u/Brief_Efficiency_833

Happy October y'all (even tho it barely feels like it for me because of this current socal heatwave 😭😭😭) in addition to it supposedly being Fall time, this time of year also happens to always feel like birthday season to me

I know a lot of people who personally have birthdays around this season AND, since I started teaching, I've coincidentally happened to have quite a lot of students with birthdays in autumn each year too

I thought it'd be nice if I was more prepared this year around and had some birthday-related books ready for any birthday students coming up, OR for any future time I have a birthday in the class!!

I'm up for ANY kind of story so long as a birthday is actually part of it lololol. Could be a super silly/funny book, something cute/sweet/sentimental, a story about a birthday party going completely awry, whatever honestly 🙂‍↕️🙌 the variety would be cool because then I can choose or suggest the specific story based on which student's birthday it is (:

The book doesn't have to be specifically about birthdays itself either, if that makes sense. I think it's cooler in books where a birthday is like a core, or at least semi important, part of the story and feels memorable, but isn't necessarily the entire premise

I'm mostly looking for picture books & early elementary since I work with K - 3, but I'm definitely open to slightly younger and/or older books too!! Sometimes I won't get the chance to do a full on read aloud of the book with the class, but I usually do try to at least suggest good stories to my students (especially because most have access to Epic!, so they can easily find lots of em)

I'm an after-school teacher (working mostly with younger elementary students [K - 3]), and I'd love to hear about any tips for learning y'all vouch for that I can try to implement in my lessons to help my students understand and practice ((:

There's obviously TONS of advice out there about teaching and learning in general, but I'm curious what strategies or methods have actually stood out to anyone as being genuinely useful, either as a educator yourself or from your own experiences as a student/learner

Doesn't have to be anything super complicated or specific to one subject!! I'm just wanting to know any kinds of things people have found that actually help students understand something, remember it, or get better at it over time ~

I feel like since I started teaching elementary students, I've become surprisingly quite a bit more up to date with whatever is currently going on in broader pop culture as a result 😭😭

Since they're constantly talking to each other, and sometimes me too, about all the random games (and even games within games now because of Roblox lmfao), the latest slang words/memes, popular music, new movies and shows, the newest toy trading meta, etc etc ... lots of things I would otherwise know very little - absolutely NOTHING about tbh

some examples that come to mind from the last year(s) of teaching are: the trifecta of fortnite/roblox/minecraft, kpop demon hunters, all the different slime/squishy/fidget things they're trading, the incomprehensible slang/memes they invent, katseye, what streamers are up to, the list goes on and on ... some of these kids are ALWAYS on top of everything like it's the daily news 🤣

the wild part to me is how every once in a while I'll also be seeing some of the exact same content they're talking about while I'm scrolling on Twitter or Instagram too lol, there's definitely some interesting overlap between the stuff the kids are keeping up with and what's also making its way onto social media feeds :o

Without teaching, I'd probably be a bit more out of the loop in general ~ I don't really know much about most of these things still, buuut after hearing enough random details from enough students, I'll at least always have a decent understanding of pop culture at any given moment lmaoo

I think the students letting me know all about this vital information helps me retain my youth too ... I mean at least now I'm aware of all of the truly groundbreaking, important information (/s) like the price of Robux and Kai Cenat's new clothing brand 🙂‍↕️👍😅

Yello yellooo y'all! I'm here looking for some children's books that do well in dealing with concepts like competitiveness, being a good sport, and how to not be a sore loser LOL

As an early elementary educator, I've had a fair share of students who get very VERY invested in winning ... even when literally nobody else is aware that there's even some sort of competition going on in the first place 😭😭 like kids who will somehow turn any completely normal activity (like writing answers to a worksheet) into a competition, making up their own rules and proceeding to get genuinely upset when they don't “win” in their own made up competition lmaooo

(kinda hilariously, now that I'm writing this out, I'm realizing that I actually have a younger cousin who does this too [and to the extreme, I've seen him throw a tantrum over getting a trivia question wrong], so I'm realizing this is probably a useful topic to have some books about in general 😅)

I think it'd be best to find books where this theme/lesson is learned or comes up a bit more naturally in the story, rather than something that feels super preachy or obviously written directly to be a lesson, because I think this message would go over best with these types of kids if they are actually enjoying the book and not feeling called out by it //: + it being a funny story too would definitely be a big bonus lol

I teach after-school classes in K-3 early reading, so I'm mostly looking for simpler picture books, but I'm open to anything that would help with this kind of thing for younger elementary kids!! tyty (:

One of the funniest things about teaching (imo) is how much of the useless, random information the kids happen to actually remember sometimes LOOOL

I'm mentioning a now officially re-curring experience for me, because for the SECOND time this interaction has occurred + it's just one of the many tiny teaching experiences that inspire the premise behind this post:

so during my first week of after school classes with a group of students, one of the kids makes a comment about my shoes (the pair of shoes in question are covered in white paint & the paint is intended to slowly chip away with wear of the shoes until eventually it's just a completely regular black shoe underneath ... you are free to think what you want about that concept loool, that's beside the point!)

I like to jokingly respond to most questions/comments about these shoes by explaining that I wear them every single day because I'm trying to chip the paint away as quickly as possible, and usually the conversation just ends there~

For the second (2nd) time now though, at some point in the following week(s) of class, the same student will notice that I am wearing a different pair of shoes that day. then they ask why I'm not wearing the same ones from last week like I said I always do, while making a semi big deal of the fact 😭😭

Both of these times now, I was honestly kinda impressed that they recalled that random little aside from the week prior, especially because in my mind it's always just a completely random throwaway joke!!!

and meanwhile, the fact that they had homework due from the week before?? somehow that's the type of information that just completely up and disappears from their brains lmaaaoo smh

This happened to me recently while reading Stone Fox with a group of kids. It was actually my first time ever reading the book too :o and since we only meet once a week as a class, we'd been slowly making our way through it a few chapters at a time during class + for homework, so it was a slowburn for them

The further we got, the more emotionally invested the kids were getting in the characters and the story, and I was just sitting there thinking like ... oh no 😬 I already know what's coming (because I read ahead the first week I was given the book just to be prepared to discuss it throughout), and know they're going to be DEVASTATED when we get to the end 😭😭

and of course when we finally reached that part, they were all genuinely upset because they didn't expect it at all. legit wild story ending, it gave me whiplash at first too smh I can't lie

I felt kinda bad having to just sit there and let it happen loool, I even had to remind them that I did NOT pick the book and that it was ALSO my first time reading it when it was assigned to us 😭
I was caught just as off guard by the ending the first time too!!

It's a weird experience because you basically get to watch the emotional damage approaching in slow motion while they're completely unaware of it loool

Obviously lots of children's books have at least some kind of lesson/moral/theme/message, but I'm especially interested in any of the ones where you feel like the author conveys the lesson particularly well, teaches an interesting or more niche lesson, or maybe even does it in a more subtle/interesting way (:

Sometimes the message is VERY obvious and the author is basically hitting readers over the head with it 😭😭 which honestly makes me laugh sometimes, but I also definitely get why as some younger kids probably need the message delivered quite directly for it to really click with em.

I'm hoping for some books where I could really have something to actually dig into after a read-aloud with the class!! like, after finishing the book, being able to ask the kids what they think the author was trying to teach them, why the characters acted the way they did, whether they agree with the message, how it applies to their own lives, etc etc

I teach younger kids (K - 3) in after-school classes and would love to have some books that work especially well for this kind of read-aloud + class discussion combo lol

This been on my mind lately (dealing with some extra difficult families lol) because I feel like there's a point where you just have to realize that a tutoring student/family is just causing you WAY more stress and/or frustration than they're worth 😭😭

Obviously, every student is going to have difficult days and every family is going to have different expectations!! BUT if a parent is constantly micromanaging how you tutor, disrespecting your time, changing expectations, or making it harder for you to actually teach, I genuinely don't think it's worth bending over backwards trying to make it work

I've dealt with situations where a parent will sit in the background of the kid's room for their ENTIRE online reading session and literally try talking to their kid while I'm actively teaching ... and in one case, the parent didn't really speak or understand English (which obviously isn't an issue at all!! I just find it kinda strange to be judged on the quality of an English reading lesson when the parent can't really follow along with what's even being taught 😅)

I 100% understand parents are allowed to have opinions about their child's tutoring, but at a certain point, I'd rather just not take the student in the first place, or simply drop them if the problems start after a few sessions. There are plenty of students and families who will actually respect a tutor's time AND trust you (the person with teaching expertise) to actually do your job.

I feel like it's easy to get caught up thinking "well it's still income, so I'll just put up with it~" but sometimes the amount of stress a client creates just straight up isn't worth whatever you're making from them lol, unless they're giving you some sort of infinite money glitch lmfao

I teach phonics + early reading after school classes, so I see some of the reading struggles that younger students are dealing with today, but I don't really have any personal past reference point to compare it to, since I only recently started teaching!

Honestly, I'm really happy that I get to teach phonics because I know how important those foundational skills are, and how much they can help set kids up for success as they get older ((: Being able to read (+ understand what you're reading) is genuinely such an important life skill

I've been hearing lots of discussion and claims about a "literacy crisis" in America that's currently ongoing, and I'm just curious what y'all think.
Do you agree that there's actually a literacy crisis right now? If so, what do you think is causing it, and what do y'all think can actually be done to combat it???

I'd especially love to hear from any educators who may have more experience/have been teaching for a while and can compare the students they're teaching today to the students they taught in the past 🙂‍↕️
I've read a few articles about it already, but I'm genuinely very interested in this topic and would love to learn even more, so if anyone has any good sources or research about the topic that I could read, I'd really appreciate it if you linked them too!!

I'm realizing that I apparently have a completely separate "teacher voice" that automatically activates whenever I'm talking to kids 😭😭

I've been noticing it the most lately when I tutor older students after spending a bunch of time teaching younger kids lol, I'll catch myself explaining something in that VERY slow, patient, slightly louder voice I use with the little ones and suddenly realize ... wait a sec 😬 This student can definitely understand me if I just spoke normally

the worst part is it doesn't even stay at work smh. Sometimes I'll catch myself using that same voice with family, my friends, or even random people working at places I go, and then immediately feel bad because I realize like omg I hope they don't think I'm babying them or talking to them like I think they're dumb

At this point I genuinely don't know how much of my normal speaking voice is left anymore LOOOOL, teaching has apparently rewired my brain.

Do any of y'all also catch yourselves doing this outside of work too?? or is this just a me problem right now loool

Yellooo everybody!! Just for a lil context behind this post, I teach phonics + early reading at an after school learning center, and lately I've been trying to build a collection of seasonal books to read aloud with my students whenever the timing fits!! (I think it's fun + cute, and some of my fav childhood elementary memories revolve around holiday or seasonal celebrations at the school🙌)

Now that we're getting back into the new school year, I really want to grow and improve my collection of seasonal/holiday books~ this way, I can easily pull from a shelf throughout the year instead of having to scramble to find something good last minute every time a holiday rolls around 😬 hahahaa

That's why I'm curious and wanting to know what books y'all would recommend!! I'm really hoping for some books that are actually FUN to read aloud with younger kids too, rather than any boring ol book that just so happens to be about a particular holiday or mention it in passing lol

I'd rly appreciate recommendations for basically ANYthing throughout the year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Lunar New Year, St Patrick's Day, summer break, winter, back to school season, etc etc. 
I feel like there's practically an infinite amount of Halloween or Christmas related books lolol, sooo it would be cool to discover some more niche books for less obvious seasonal occasions and things like that ((: 

So, what are some seasonal//holiday children's books that you/your kids/your students absolutely LOVE reading??? I'd especially love to hear the ones that y'all think are genuinely fun, memorable, or maybe have even become a classroom/read-aloud favorite over the years!! 

With the new school year getting started (maybe even a few weeks in already for some), I've been thinking about the little things teachers always do when we meet a new class for the first time

For me, I usually just have a little powerpoint slides where I give the students some background about myself and show them a few pics of my dog + my Pokemon plush collection 😅😭 just something small to help them get comfortable with class and realize I'm an actual human being with hobbies/interests before being just a teacher (although just teacher is definitely the very close 2nd LOL)

For me it's a bit much because I teach a few different after school classes every weekday, usually with completely different students in each, so I basically have like 5 – 10 "first days" during that first week 🫩 so I'm giving this same little spiel and rundown over and over again hahaha

I feel like it does help break the ice with younger students tho!! especially when they realize their teacher isn't so awful, they're a bit more willing to learn and participate lolol

Do y'all have anything like this that you always do with a new class? like a first day activity, little routine, or even your own personal ritual you've ended up doing every year??

Today is my first day back to teaching my regular after school group classes after a few weeks of intermission between summer classes and the new school year, and somehow I'm STILL getting those pre-class nerves 😭😭

This is now my 3rd year of educating, but apparently that first day anxiety never went away LOOOL. It honestly gives me flashbacks to being a student again, having my first day of school, and sitting there with butterflies in my stomach wondering how the heck everything is gonna go 😬

Honestly tho, the second I'm actually IN the classroom and start talking to the kids, all of that anxiety completely disappears and I'm perfectly fine!! but that buildup beforehand is never the best feeling hahaha. It feels like my brain spends the hours before class convincing me that I have somehow forgotten how to teach

I'm hoping this surely isn't only a me thing lol, do y'all also still get that nervous feeling too even after teaching for a while?? and if so, have you figured out anything that actually helps to calm it down?

One of the little things I've really enjoyed about starting the school year up again is seeing my tutoring students after their summer break, and realizing just how excited they are to see me LOL

I had a student recently who came in for their session and immediately started telling me ALL about their summer vacation before we even really got started 😭😭 and honestly it was just super wholesome seeing how excited they were to be back and share about their time off ((:

I think when I first started tutoring, I always kinda assumed most kids probably didn't particularly like having a tutor hahaha, like we're basically telling them "hey, I'm about to give you some extra schoolwork after you've already spent all day at school" 😬 (which, to be fair, I know if I was a kid with that experience I'd be jaded towards the tutor looool)

So it's always really nice to realize they actually enjoy being around you and genuinely look forward to tutoring!! Obviously I want my students to learn and improve, but knowing they actually enjoy spending that time with me is probably one of the most rewarding parts of tutoring too tbh

Hiya everybody!! Just for a lil context, I teach phonics + early reading at an after school learning center, and I'm looking for a little bit of advice regarding kids and reading in general!! 🙌

The curriculum I have to teach in my early reading classes is split pretty much 50/50 down the middle between nonfiction and fiction reading, and this time around (more than ever before) I've noticed that a lot of my students are having a REALLY hard time getting into the nonfiction portions of class 😭😭 they practically seem like they wish we could just read fiction the entire time hahaha, as if it's torture to transition into the nonfiction half of class

and honestly, I don't blame them at all!! because I was exactly the same way as a kid LOOOL, I pretty much ONLY wanted to read fiction. reading facts about random topics I usually never cared for was almost always waaay less interesting to me 😅

But now that I'm on the adult + teaching side of the coin, I'm really wanting to know how other educators/parents/librarians/etc have been able to get younger kids to actually enjoy nonfiction reading. I know having a topic they're already interested in would obviously help a ton, but I'm really hoping to learn ways/tips to make nonfiction consistently feel fun and interesting, even when the subject itself isn't necessarily something the kid cares about!

Imo, one of the greatest things about teaching younger kids is how confidently they'll give you answers that are just ... objectively not even close 😭😭😭

It's usually not even a hesitant guess either lol, they'll look you dead in your eyes and explain/justify their answer like they're about to teach you something LMAOOOO

but honestly I kinda love that because I'd MUCH rather have a kid who confidently attempts something completely wrong than the kid being too scared to even try to answer at all!! It's just sometimes comedy to me watching them give their full explanations with 1000% confidence, whole time I'm getting ready to (kindly) tell them like look ... I appreciate the confidence but unfortunately ... absolutely not 🙂‍↔️😅

Class is always pretty fun and unpredictable with these young elementary students (,: and honestly, also great practice for keeping a poker face loool

With this now being my ~3rd year of doing tutoring on the side, I've noticed that I really like picking up new tutoring students at the beginning of the school year rather than halfway through (or even worse, towards the end of the school year lol)

There's something really nice about being able to help students adjust to their new class(es)/teacher(s)/school right away, but also it's perfect for being able to catch their little difficulties as they come up, instead of meeting them months later when that one small issue has now somehow snowballed into a giant problem 😭

also, it honestly feels quite rewarding getting to see their progression from the beginning stages!! You get to watch (and HELP) students go from "idk how to do any of this 🤷🤷‍♀️" in August/September to casually doing it with no problems a few months later, and that's gotta be one of my favorite parts of tutoring in general LOL

This time around, I've already got a pretty packed M - F daily after-school tutoring schedule to start the school year, and I'm honestly just happy to be there from the beginning and not have to reverse-engineer what went wrong halfway through the year and try to perform some miracle lessons in the final few months of schooling hahahaha

Some of my favorite, recent read alouds with my students have been the stories where you get to the last page/couple of pages and the entire class erupts with some type of emotion or suddenly has something to say about it 😭😭😭 for example, whenever I do a read aloud of I Want My Hat Back, there's ALWAYS a reaction to that ending hahahaha

Usually starts with the dramatic gasps and the "WAIT, DID HE JUST ... ??" comments, and then somehow we've turned it into some serious classroom discourse about what just happened in the story and how to make sense of it all LMAOOOO. I love it because the book's ending basically forces the kids to have an opinion about the story, and most of them will absolutely not hesitate to let you know what their opinion is

Some children's books have the most perfectly safe, predictable endings imaginable, which okay fair enough because well ... ya know ... these are children's books after all LOL
BUUUT every now and then there are those stories where you reach the last page(s) and the kids are in joyful hysterics laughing and/or yelling because they genuinely didn't expect something or are excited to discuss the ending, and those are some of my favorite ones to read aloud!! (especially for the classroom conversation opportunities afterwards)

I'm definitely looking for more books with endings kinda like that, especially ones where the final pages are funny/surprising/clever/ just satisfying enough that you can practically guarantee the kids are gonna have some sort of reaction when you get there 🙂‍↕️
I teach phonics + early reading with mostly K - 3 students, so I'm literally always trying to add more books to my mental catalog, and y'all have been giving me soooo many amazing (S tier) recommendations on some of my other posts here already 🙌

Normally, I'm an extremely shy/introverted person, but for whatever reason, the instant I start doing a read aloud with a group of students, apparently all of that goes completely out the window 😭😭

When I'm doing a class read aloud, I'm almost always super extra about it looool, doing different voices for every character, getting ridiculously dramatic with facial expressions, changing my tone to match the story, long pauses for dramatic effect, etc etc ... basically doing the absolute #most in an attempt to make the story fun for the kids LOL and I'm a huge fan of being able to do that

I think children's books have genuinely become one of my favorite ways to break the ice with new students (,: it lets me show sooo much more of my personality than I normally would be able to during regular instruction. Sometimes when the lil jokes I try in class are falling short (tough crowd sometimes ngl lmfao), I can just grab a book and suddenly we're all laughing together over some ridiculous character or story every time without fail 🤣🙌

I originally started being overly dramatic/extra with my read alouds because I wanted the kids to not feel like they're being forced to sit there and listen to a book and actually enjoy reading time (hopefully even become more avid readers themselves), but by this point, I'm realizing I probably have just as much fun doing it as they do LOL

There's truly something so great about being able to just completely commit to a bit and act ridiculous for ~10 minutes because the kids are actually into it too! (and we're learning!! hooray)

I've been seeing soooo many back to school posts lately where teachers are already feeling exhausted and we've literally just started the new year 😭😭 (I completely understand and relate tho)

I know the beginning can be a really difficult, weird adjustment period when you're getting used to a whole new group of kids and trying to help all those students get into routines/understand expectations ... but I'm curious at what point does it actually start feeling "normal" again LOL

like when do you finally get past the whole "okay what the heck am I doing right now and why is no child listening to me??" phase and start feeling like "alright, I think we've got this y'all ... this is how school is supposed to be" /:

I suppose I'd like to pose this question to all educators (and particularly curious for teachers who've been doing this for a good chunk of time too) how long does it usually take y'all to feel decently settled?? a couple days, couple weeks, a month? Longer??? is there anything that helps you feel like you can easier progress over that hump?

I've only been in a teacher role for a couple years myself now, so I'm still definitely figuring out what the normal timeline for that adjustment even is hahaha and it's been different for me every year so far

also, for anyone having a particularly rough start to this school year, wishing y'alll the best of luck and hoping you hang in there!! 🤞🤞