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We have 5 weeks left before summer break and I am really tired. It's been a tough year in kindergarten but things are turning around. Kids are now realizing they can read, they can spell, and they can add and subtract. It is all worth it when I see their smiles of confidence.

Need some help understanding Ontario screeners. We use Acadience which has decoding skills with nonsense words but other boards use EasyCBM which uses high frequency words. How can we know if Ontario is doing well with improving reading if the tests are different?

open.spotify.com/episode/3I5UuT… Excellent episode on education reform. Having a common assessment in phonics and times tables makes sense to ensure students have the foundational knowledge.

I'm home with a sore throat so what better way to spend a sick day then to watch Melissa Monette Smith on her fantastic Grade 1 planning webinar. All 3 webinars would be great K-3 PD. (Yes, I should be writing report cards!) ONlit.org youtube.com/watch?v=PY7JCH…

Planning to reread this tonight in preparation for this weekend at researchED Canada.

My kindergarten students made this board to display their learning about the interaction between plants and insects. We explicitly taught about the needs of plants, parts of insects, and how worms and ants help plants. Explicit instruction, inquiry outside, then artful creations.

I've spent the morning pouring over Steplab videos on effective teaching. I love it all but I wonder if we can get public schools to that level of calm. This requires teachers to give up autonomy to follow scripts on school norms. We are not there yet but I wish we were.

Silent reading is not the right choice for those who cannot decode well. Let's move to partner reading!

I tutor after school, mostly reading but now getting into some early math. I talked to a parent about the instructional hierarchy and the need to develop fact fluency. This parent understood this completely and also asked for the webinars and articles. Thank you Anna Stokke .

the74million.org/article/we-sta… You know you have made an impact at home when your teenage son sends you this link. I wish we could group like this at school.

I am wondering how we will all manage at school tomorrow in 40C with no AC, small windows, and many bodies in the classrooms.

We are tidying up our classrooms so I have decided to pack some books to re-read in the summer. I want next year to be better than ever.

I just found some of my son's old school papers. When he was just 10 he wrote, "I want to get in less trouble this year." This broke my heart because I had NO idea. Explicit instruction and firm boundaries is what he needed at school and from me. We should have known about this.

This just seems to make sense for me. This is a board my class made to show their learning about the interactions between plants and insects. They learned about ant colonies, pollination, metamorphosis and plant and insect parts. We also did individual writing after read alouds.

I guided my kid through his first driving lesson today. Teaching novices driving terrifies me so I was careful to use explicit instruction and teach in small steps. Guess what? He learned the skills and didn't feel scared or frustrated. Explicit instruction for the win....again.

I struggle when I spend my summer learning about evidence-based practices in writing and math then I overhear a teacher say we need to spend 20 days on belonging and well-being and every Friday afternoon is movie day. We can focus on belonging and academics at the same time.

I am tutoring a young student who is reading Percy Jackson books so I am pulling out my books on Greek mythology. This student is really excited to learn about this. Background knowledge really matters and makes learning more enjoyable!

Years ago, when my son was struggling in school, I asked my own admin for advice. She told me that Ss who succeed in math are more likely to succeed in HS. She told me to focus on number sense and algebra and to keep him in academic math. I have never forgotten this advice.