Get Inspired

I’m so glad you’ve joined me on my little corner of the Internet! I’ve been sharing teaching resources and ideas on my blog since 2011, so it can be a little hard to know where to start. I’ve created this page to highlight some of my most popular posts and resources to help you get started.

Literacy

Teaching reading and writing are two of my passions, and I absolutely love sharing lesson ideas here. From quick lessons to complete units, scroll down to see all the different literacy lessons I’ve shared over the years.

Most Popular Literacy Posts

Supplemental ELA and math resources designed to enrich your lessons, differentiate for diverse needs, and bring more joy to your upper elementary classroom.

Beyond the Curriculum: The Best Supplemental ELA and Math Resources for Upper Elementary

Narrative Writing Mentor Texts

With the right strategies for differentiated instruction, planning tips, resources, and mindset, differentiated instruction doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

The Best Strategies for Differentiated Instruction (Without Burning Out)

Curated book lists, practical teaching tips, and resources that will make teaching your upper elementary units of study so much easier to plan.

Units of Study Using Rich Picture Books

Learn how to use student assessment data to improve student growth and achievement. Interpret scores, group students based, and plan differentiated lessons.

How To Use Student Assessment Data: Practical Tips for Differentiation and Growth

This picture book collection features women who embody courage, perseverance, and empowerment to create meaningful Women's History Month activities.

Women’s history month activities for upper elementary

More Literacy Ideas

Grammar

You have found your go-to location for all things upper elementary grammar. I promise I won’t judge your grammar, but I WILL help you teach it!

Most Popular Grammar Posts

"Giggles and Grammar" is the BEST grammar curriculum that engages students in meaningful, systematic grammar lessons and helps students LOVE learning grammar skills.

“Giggles and Grammar” Curriculum for Upper Elementary

Learn how to integrate daily grammar practice into your routines to save valuable time and strengthen grammar skills too.

6 Ways To Integrate Daily Grammar Practice Into Your Routines

Teaching punctuation in upper elementary involves advanced topics like quotation marks, dialogue, and apostrophes. Learn how to make it fun!

Activities for Teaching Punctuation: Quotation Marks, Dialogue, and Apostrophes

Upper elementary language skill activities to teach conjunctions, interjections, articles, and prepositions. Download a FREE reference guide.

Language Skill Activities: How to Teach Conjunctions, Interjections, Articles, and Prepositions

Teaching Adjectives and Adverbs

teaching nouns and verbs grammar skills upper elementary

Teaching Language Skills: Nouns and Verbs

More Grammar Ideas

Novels & Picture Books

I’m passionate about incorporating authentic picture books and novels into my classroom on a daily basis. Whether you’re looking to use picture books to teach reading skills, implement novel studies, or incorporate books into your morning meeting to address essential social and emotional skills, you’ll find it all here!

Most Popular Novel & Picture Book Posts

Units of Study Using Rich Picture Books

Women’s history month activities for upper elementary

Free Rockefeller Christmas Tree Literacy Activities

First Chapter Fridays is an engaging way to introduce new books, authors, and genres. These tips keep students engaged during whole-class reading.

First Chapter Fridays and Novel Read-Aloud Engagement Tips

Picture books serve as great mentor texts for demonstrating how to connect with others and build relationship skills. Here are six lessons for upper elementary.

Using Picture Books to Help Students Build Relationship Skills

More Novel & Picture Book Ideas

Math

Making math engaging and fun doesn’t mean eliminating rigorous content! Over the last several years, I have shared hundreds of math lessons and ideas in the blog posts below. From teaching error analysis skills to tackling multi-step problems, you are guaranteed to find an engaging math lesson in the archives.

Most Popular Math Posts

Beyond the Curriculum: The Best Supplemental ELA and Math Resources for Upper Elementary

The Best Strategies for Differentiated Instruction (Without Burning Out)

Units of Study Using Rich Picture Books

How To Use Student Assessment Data: Practical Tips for Differentiation and Growth

$If you’re looking for new ways to make fractions less intimidating (and more fun!), here are my favorite real-world fraction lessons. Many of them are FREE!$

The Best Real-World Fraction Lessons

More math Ideas

Anchor Charts

Over the years, I have created dozens of anchor charts in my classroom. I am a huge proponent of creating anchor charts with my students, and I strongly believe that the perfect anchor chart isn’t always pretty. The posts below feature many of my anchor charts.

More Anchor Chart Ideas

Classroom

Whether you are looking for tips to better manage your classroom, classroom design, flexible seating, or classroom organization, you are in the right place! Browse through the posts and categories below to explore all of my tips and tricks for running your classroom.