A new month is upon us, which means it’s the perfect time for new learning opportunities to share with your students! Here is our collection of engaging themed content for May:

Spring Gallery Pack: Spring is in full swing, and this MimioStudio Gallery pack is filled with images, backgrounds, lessons, and activities to help you bring some spring magic to your classroom.

Spring Backgrounds: Add a pop of spring to your lessons with these fun spring-themed backgrounds. You can even make them your own by inserting a text box, changing the transparency, or adding a shape.

What is the role of keyboarding instruction in the classroom—especially the elementary classroom? Over the past few years, as one-to-one devices become more widespread and accessible to students at younger grade levels, this question has become more and more pertinent. I know our own school has struggled with student keyboarding skills over the past few years.

Three main issues we grapple with as educators.

Snacks, games, songs, and assemblies—I’ve seen it all over the years when it comes to motivating students for high-stakes assessments. I’m not sure how effective any of it is, but teachers are willing to go all out when it comes to testing. Teachers know that these tests matter a great deal, so the extra effort and focus are worthwhile.

It’s not always easy keeping up with all the online tools, websites, blogs, and classroom resources that are available to us as educators. We often spend time searching online for the best fit for our classroom needs—sometimes not getting the results we anticipated. Here is a list of highly recommended educational resources to support teaching and learning:

We are only about 25% of the way through the year, but there has already been a number of exciting books published in the world of education. From scholarly books to practical guides and straight-talking classroom help to intellectual political thought, there is something new to be found for every type of teacher leader.

They say “April showers bring May flowers,” but it also brings an array of new learning opportunities to share with your students! Here is our collection of engaging themed content for April:

April Calendar and Activities: Our April calendar is filled with activities to start each bright and sunny day all month long. Students can practice skills using the featured calendars, morning meeting activities, attendance chart, daily graphing activities, math activities, and more. It’s also the perfect opportunity to try the new wide format calendar with your students!

Technology advances quickly, and some educational groups are on the cutting edge. Here are some exciting new developments that focus directly on teachers’ needs in the classroom:

Asking students to write is one of the most difficult tasks we require. It tasks the writer with managing multiple cognitive functions all at one time: idea creation, organization, word choice, grammar rules, voice, correct sentences, and focusing on a topic. Whew. Writing this myself is taking a lot of hard work!

Because of the load that is placed on the writer, students are more successful when some of the individual tasks are broken down and isolated for them. Teachers do this in a variety of ways. We have them spell check at the end so they can focus on the ideas at the beginning. We have them review their sentences for run-ons or incompletion. We help them to organize in paragraphs. And most importantly, we try to help them with original and complete ideas. 

Caring for the environment is one of our most essential duties as humans, and the current state of the earth makes its protection a vital lesson that needs to be taught as early as possible in life. While there are plenty of resources available for educators wanting to incorporate environmentalism into their curricula, what happens outside of learning units is also important for students to observe. Since modeling positive, eco-friendly behaviors in our daily lives is one of the best ways to learn about green living, we’ve come up with a few ideas to help you introduce green practices into your daily routine at school—and into your STEM curriculum.

Over the past few years, students have had technology in their hands more and more. Often times, that technology is even provided by the school in a 1:1 setting. Just as a school would not provide another tool to students without appropriate safety training, neither should they provide a device that provides access around the world without some precautions. Imagine opening the doors to the wood shop and telling the students, “Here is the power button...have fun!”

Our attitude toward cyberbullying in school isn’t typically that laissez faire, but good, systematic teaching of technology expectations does not always occur either. The risk is really broader than just bullying when we talk about technology, and other issues such as sexting, over-sharing, and inappropriate content should also be considered.