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You can use this FREE resource to help cover all of key standards when teaching point of view and perspective in upper elementary.
Reading Skills | Anchor Charts | Free | Literacy | Literacy Anchor Charts | Professional Development

The Complete Guide to Teaching Point of View and Perspective

Acquiring strong comprehension skills and utilizing those skills in a way that supports reading is critical for students’ reading success. Although point of view and perspective standards differ from state to state and overlap between grade levels, there are several…
READ POST The Complete Guide to Teaching Point of View and Perspective
These upper elementary picture books are perfect for teaching complex academic topics when used as mentor texts to read and reread for specific skills.
Book Recommendations | Literacy

My Favorite Upper Elementary Picture Books At Your Fingertips

It is no secret how much I love picture books. Yes, even in upper elementary and even for teaching complex academic topics! Picture books make great mentor texts and are the perfect length to read and reread as we study…
READ POST My Favorite Upper Elementary Picture Books At Your Fingertips
These tips will help you minimize missing assignments and develop a time-saving system for organizing student work in upper elementary.
Classroom Organization | Back to School | Classroom | Classroom Prep | New Teachers | Seasonal

Tips for Organizing Student Work

Whether you’re a new teacher or have many years of experience, odds are you still find yourself trying to find your desk under all.that.paper from time to time. Then you add in students who forget to turn in assignments and…
READ POST Tips for Organizing Student Work
Teaching multiplication and division is simple with these FREE lessons, anchor charts, books, and differentiated activities.
Math | Anchor Charts | Free | Math Anchor Charts | Multiplication | Professional Development

The Complete Guide to Teaching Multiplication and Division

Multiplication and division are major math skills for upper elementary. I have compiled FREE lessons, key skills, anchor charts, book recommendations, and several differentiated activities for teaching multiplication and division in this post for you. Download Everything You Need– for…
READ POST The Complete Guide to Teaching Multiplication and Division
Here are my best tips for teaching students to make nonfiction inferences, a super important skill for upper elementary students.
Reading Skills | Free | Literacy

Teaching Students To Make Nonfiction Inferences

When we make inferences, we help students draw conclusions and gather deeper meaning about the text using a combination of their background knowledge and clues in the text itself. This is a skill that naturally lends itself to fictional texts,…
READ POST Teaching Students To Make Nonfiction Inferences
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Teacher Appreciation Week 2023 Giveaways

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! We’re celebrating you all week long here at Teaching With a Mountain View. We know how busy you are, so here’s a quick rundown of what you can win and where to enter. Be sure to…
READ POST Teacher Appreciation Week 2023 Giveaways
This free guide to teaching inference includes checklists, book lists, lesson plans, anchor charts, practice activities, and more!
Reading Skills | Anchor Charts | Free | Literacy | Literacy Anchor Charts | Professional Development

The Complete Guide to Teaching Inference

Skilled reading requires students to become adept with many different cognitive processes. Being able to make inferences sets students up for success in reading comprehension. One of the best ways to develop automaticity with inference (being able to make inferences…
READ POST The Complete Guide to Teaching Inference
Critical thinking in math helps students learn to analyze and evaluate math concepts, identify patterns and relationships, and explore different strategies.
Critical Thinking | Classroom | Homeschool | Math

How To Encourage Critical Thinking in Math

Critical thinking is more than just a buzzword… It’s an essential skill that helps students develop problem-solving abilities and make logical connections between different concepts. By encouraging critical thinking in math, students learn to approach problems more thoughtfully, they learn…
READ POST How To Encourage Critical Thinking in Math
Teaching regions of the United States has never been so fun! Become tourists to learn about regions in literacy, math, social studies, and science!
Projects | Literacy | Math

Teaching Regions of the United States: Cross-Curricular Learning Projects

I began my teaching career in an International Baccalaurete school that focused on units of study, so I really love thematic teaching and cross-curricular learning projects! When we dive deep into topics across multiple subject areas, students are more invested…
READ POST Teaching Regions of the United States: Cross-Curricular Learning Projects
This FREE GUIDE has numerous ways to extend teaching addition and subtraction skills with upper elementary students.
Math | Anchor Charts | Free | Math Anchor Charts | Professional Development

The Complete Guide to Teaching Addition and Subtraction

Addition and subtraction may seem like basic skills for upper elementary students, but there are numerous ways to extend addition and subtraction skills with our students. I usually teach this unit right after place value (since they are so closely…
READ POST The Complete Guide to Teaching Addition and Subtraction
April read alouds and related activities to use during morning meeting and your upper elementary literacy block.
Book Recommendations | Literacy | Seasonal

April Read Alouds and Related Seasonal Activities

I love April in the classroom! By this point in the year, we really have become a community of learners that’s like a little family. Our classroom routines are well established, we’ve covered most of our new standards for the…
READ POST April Read Alouds and Related Seasonal Activities
Improving inference skills is simple with these engaging and unique activities that go beyond just simply reading and answering inference questions.
Reading Skills | Literacy

Improving Inference Skills

When you hear the word “inference,” does it make your head spin? If I had a penny for every time my coworkers and I talked about improving inference skills, I’d be rich! Inferencing is always a big topic of conversation…
READ POST Improving Inference Skills

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I’m Mary

Welcome to my blog! I started blogging in 2011 and have amassed hundreds of posts full of engaging, research-based, and classroom-tested teaching ideas. Enjoy exploring!

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I’m obsessed with every single one of these fall b I’m obsessed with every single one of these fall books! 🍁 🎃 👻 They are all beautiful stories that kids actually love all while mastering the art of integrating important character education topics! Some stand alone wonderfully (Prunella, Little Ghost, Gustavo), while others provide AMAZING opportunities for paired texts (the leaf books and Millie Fleur) and character development and comparison. Comment below, and I’ll send you my FREE lessons I’ve designed to make these high-impact read alouds in your classroom! 🧡
🍂👻 The leaves are changing, so it’s the perfect ti 🍂👻 The leaves are changing, so it’s the perfect time to share THREE of my FAVORITE fall picture book lessons, and they are PACKED with meaningful reading comprehension skills and can be adapted for a huge range of grade levels. These are tried and true lessons that I’ve used in my classroom and absolutely LOVE! 🧡

🍂 Comment below, and I’ll send you the links to more info about all three lessons, including the FREE printable for the Leaf Peeps.

I LOVE pairing picture books that share similar themes, and I’ve come up with MANY different paired sets. It’s research-based and gives students opportunities to compare characters, analyze how different authors develop similar ideas, and make connections across texts—all while keeping fun, seasonal themes with authentic texts!

Here are the three lessons I’ve been LOVING over the past few years:

🍁 The Leaf Peeps: We read four adorable leaf-themed books and compare their topics, themes, and important life lessons. These books pair together extraordinarily well and work well anytime between now and Thanksgiving. BONUS: I have a FREE lesson guide and reflection for this one!

👻 Gustavo’s World: You can use any combo of these books, and the kids just love them. We explore character traits, character change, and theme with these sweet spooky stories. Then students create their own characters (with Play-Doh!) and imagine a new book for the collection!

🎃 Stand Out: We pair Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden, Beatrice Likes the Dark, and The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt to explore what it means to stand out and embrace our differences. The discussions are SO good, and the lessons behind the books are so impactful!

These are the kinds of lessons I always LOVE most. Simple to prep, rich in discussion, and full of opportunities for students to think deeply about what they’re reading AND grow as little human beings. 💗
Picture books are one of my FAVORITE ways to teach Picture books are one of my FAVORITE ways to teach character development skills in upper elementary, and these are some of the very, very BEST! 📚❤️

Every week (and sometimes more often), I use a carefully selected picture book to help my students explore some big personal growth concepts! I incorporate books about everything from managing big emotions and navigating friendships to embracing differences, building confidence, and working through challenges. 🫶 

I love how a single picture book can lead to some of the most meaningful conversations we have all week!

I’ve rounded up several of my favorites, along with a specific learning objective for each one, so you can see exactly how I use them in my classroom.

And YES, picture books absolutely belong in upper elementary classrooms! 🥰

Which of these have you read with your students? Any favorites I need to add to my collection?
Can I tell you about one of my FAVORITE types of n Can I tell you about one of my FAVORITE types of novels to teach (I mean, if you know me, you know they are ALL my favorite, but this type is a ✨ students ✨ favorite — and not just while you’re teaching poetry)!📚🩷

🥁 Novels in verse! If you haven’t tried teaching one with your upper elementary kiddos yet, this is your sign.

I’ve found they’re the perfect way to get my readers to actually SLOW DOWN and pay close attention to the text — what’s said and what’s left unsaid. When there are only a handful of words on a page, every single word has a job to do. A line break changes everything. A word sitting all by itself on the page? Figurative phrases that tell more than an entire paragraph alone could? There’s a reason the author made every single choice. 

🌟 And for teaching inference? Oh my goodness. So much is left unsaid in these books. Truly, so much. My students have to piece together what a character is feeling from tiny details, and the conversations we have are AMAZING.

I just put together a whole blog post with everything I love about teaching them, my favorite titles for grades 4, 5, and 6+, and a giant list of annotation ideas you can use right away. 🎉 Comment below, and I’ll send the info your way!
Book beads ➡️ Book Lanyards ⭐️ No matter which one Book beads ➡️ Book Lanyards ⭐️ No matter which one you choose, your kids are going to love this reading celebration!! 🥰 

Comment below, and I’ll send you all the info or both options!
❇️ I have a few must-have anchor charts in my clas ❇️ I have a few must-have anchor charts in my classroom each year, and these are two of them! 🚨 BUT, I don’t just hang them up and go. It’s so important to spend time teaching my students how to use the prompts in their reading responses, how to develop their questions using each prompt, and discussing how to answer each type of prompt. 

Once students are familiar with how to use the prompts, they are able to have so much ownership over their reading response while also thinking critically about the book or chapter being discussed!

🎉🎉Comment below, and I’ll send you a link to three free sets of reading response resources and my favorite reading response task cards!
You won’t ever catch me in an ELA teaching positio You won’t ever catch me in an ELA teaching position where I’m not teaching word parts. 🩷💚 I believe wholeheartedly in the value of teaching morphology, especially in the upper grades! 

Comment below, and I’ll send you info on ALL my resources, including an entire FREE starter kit for teaching your students the basics of prefixes and suffixes!
🎉We start every math class the same: I read just a 🎉We start every math class the same: I read just a few of these mental math cards orally, step by step, and when I’m done, I count down from three silently using my fingers. When my students see a closed fist, they share their answers in unison. It’s so quick, simple, and low stakes for kids. They increase in complexity throughout the year, and I’ve seen massive gains in my students’ mental math abilities.

Comment below, and I’ll send you the info! ❤️❤️
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