Blog » Madly Learning

How I Teach Writing

I used to teach writing like everyone else. I would pick a writing form break it down into steps focus on the process of how to write within a form repeat this for a few weeks have students write within that form evaluate their work to see if they could write in the ... READ the POST

Be More Efficient In The Classroom: 6 Simple Hacks You Can Try Today

One of the things that drives me crazy is when things run inefficiently. So I always try to find more ways to be more efficient in my classroom. As a busy mom of three, a teacher and business owner time saving efficient hacks are my most needed thing these days. So there are things that I do ... READ the POST

Background Knowledge: Getting Ready for Student Inquiry

Sometimes as teachers we are presented with topics that are unfamiliar to our students. Trying to do an inquiry based learning assignment when there is a lack of student background knowledge is a problem. There are a few things that you can do to build this background knowledge first before ... READ the POST

Work Life Balance…the busy teacher edition

Let me start this blog post with some real truth... You can't do all the things I don't do all the things! There is not enough hours in the day or coffee in the world that will allow you to do all the things. Yet over and over I am told and asked "I don't know how you do it...where do you ... READ the POST

Making Writing Assessment Work to Help Students Bump It Up!

How do we make assessment meaningful in a way that helps students to see what the criteria is they are being evaluated on How do we involve them in this process to decide on the evaluation of what makes a piece of writing good? One way that I have used over the years is a Bump It Up ... READ the POST

Would we be teacher BFFs? Who is Madly Learning?

Do you have a teacher BFF? I know you have heard about them. These are the people that just get you. They share a similar philosophy in Education they teach with you, plan with you, have your back. But would I be your teacher BFF? The teacher community on social media is huge. Many times we ... READ the POST

Why Feedback Is Important

Feedback on an important part in the cycle of assessment. It is probably one of the things that teachers can do to push the needle forward for student achievement. So what is feedback? For me feedback is two things. It is information that tells students where they are and how they ... READ the POST

Using Inquiry to Teach Science

When teaching science have you heard about the catchy 5E system for teaching science. It is popular in the states and can easily be applied in some ways to using Inquiry in science. I wanted to borrow from the 5Es and push some of these stages a little further and integrate it with what we know ... READ the POST

5 things that are holding you back from becoming a better teacher

1) You don't trust your students They can't, they won't, they would never Teachers tell themselves a variety of things to limit the risks they will take. So you use your students to limit what you try so that you don't fail. Although we teach who is in front of us and there are ... READ the POST

3 Mistakes Teachers Make When Planning and Scheduling Their Language Arts.

Planning language arts can be hard. There are three common mistakes that I find many people make when planning out their program. Focus on the expectations instead of big ideas This is one that many teachers get caught up in. There is so much to cover it is hard not to use the ... READ the POST

Organizational Tips for Teachers from a Disorganized Mess

So I have never been an organized person...like never. In grade one I wrote an autobiography (with tremendous help from the librarian) titled 'I Have Nothing To Wear'. It recounted my morning routine of my parents telling me to get ready and getting frustrated that I wasn't ready and ... READ the POST

From To Do – To Done: 5 Strategies to Manage Teacher Overwhelm

It's an overwhelming time of the year. Well there really are many overwhelming times in the life of a teacher. I myself have been searching for strategies to help me manage the overwhelming feelings I get around this time of year. For me I never realize that I am being impacted until it hits ... READ the POST