u/Brief_Efficiency_833

Sometimes kids can really treat your last class together like it's a funeral 😭😭

One of my students was sooooo dramatically sad today (our last day of this summer school session) because he was convinced he was "never going to see me again"

I kept reminding him (at least like 4x) "You're still enrolled to this learning center bud! I'm 99% sure we'll be seeing each other again soon!" ... but he wasn't hearing me out one bit, he truly thought this was the final goodbye

It was honestly adorable and the sweetest thing ever 🥲 but then at the same time I was standing there having to occasionally hold back a laugh just because of the theatrics + denial of this student vs all the other students who either didn't seem to care at all about it being the last day or were overly excited for it to be done lol

Man the humbling that happens when teaching a lesson and your class seems to be following along perfectly, but then flop when it's time for independent practice 😭

I'll be up at the board going through a lesson, and they'll be answering questions, participating in discussion, making eye contact + looking at the board, literally everything you could ask for so in my head I'm thinking like wow TY 🙌 this must be absolutely clicking for them right now, easy peasy!!

then it's time for some independent practice ... and immediately they're like "wait how do I do this?? I don't know" 😅🙃

I can't even be disappointed because it's not like they weren't trying. They genuinely were paying attention and following along while we worked through things together as class.

Always reminds me that understanding something with guidance ≠ being able to do it independently, it takes steps to get there and lots of practicing different skills. It also brings me back to reality every single time because for a brief moment there I always think I absolutely crushed the lesson lol

Genuinely don't know what happened here and need some advice from people who've experienced this before because this is honestly a first for me 😭

Two weeks ago we did a multiplication lesson for the day and this student was crushing it. Whole day went smooth after the initial explanation and she breezed through her worksheets with almost zero help from me. I genuinely thought she had it down with how well she was doing that day.

Yesterday we revisited multiplication in class and it was as if she had never seen it before in her life. She didn't remember the name (kind of understandable I guess, but in my defense I said it a lot that first day lol) didn't remember how to do it, didn't remember any of the tips/methods/tricks we used to work through the questions. All of it was just gone like Men in Black memory wipe style 🕴️ the questions yesterday weren't harder than before either, it was literally the same level of difficulty and even after some re-explaining and presenting my same lesson from two weeks ago, she still struggled a bit with the work.

I don't know if I just didn't teach it well enough the first time? or if this is more normal than I realize and just part of the learning process? but this is genuinely the first time I've had this experience where a kid does so well with a concept one day and then struggles quite a bit with the exact same thing the next time they see it.
I guess I'm trying to figure out how to actually make a lesson stick instead of it disappearing a couple weeks later because it feels like that's exactly what happened here /: Anyone have strategies that have worked for you to make your lessons stay with your students? or have some more insight on how/why this happens?

Hello everybody!! Looking for some specific book recommendations for a student of mine this summer and would really appreciate any suggestions! (:

I have a student (~5 yrs old) who knows every single letter sound well but really struggles when it comes to blending the sounds together into actual words when reading. Another thing is he gets discouraged quite easily whenever reading feels even a bit hard, so I want to find something that's "easy" enough to help him build his confidence a bit before trying harder books. We also have access to Epic! in our classroom which has a huge library so if any recommendations happen to be on there that'd be a bonus too, but def not a requirement!

Recently just learned what decodable books are so I'm ideally looking for some of those since it sounds right up his alley and can be something new for me to learn about too! Anything with mostly CVC words and simple, shorter sentences would work though 🙂‍↕️ something where he can actually get through a page and feel good about it instead of getting frustrated

Any recommendations would be super duper appreciated, thanks!!!🙏

Can anyone expand a bit on the whole “meeting kids where they’re at” concept?
I’ve heard it a bit recently and tried to apply it in my teaching, but I'm not 100% sure I fully understand it yet lol

For some specific context, I’m teaching a “youth logic thinking” class at a learning center over the summer. Most of the kids in this class are ~8 yrs old, except one student who is only 5 😬

Today they were given a worksheet on 3 digit addition with regrouping … which is obviously way above where this kid is at. He can barely do single digit addition without fingers and doesn’t really understand double digit yet either (again, he’s like newly 5 😭)

So instead of keeping him on the same worksheet as the class, I scrapped it for him and made custom questions starting from the very basics so he can actually build the foundation up first
and it seems to have helped a lot! he was able to work through problems now without immediately shutting down or getting frustrated 👍

But I’m not sure if I’ve taken the idea too literally by pulling him that far back from the class content, or if that’s actually the point of “meeting them where they’re at”?

Would appreciate any thoughts/advice on how to best usually this in mixed level classrooms (just be nice about it lol)

Kids trading snacks during break is such a joy to watch. Heck yea open free market system in my classroom … the youth yearn for bartering

I watched a kid flip his pack of godlfish into 2 fruit roll ups AND a kitkat earlier today. Don’t wanna break it to the other kids, but I think they just got absolutely finessed 😬😭 at least this economy is thriving

Hello my fellow educators, I have a question I've been meaning to ask for a while but honestly was never sure how to word it perfectly, so I really hope this comes across the right way!! 🤞

I've been teaching K - 3 at a learning center for a couple years now and I'm genuinely very curious: what's the "right" move as a teacher when you suspect a student may have an undiagnosed learning disability/difference??

I need to be super clear here that I have zero special ed qualifications and I'm absolutely NOT trying to diagnose any child myself, I understand that's not my place at all.
My thought process behind it is that when I notice certain patterns of behavior repeating consistently in a student, it sometimes feels like there could be underlying causes worth looking more into. Not because I think the kid needs to be "fixed" or they're difficult to teach, but because I genuinely want to make sure they're getting the support or accommodations that might actually help them.

Is there a proper way to bring something like this up? Do I mention it to admin, to the parents, or is it not my lane and I should just leave it alone entirely?
I really don't want to overstep any boundaries but I also wouldn't want to just stay quiet if raising a concern could actually make a positive difference for a kid! Would really appreciate some advice/input from some more experienced educators and anyone who's navigated something similar, thanks a ton 🤗

Had a new student in my second session of summer classes yesterday and he looked pretty familiar, but I didn't think too much of it at first. A few minutes into class I realized I'd actually taught him last summer too!! but only for a few weeks + the kid is only 6 now so I didn't really expect him to remember me

I had the class doing icebreakers and introductions and after all the students introduced themselves, I introduced myself and it seemed like it finally clicked for him too. He got all wide eyed and said "wait ... are you Mr. ____?!?" which was extra funny because I had literally just told the class my name like 10 seconds earlier 🤣😭 but I couldn't even joke about it since he looked so excited when he realized

His reaction immediately got me hyped to teach the class lol sometimes I get a little nervous when I teach students I've had before because I worry they might have a negative reaction to seeing me again 😬😅 It has never happened before (thankfully) but I feel like IF it did it would make me feel so bad lmao

So shoutout to that 6 year old kid for unknowingly carrying my emotions yesterday, I was honestly already happy enough he remembered me at all!!

I swear kids will start with a normal game and then spend 20 minutes adding increasingly specific rules because someone did something they found annoying. Half the time the game ends up near unrecognizable from what it even started as.

I was just supervising some of the summer students during break and watched the game of tag evolve in real time

It started with the classic "no tag backs" which alright fair enough, that rule was originally added to keep gameplay fair, I say any real game of tag needs to have no tag backs instated

then came "no running up the slide" clearly this was a direct response to a student losing to the "running up the slide" method but I can't step in against the rule because its a safety first thing too

"No hiding behind the tree!" there's nothing unfair about the tactic but I can see how it promotes boring gameplay, so banning it isn't the worst rule

I started laughing when a kid yelled "NO RUNNING WHEN I'M IT" because alright now we're just straight up cheating 😭😭 where's the counterplay to that

My personal favorite rule addition was:

"Now I have a shield so you have to tag me twice. The first tag just breaks my shield"

that one actually sounded like a real game mechanic

Kids can never just play a game the way it was intended lmao it's either the most unfair rules imaginable or accidentally making the next potential Roblox hit

Hello y'all, posting here to look and ask for some ideas!!

My summer classes have been (thankfully) extremely easy so far, but as a result I've been having some lessons finish waaaay way faster than expected 😬 My classes are 1hr30min, but by “faster” I mean we're literally finishing the lecture + work in under 45 minutes which is before their break even starts

So I'm posting to ask: what are some of y’all’s favorite “backup” activities to do when a lesson ends super early? especially for smaller groups, since that’s what I’m dealing with this summer.

It’d be perfect if the activity isn’t purely a game, I’d love to still do SOMETHING educational with them during this time although I do obviously want it to be fun for the kids, and bonus points if it’d even be enjoyable for me as the teacher too lol 😅

I've been saving my butt the past two weeks by using the extra time to preview the next day’s lesson which has been working great, but there were a few days where even after doing that, we’d still have like 15+ minutes left in class smh

I feel like I always either overplan or underplan with no inbetween 😭😭 so I would really appreciate any advice/tips on how to fill this time and looking forward to using some of your recs next week to make my classes even more fun (((:

edit: oops forgot some important context!! for the summer my classes are ranging from K - 4

One thing summer school has been reminding me of so far is just how much better kids tend to do when they're in smaller groups 😭😭

I technically only teach small groups already since I work at an after school learning center, so my classes are never huge. the biggest class I've ever had was 10 students lol, so I honestly don't even know how y'all public school teachers handle classes of like 20 – 30

In my summer sessions the kids have been quieter during lectures, participating way more, and generally just way more engaged which has been a pleasant surprise since I came in expecting the worst

It really makes me wish regular class sizes weren't pushing near 30 students sometimes. Seriously hats off to all of you who manage that every single day because I was already stressed enough with my class of 10 lmao 🫡

So I teach a pair of sisters in one of my summer classes and today the older one had to go to a dentist appointment and got to leave class early. The younger sister immediately insists "I want to go too!!" and starts throwing a fit

She was getting pretty close to a full on meltdown about not being able to come along when her older sister stepped in and saved the day with the most brutally honest reality check lmao
she explained that SHE was going because she had to get work done on her braces and the dentist was about to HURT her. IF the younger one wanted to come too then the dentist would have to hurt her as well

Like magic the hissy fit was over as quick as it started lol little sister sat right back down, picked up her pencil and got back to work without any more of a fight 😭🫡

The older sister genuinely did more classroom management in one 5 second sentence than I could have done in 10 minutes lol shoutout to her for saving me the trouble 🙌

Just wanted to share a cool experience I had today because I always find it so interesting seeing what different methods/strategies kids know!!

One of my summer classes is a youth logic thinking class, which is basically just teaching them logic (self explanatory with the name I guess 🤣) + deductive reasoning skills. Trying to teach the kiddos how to think critically and approach problems but also sprinkling in some actual math too. Today we went over some multiplication and I mentioned how I learned my times tables as a kid with songs and each number had its own little song. The only one that actually stuck with me to this day was the 6 times table (which was sung to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star lol) so I sang it to them as an example

A lot of the students in the city I teach come from Chinese speaking households, and when I sang it they looked at me like I was crazy 😭😭 they said it was too complicated and there's a MUCH easier way, then told me about this chart in the picture below!
From my understanding, it's also a multiplication rhyme table but it only goes up to 9x9. they also learn it as a chant/song, so the kids just memorize each equation as a spoken phrase.
A few of them already had a surprisingly solid grasp on multiplication all from using it too.

https://preview.redd.it/c1namlw36p7h1.png?width=1147&format=png&auto=webp&s=500ae11fca6bfa87fa61f7ef287488e10f67e5cc

I made sure to let them know they can stick with whatever already works for them, no need to switch up their whole way of thinking just because I shared how I learned it and I'm the teacher lol

Honestly it was just really cool to see a completely different approach I'd never seen before! Before teaching, I used to think the way I learned everything in school was universal and every teacher ever does the same exact thing but I realized pretty quickly after starting that isn't how it works lol

Can't lie I even tried learning and picking up their method myself ... still don't fully get it 🙂‍↔️😬 guess I'll have to stick to my twinkle twinkle little star lmao

Just for a little context: in my after school early reading classes (K - 3) there's always a fiction and nonfiction portion. Fiction is usually whatever grade level book/series we're working through (Magic Tree House, Roald Dahl books, Judy Moody, Nate the Great, etc) and the nonfiction part varies a lot depending on the class and student age.

In my 1st grade class, the nonfiction portion had been reading about a new US state every week and then answering some questions about that state. I genuinely did not expect it to be such a hit but the kids looked forward to it every week!! sometimes they even tried to guess if we were about to do a state they've been to or knew and would get super excited whenever we did end up reading about one, the hype when we finally read about California (the state we're in) was unreal 😭😭 you would have thought I just announced no homework for the year or something lmao

right now I've got an older group of kids for a summer reading session (most are grade 3 or 4) and I'm trying to find something similar for them. The state readings would be waaaaay too easy for this group since those are ~1st grade level, but I also don't need anything that lasts as long either since it's just for the summer which is quite a bit shorter 🙌

So basically I'm looking for any nonfiction topics that:

1. work well weekly/biweekly (since some summer classes I see twice a week)
2. don't need a huge amount of material
3. are interesting enough that the kids would look forward to them how my 1st graders did with states

Anyone got any ideas?? pretty open to any and all suggestions! (:

For YEARS now I was convinced the classic "ask 3 before me" was one of those teacher things that sounds great in theory BUT falls apart immediately in practice ... honestly I owe this strategy an apology 😭😭

I never really used it because I always assumed it would just create more opportunities for kids to talk during class then immediately justify it with "but we were talking about school!!" (maybe a bit too cynical on my end tbh LOL)

well after being completely exhausted from repeating directions over and over and OVER this year, recently after a student asked me a question I just responded with "ask someone next to you before asking me"

and to my surprise ... this actually worked like a charm ???

Instead of automatically defaulting to me every single time they felt even a little bit confused, the kids started asking each other about the work first and ACTUALLY helping each other 🤯 they weren't even using it as an excuse to talk more either, which is literally the entire reason I avoided doing this for so long

They practically created their own tiny functioning in-class community where they started helping each other a ton and solving problems before I even had to get involved 🙌

it's been baffling to me how well this strategy works, but then again DUH it works! or else why would it be such a common teacher method throughout the years smh
I guess I'm just lost as to WHY does it work BETTER than nearly all the "carefully planned management strategies" I've tried 😭

now I know to not be so stubborn and to trust other teachers, especially since they got more experience than me!! lol truly a valuable lesson in "don't knock it till you try it" for me

so now I'm curious! What common teacher thing/strat/tech did you finally try at some point that ended up being very effective and is now a permanent addition to your daily arsenal lol

Got something that’s been confusing me as a teacher lately and I’m curious if any of y'all have experience with it too:

I have a student in my summer youth logic thinking class who answers “I don’t know” to practically EVERYTHING 🙂‍↔️
What do you think the answer is? ---> “I don’t know.” What part do you need help with? ---> “I don’t know.” and it is so strange to me because … she usually DOES know lol

She’s not even a struggling student either, she’s actually one of the "better" ones in the class! super well behaved, always following along, listens, participates, no issues at all when we’re doing work together as a class.

We’ve only had a few classes in the summer session so far, but I’m already noticing a pattern, it’s only during independent work because during class practice she’s totally fine and answers everything with no issues. Today we were doing addition sentences with more than 2 numbers, had like 30 min of guided practice together. During the practice she's doing everything perfectly fine, then I hand out independent work and within like 10 seconds her hand shoots up “I don’t know how to do this” I’m just standing there like 🧍😭 we literally JUST did this!!!

So I walk over, give her like the tiniest reminder of what we just did, and she instantly gets it. No issues, just does the question easy peasy and proceeds to finish the whole worksheet on her own with no problems/mistakes

It’s happened a couple times already in just these first few classes. I keep (kindly) reminding her like “you literally know this, you just did it!” but it feels like the second she's on her own, she completely loses confidence or something.

Is this a confidence thing, learned helplessness thing, some mysterious third thing I'm failing to consider or a mix of them all LOL I'm genuinely curious how to help her realize she's much more capable than she thinks!!

I've had this situation a couple times now where I end up teaching two siblings in the same class (usually just one year apart). Since I teach at an after school program, I guess some parents prefer the convenience of dropping off + picking up their kids at the same time over having their child in the "ideal, perfect grade-level" class which honestly, fair enough, I get it with busy schedules lol

In a recent reading class, it was quite the challenge because the younger one (1st grade) was struggling a bit with the book the class was reading (the BFG) compared to his 2nd grade brother and other students in the class. Totally makes sense given the age gap, but I felt for the poor kid honestly, having to read 2 chapters of the BFG for weekly homework at that age probably didn't help much with his love of reading 😬😬 not my choosing tho! blame the program's curriculum lol

This time around in one of my current summer youth logic thinking classes, there is a pair of 1st and 2nd grade sisters & the sibling dynamic has lowkey been the highlight of the class for me so far. as someone with an older sibling myself (he's 3 yrs older tho), I LOVE seeing the friendly sibling competition/rivalry when it comes to things like finishing classwork or getting answers right lol. The younger one tackles every challenge head on because she sees her older sister doing it and wants to keep up, it's genuinely so sweet to see and a great motivator!!

it's also been cool because I actually taught the older sister in a reading class right before summer and never really saw her socialize much with other peers in class, but it's been nice seeing a different side of her and watching her come out of her shell a bit more with her sister around. These two are quite opposite personality wise!! the older one is much more quiet and reserved while the younger one is waaay more energetic and sociable

kinda on the same topic too, I've also had a few cases where I teach a younger sibling the year after having their older brother/sister in class and that's its own thing too lol. I just can't help but compare the two sometimes. Same family but can have completely different personalities, learning styles, everything, always intersting to me tbh

I spent the entire latter half of my gap week lowkey dreading the mere idea of teaching summer classes (evidenced by some posts & comments 😬) ... welp, yesterday was my first day of summer school and I'll be honest ... it was the easiest class I've ever taught in my years of teaching 😭

Only 7 kids in the class, all surprisingly extremely well behaved, AND the curriculum is easy peasy (youth logic thinking to prep them for GATE math and NNAT concepts)
After having some rather difficult classes leading up to summer, this class might just reinvigorate my teaching spirit and actually have me excited to teach again lol

All the kids were receptive to the lesson and genuinely good kids. really hoping I didn't just jinx myself by posting this and then week 2 they're all misbehaving off their rockers or I suddenly have tons of new disruptive additions in my other classes 🤞

Hoping this post doesn't date me lol but I feel like it's been pretty wild to hear kids' responses to the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question nowadays.

"back in my day" when that question was posed to the class, hands would shoot up with careers like doctor! lawyer! sports pro! astronaut! teacher! firefighter! police officer! vet! etc.

Nowadays when I pose the question to my classes, ~1/3rd of the students will mention some alternative career: streamer, kpop idol, youtuber, influencer, tiktoker, pro gamer, etc.

One time a kid specifically answered "Roblox YouTuber" and he said it with so much conviction I had no choice but to respect it 🫡

It's definitely not ALL of them, those more "traditional" dream jobs still get mentioned plenty, but it's been surprising to me how casually these new ones get tossed in as real career plans.

I bet some of them will actually pull it off too. I'll just be their OLD teacher who didn't take it seriously and eventually get mentioned in a lyric about how "my teacher said I'd never be anything" when all I actually said was "ooo interesting career choice!" 😭😭

Dang some kids books/stories just hit completely differently depending on the class 😭😭 true hit or miss sometimes, I guess it really is just different strokes for different folks!!

I teach K – 3 early reading classes at a learning center and before ending the year we read a play called Domino Soup (it's just another rendition of Stone Soup, which has already been redone a million different ways at this point. it’s like folklore DLC by now LOL)

One class got INTO it right away 🙂‍↕️ they actually treated it like a little performance, took their roles seriously (and with pride lol), and by the end they understood the whole theme without me having to explain a thing. The idea that the “magic” of the story is really just people coming together and contributing a little at a time to build something greater together just clicked for them.

HOWEVER the other class in the same grade ... a VERY different experience 🙂‍↔️ they didn’t care one bit for the whole "acting" part and by the end they were still confused about why anyone would put a domino in soup or what the entire point of the story was supposed to be.

It was funny too because the 2 classes were back to back so I got whiplash going from one to the other lol. Definitely one of the biggest “same lesson, totally different outcome” moments I’ve ever had teaching so far