’re serious about skills but value joyful learning, too—so we’ll leave you with some quick fun to tuck into your day.
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Hidden Pictures Fun
Can your students find all the hidden objects in the school computer lab? Offer this enrichment puzzle as an option during “free choice” time, an activity for students who finish early, or an engagement tool to help families interact while waiting for official back-to-school night festivities to begin!
Puzzle courtesy of Highlights Hidden Pictures School Puzzles. Recommended for ages 6 and up.
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