by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 29, 2019 | Back to School, Backstage Pass to Teaching
The first day of school is always the best! It is also the most stressful and hurried day of the year! I should know I have lived through quite a few. Different variables impact this day…the grade you teach, how much experience you have with the content etc....
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 22, 2019 | Back to School, Backstage Pass to Teaching
There is so much excitement that comes with the first week of school! All the pretty things that are hung in your room, seeing your student list, organizing all the things! Just thinking about it gets me excited! It is seriously like Christmas to me! I get so...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 20, 2019 | Back to School
I don’t know how I am sitting at the end of summer and getting ready to start another year, but here I am! And I am as excited as ever! One thing I love to do in the summer is to find new books to share with my students for the coming year. I have found a...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 15, 2019 | Back to School, Backstage Pass to Teaching
In my many years of teaching I have been mostly self contained, but I have had a few opportunities to team teach as well. I well prefer team teaching because of the many things it offers including teaching fewer content areas and building relationships with more...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 15, 2019 | Back to School, Classroom Management
One of the biggest things I use in my classroom to mix things up is cooperative learning! There are so many great strategies out there to break students into groups and to help them pair up for activities. Here are a couple of my favorites! Speed Dial Groups One...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 8, 2019 | Back to School, Backstage Pass to Teaching
I wish I could say I am a super organized person, but the truth is my desk does not usually represent my level of organization well. I have my many little stacks on my desk, my post it notes of “to do” lists, and a few other things scattered about my work...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jul 1, 2019 | Back to School, Backstage Pass to Teaching
Creating expectations for students is a very important part of setting up your classroom for success at the beginning of the year. To help me with this, over the years, I have come to find it very valuable to create a classroom contract for my students. We...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Jun 22, 2019 | Research, Science
This time of year is an excellent time to do research with your littles and students are not so little anymore (isn’t it amazing how they grow in a year?!)One of my favorite things to do this time of year is research lapbooks! I’ve used the lapbooks in my...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Mar 14, 2018 | School Valentines, Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day is one of the holidays that we don’t really get to spend a lot of time on and I always feel a bit weird just adding a bunch of hearts to things. When I first started teaching, I cringed at Valentine’s Day…maybe because I was...
by Dr. Tonja Irvine | Oct 3, 2016 | Backstage Pass to Teaching, Featured
Do you find parent-teacher conferences to be difficult? Often times I hear teachers complain that talking to parents is draining and that they struggle to help parents understand their concerns without offending them. Parent conferences are a necessary part of our job...
