Top 4 Teacher Blogs for Classroom Ideas

1. First-Year Teachers: Advice and Tips from Learning in Wonderland:
This blog by an Arizona teacher features many ideas for new teachers to make a comforting, encouraging, and successful environment. She gives numerous tips on how to get to know each child and frequently makes a point that knowing the students is much more important than other things, such as testing, so there must be a balance and each teacher needs to find their own. One example she gives is listening, as it can be astounding how much a teacher can learn by simply listening to their students.

She gives examples of activities, classroom set-up, and provides wonderful organization tips.

2. Classroom layout and frequent praise from Coyne's Crazy Fun Preschool:
This teacher effective layout ideas and shares how they practice praising students all through the day, every single day. Students learn teamwork as they have to work together for certain rewards.
  When the class is able to get 10 hawks (their school mascot) put in the nest of compliments, they receive an exciting reward.
This teacher shares many beginning-of-the-year activity ideas that will be fun and engaging but also help in introducing the students to concepts they need to know.

3. Scheduling Tips- allotting reading and math time without interfering with other subjects. From Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten:
This teacher shares many tips on how to allow for various activities that are math and reading intensive, while still incorporating all other necessary concepts. This classroom is not exclusive to math and reading, rather a steady balance of all subjects and concepts that math and reading are incorporated into to support deeper learning.


4. Play-centered classroom from the Kindergarten Connection:
This teacher shares ways to incorporate play throughout the entire day. Some schools do not even allow for play-time in their kindergarten schedules, so she shares numerous ways in which teachers in those schools can still incorporate play in their given activities.
                                                                          
Each of these teachers creates a very supportive environment that allows children to explore, play, and learn while doing so.  They each believe in getting to know their students to be able to effectively incorporate fun and learning.

	Supportive Environment     Coyne’s Crazy Fun Preschool: This teacher gave great layout ideas and also shared many ideas for praise. Children have a goal of reaching ten baby hawks in their class “hawk nest compliment collection”, as hawks are their school mascot. When they reach ten, they get a special treat. The treats or rewards are fun things like popsicles. There are a lot of really great beginning of the year craft ideas as well that get students familiar with new things they need to know. Learning in Wonderland: This blog gives advice to first-year teachers. She focuses on the importance of getting to know the students and not letting testing get in the way of that. She also focuses on being aware of class needs, your level of patience, and being flexible. She shares that holidays can cause some chaos and that it is always okay to regroup on the carpet and review expectations. Mrs. Wills’ Kindergarten: This teacher gives a wonderful example schedule. This gives ample time for reading and math activities, without taking away from anything else. She shares activities that are fun for kids to complete and that help tremendously with reading, writing, recognition, and all sorts of math concepts. There is a lot of very interactive time that feels like play to the students, but they learn a lot during each of them. The Kindergarten Connection: This teacher shares her classroom’s schedule, which centers around play and interactive activity. She makes sure to mention that what works for one classroom, does not work for all. It is very important to get to know each class and learn what works and what doesn’t for each one. She mentions that she does not place centers on the borders of the room, but throughout it and does not interrupt their free=play but approaches them during centers only when they are interested in learning and playing with her. References https://thekindergartenconnection.com/10-ways-to-incorporate-more-play-in-the-classroom/ https://mrswillskindergarten.com/ https://www.learninginwonderland.com/search/label/Organization http://coynescrazyfunclassroom.blogspot.com/p/peek-into-my-classroom.html