Ninja Notes

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Unlock the Hidden Keys to Teacher Wellness

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It can be easy to let yourself get run down. The only way to take care of yourself is to figure out what you need for self care and then stick to it. Don't let teaching take away your health. Come unlock the hidden keys to teacher wellness.

What is it about teaching that doesn’t allow a person to fully turn off their teaching brain? Is the chemical composition of a teacher that makes them want to give every last drop of energy in the classroom? What about nurturing? Is teacher wellness a myth?

What is it that makes you a great teacher?

Like most teachers, you are a caring, compassionate person who would give the clothes off your back in order to make the lives of your students better. You are willing to give your hard-earned money to make sure they have the materials they need to be successful in your classroom. You’re willing to give your time to make sure they have the best possible experiences while they are in your classroom this year.

There is nothing wrong with any of that, but do you know when you’ve crossed the line into being unhealthy?

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How to Make Students Listen Without Yelling

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Are you struggling to get students to listen? Do you feel like yelling all the time? Are you running out of patience? Come learn how to get your students to listen without all the yelling.

Do you have to repeat yourself constantly because your students just don’t know how to listen? Maybe it’s not them. Are your directions unclear? Do you have their attention? Maybe your instructions were unclear. Nobody likes a yelly teacher. So here is how you can fix your directions and improve their listening skills at the same time.

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Conquer Math With These Proven Multiplication Strategies

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Are you struggling with teaching multiplication because students just don't know their times tables? Check out these ways we practice and build math fact fluency without the pressure ot timed drills.

We have taught students in grades four and five for so long and one trend we’ve noticed is that students cannot retain their multiplication times tables. What is happening to those little brains? Or is it because we teach these facts differently? We’ve been thinking about the different multiplication strategies we use in our classroom.

When we went to school, math drills were all the rage. But to be honest, the stress of answering sixty multiplication questions in less than a minute was horrible. And, I was lucky because I knew my times tables, but I just couldn’t write fast enough no matter how hard I tried. Those drills weren’t an assessment of my math skills. They were an assessment of how quickly I could write.

And don’t even get me started about the time I wrote a zero, but it was messy and looked like a six. Ugh! So, I knew I couldn’t give my students math drills. Here’s what we do instead.

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Use Google Classroom to Make Your Life Easier

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Do you use Google Classroom for your everyday lessons? If not, you might want to consider trying it to get your in class or online learning organized. Learn some of the basics to set it up and get started with this post, which includes some must know tech skills for yourself and your upper elementary students.

When the pandemic hit and classes needed to jump online, we were so thankful that we’d been spending the past few years teaching our students how to use the technology in our classroom and at home through Google Classroom.

If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. There are other Learning Management Systems out there, but Google is relatively easy to use, and it’s free. If your students already know how to use other Google Tools, it’s really not much different.

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Getting to Know Your Students

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Getting to know your students helps with classroom management and lesson planning. Come learn some of the ways we get to know our students and start the school year off right.

Every starts with a new, fresh batch of kids that you want to get to know. Teachers need to know their students for several reasons. You need to understand them and their quirks because you’re going to spend the next ten months in close quarters trying to guide this child through all kinds of experiences. This is why you need to understand who your students really are.

You need to know who they are so you can plan to teach them. It’s just that simple.

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How to Teach Students to Self-Regulate

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Do you need help teaching your students to self-regulate? Managing emotions can be a challenge for some students, but there are practical strategies that can help. Come read the whole post.

What does it mean to self-regulate? Well, the obvious answer means for students to keep their feelings in check. But that’s a bit misleading. It implies that students need to squish down their feelings. Emotional regulation is a skill that students need to be taught. It does not come naturally for everyone.

Students who are having a hard time with self-regulation often appear to be disengaged, rude, helpless or otherwise frustrating for teachers. For many teachers, this means ramping up the WOW factor to try to entice students into wanting to learn. This might mean costumes, balloons, candy and confetti for math-but imagine if it could be something so much simpler?

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