How to Have Successful and Productive Team Meetings

How many of you have weekly meetings with your team?  I know it is best practice, but it is soooo hard to stick to a consistent schedule, especially when my inclusion team involves 3 general education teachers, 4 paraprofessionals, and myself.  And that is not even including the special area folks and related services providers.  

When you have several adults working with the same group of students, it is vital for everybody to be on the same page.  It is especially important to keep the paraprofessionals in the classroom up to speed on student progress and your expectations for continued growth, both academically and behaviorally.  

Over the years, I have learned a few things about successful and, more importantly, productive team meetings and I am hoping to put them into practice before I go on maternity leave in October.  That way, my team can easily continue our schedule.   

Student Led Success

With back-to-school season here, it's a great time to start thinking about implementing student led goals in your classroom!

One thing I have found is that students work so much harder when they have created their own goal.  They put forth even more effort when they are involved in the progress monitoring.  And, boy, do they celebrate their success harder when they reach a goal they set for themselves.  Feeling that success makes them crave more!

10 Alternatives to Traditional Book Reports

Last year was my first year teaching Read180 in a few years.  I love Read180 and what I have seen it do for my kiddos so I was excited to get a chance to implement it again.  But...the book projects included with the program are B-O-R-I-N-G!  Sure, some of them are pretty good, but the directions can be questionable and I find myself using the same two projects over and over with my class.  

My students started to get frustrated (beyond frustrated) with the repetition so I promised them that one of my summer tasks would be to create new book projects, just for them.  

I mean, who doesn't just LOVE working on school stuff during summer break?  You know we all do it!

These book project ideas are a break from the traditional book report and can be used with any book!