Looking for a fun, low-pressure way to help students develop their storytelling skills? "Doodle Your Way to Short Stories" introduces an eight-panel drawing activity that turns simple sketches into rich narratives. Created by author Linda Urban and...
This school year at Janney Elementary, a school within the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), we made a major shift from a literacy curriculum we have used for more than 15 years to a new curriculum, one of four literacy curricular...
Margaret Mead is attributed with writing “It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age”(Baughman, 1958, p. 69). We’d argue that even our...
This piece is written by three early childhood educators. We came together over social media many years ago and have developed a friendship and space to share and unpack educational and social issues impacting children and our communities. We...
Featured Title The Word Collector By Peter H. Reynolds Jerome loves collecting words—long, short, powerful, and poetic. As his collection grows, he discovers the joy of sharing words to connect, inspire, and empower others. The book celebrates...
Finding Our Way Back Kari Johnston Teaching is the work of a community. The moments that sustain us are the ones when we come together, side by side, when we laugh over something funny a kid said at the copier, when we sit and cry after a hard day...
“When are we going to read our books?” Sofía (pseudonym) says to me as we get ready to read another passage followed by multiple-choice questions. We’re getting ready for our state test, and these disconnected texts and questions have become a...
Featured Title Shape Search By Melissa Stewart Shape Search is an interactive picturebook that introduces young readers to different shapes found in the natural world. Through vibrant illustrations and simple text, the book invites students to...
We, as teachers, do a lot. Some days, it feels like the weight of the world is tucked into our lesson plans and stacked on our shoulders. We walk those hallways and step into classrooms offering our full self, mind, heart, soul, just to make sure...
These books are recommended by members of the Classroom Corridors Elementary Cohort, a community of passionate educators brought together by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to amplify the voices of elementary teachers and enrich...