Skip to content

Grab your FREE Guide to Teaching Oral Reading Fluency!

Grab five free days of lessons here!

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Facebook Group
  • Free Resource Library
  • TrendingExpand
    • Amazon Favorites
    • Halloween Resources
    • Fall and Thanksgiving Resources
    • Character Education
    • Enrichment Resources
    • New Teachers
    • Professional Development
    • Homeschool
    • Free TWAMV Resource Guide
Search
Shop Now
Teaching with a Mountain View

Literacy

Grammar & Morphology

Novels & Picture Books

Novels & Picture Books

Math

Anchor Charts

Anchor Charts

Classroom

CLassroom Community

Character Education

Teaching with a Mountain View
Classroom

professional Development For Teachers

Engaging in professional development opportunities can provide fresh perspectives, new strategies, and valuable skills that will benefit both you and your students. Browse my FREE professional development opportunities below. I hope these resources help you reflect, set goals, and invest in your continuous growth as educators.

Email me the professional development options!

SHOP MORE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES ON AMAZON

BROWSE AMAZON
free professional development for teachers: how to use picture books to teach standards

Picture Books and Related Activities

There’s often a misconception that picture books are only for younger students, but they’re also a great way to reinforce concepts for upper elementary students. I’m passionate about sharing my favorite titles and how I use them with my students. In this series, you’ll find book lists and related activities for key upper elementary skills.

LEARN MORE
Register for 8 weeks of FREE professional development for teachers. The weekly tips will leave you better prepared to teach 8 key upper elementary reading and math skills.

8 Weeks of Curriculum Guides

I also created weekly tips that will leave you better prepared to teach eight key upper elementary reading and math skills all year. This series covers: context clues, place value, main idea and theme, addition and subtraction, inference, multiplication and division, point of view, and math vocabulary.

LEARN MORE
professional development books for teachers

Professional Development Books

Looking for a reading list of professional development books for teachers? No matter your need, there is a good teacher book out there that can help. I scoured the bookstores, talked with colleagues, and asked my virtual teacher friends about their favorite professional development books. Here’s a list guaranteed to educate and inspire. 

LEARN MORE
free professional development for teachers: grammar in upper elementary

Non-Negotiables in Grammar

This mini-course covers must-teach grammar skills in the upper grades and how to incorporate them throughout the year. You’ll learn strategies for meaningful grammar routines to teach parts of speech, punctuation, sentences, homophones, and multiple-meaning words all year long. It includes:

  • A certificate of completion*
  • Immediately actionable items to implement into your classroom
  • Pre-recorded videos, so you can work at your own pace when it’s convenient for you
  • FREE RESOURCES to use all year
LEARN MORE
free professional development for teachers: fluency in upper elementary

Increasing Oral Reading Fluency

This mini-course will teach you how to implement research-based strategies for increasing oral reading fluency in your classroom. It includes 5 short instructional videos with one-page lesson plans to set your students up for fluency success all year! It includes:

  • A certificate of completion*
  • Immediately actionable items to implement into your classroom
  • Pre-recorded videos, so you can work at your own pace when it’s convenient for you
  • FREE RESOURCES to use all year
LEARN MORE
free professional development for teachers: critical thinking in upper elementary math

Increasing Critical Thinking in Math

In this mini-course, I share my absolute favorite lessons and strategies for increasing critical thinking through problem solving. You’ll leave with six lessons to implement into your classroom, an error analysis starter kit, and more! It includes:

  • A certificate of completion*
  • Immediately actionable items to implement into your classroom
  • Pre-recorded videos, so you can work at your own pace when it’s convenient for you
  • FREE RESOURCES to use all year
LEARN MORE
1

Mastering Classroom Schedules and Organization

I created this teacher’s guide to help new teachers and veterans alike plan their schedules and organize their classrooms!

Download Now
1 1

The Ultimate Guide to Classroom Management

As a veteran teacher, I have tried just about every classroom management strategy that exists. Here, I share my favorites.

Download Now
1 3

Essential Strategies for Building Relationships and Community in Your Classroom

Arguably, the most important part of a classroom is the community and culture. This collection guides you in developing meaningful relationships from the beginning to the end of the year.

Download Now

hey, I’m Mary

I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.

About Me contact me
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
YouTube
Twitter
🍂👻 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! ❤️❤️
Podcasts in the classroom are SO fun while still b Podcasts in the classroom are SO fun while still being academically worthwhile! 👏 🎙️ I designed them to address listening and reading comprehension skills in an engaging, relevant format. Each one comes with show notes and assignments and covers topics ranging from sports and science and tales and more! 🥰 Comment below, and I’ll send you all the info.
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Links

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Facebook Group
  • Free Resource Library
  • Privacy Policy & Disclosures

Topics

  • Literacy
  • Math
  • Grammar
  • Anchor Charts
  • Classroom
  • Novels and Picture books

Shop

  • Shop Website
  • Shop Amazon
  • Wishlist
  • My Account
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Terms & Conditions

©2026 Teaching With a Mountain View . All Rights Reserved | Designed by Ashley Hughes

Join Our Teaching With a Mountain View Text Club!

Lost your password?

Review Cart

No products in the cart.

🍪 Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}
Scroll to top
Search
  • Home
  • Get Inspired
  • About
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • Free Resource Library
  • Trending
    • Amazon Favorites
    • Halloween Resources
    • Fall and Thanksgiving Resources
    • Character Education
    • Enrichment Resources
    • New Teachers
    • Professional Development
    • Homeschool
    • Free TWAMV Resource Guide
  • My Account
Shop Now

Literacy

Grammar & Morphology

Novels & Picture Books

Novels & Picture Books

Math

Anchor Charts

Anchor Charts

Classroom

CLassroom Community

Character Education

Facebook X Instagram
Search