Happy Monday everyone! This week I want to talk about mothers and the importance of appreciating those mother-like figures in your life.Mothers are the teachers who never get a day off. Being a mother means being prepared tho impart life lessons every day, giving unconditional love constantly, and stepping into many roles depending on what your child needs. Mothers are amazing. Showing appreciation for these amazing people doesn’t have to be in the form of a gift, it can be t

In the spirit of #motivationmonday, one of the best ways to boost a child’s confidence is when they nail spelling! While the modern day era makes it faster to spell check with those colorful squiggle lines, it is still vital that kids know how to use pen-and-paper to spell with automaticity. How is this achieved? Through repetition, meaningful instruction, and explicit teaching of the spelling rules. To teach spelling effectively, stick to ONE spelling rule/strategy at a ti

Happy Monday! This week, I want us to focus on staying motivated for the last few weeks of the school year. One great way I have discovered that helps keep students engaged is to provide fun activities [GAMES!] that discreetly teach them, too. 📝 🗣️ 😌 📝 🗣️ 😌 📝 🗣️ 😌 📝 🗣️ 😌 One of my favorites is a fill-in-the-blank activity. This can be Mad Libs where the goal is to laugh while inserting parts of speech...or it can something more generalized, too, but yet apply to

🗽For #MotivationalMonday, I want to discuss something that has been influential in my life. My grandparents immigrated to New Jersey from Germany on this day 71 years ago - March 22, 1950 - after they survived multiple WWII concentration camps. They spent their lives building the American Dream for their kids (one being my dad!) so that my family could prosper and take advantage of every opportunity that the United States offered. This move and their subsequent struggle to

This week brings in the first day of SPRING! Can you believe it? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am so excited for warmer weather. Sunshine, lemonade, outdoor activities that don’t require four layers! YAY! With spring though, comes spring cleaning. This not only applies to homes and personal spaces, but school work too! We need to make sure students have cleanly and cleary understood concepts we are teaching. For this #MotivationalMonday, I want to talk about a

This Monday, March 8, is International Women’s Day! To commemorate this day, I want to talk about a woman who has influenced my career: Anna Gillingham. Anna Gillingham was an educator and psychologist in the early 1900s who worked to develop different approaches to learning for those with different needs. Not only did she train teachers, but she also compiled and published instructional materials that are still used widely today She is most famous for her Gillingham Manual

I want to switch gears this week and focus on three very important topics for growth and development in children. 1. I spent my childhood going on adventures with various characters in my favorite novels, whether it was counting feet from Dr. Seuss’ The Foot Book or discovering a repressed world with Jonas in The Giver. I did not realize then what I realize now: while I was lost in my fun, fictional world, I was starting my own adventure of intellectual growth. I cannot expr

Who doesn’t love a good meme? I know I do...but have you ever thought about them in relation to motivation? Probably not, so I want to share how to make memes meaningful and motivating. Creating and/or looking at memes related to school topics your children/students are working on can be highly beneficial for their interest level in the subject. It’s always nice to have a laugh, and laughter is a great motivator to stay invested in learning. This week, I am challenging you a

Monday, January 11 is National Clean Off Your Desk Day. This is actually very timely considering the launch of #functionalfriday on a few days ago on my social media pages when I did a deep dive on making the virtual learning/work-from-home space as functional possible. If you missed it, check it out on Instagram here or Facebook here. Being organized with a clean work space is so important for productivity in every way. It also promotes healthy habits to remove dust, germ

Did you know that Monday, January 4th is National Trivia Day?! Trivia is a great way to improve cognitive skills. Many of our kids struggle to retain information, so trivia games are a great exercise for the mind. Trivia also allows their prior knowledge to grow and improve working memory, leading to greater creativity, conversation, innovation, and problem-solving skills. Trivia is yet another important tool to help facilitate your child or teen’s developing brain. Take so