Welcome back! Here in the Chicago area, school starts today, but many of you already have a week or two of reading, writing, arithmetic and more under your belt. No matter how many days or weeks you have been teaching, I know that a majority of you are still working on building classroom community as you emerge students in standards-based content. Therefore, in the month of September I am going to focus on activities, materials, and strategies that will help you get to know students, encourage student-to-student supports, and build collaborative skills across age groups.

Our first featured idea of the new school year comes [Read more…]