How to Prepare for a Test

How to prepare for a test is something that can challenge anyone at any time. I’m 49, and I’m still taking tests! In fact, I have to take a big test very soon, and I thought I’d share the strategies and plan I use for how to prepare for a

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The End of Molasses Classes: Gifted Guru Book Club Review

The End of Molasses Classes  by Ron Clark (the education phenom who also wrote The Essential 55) found its way to me circuitously. YouTube recommended a video of a classroom decorated like Alice in Wonderland to me because I’m a total nerd who spends her freetime watching videos about classroom organization

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How a Test is Helping a School District Be More Inclusive

When Debbie Roby joined the Lewisville ISD as its Supervisor of Gifted Education, she realized that they needed to make a change. The students in the district who were being identified as gifted and talented were not coming from the full range of the population. The children who were culturally and/or

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The Benefits of Wordsearches

Before I talk about the benefits of wordsearches, let’s acknowledge the haters. Wordsearches get a bad rap. There’s a lot to hate about wordsearches. They look a lot like busywork. They look really low level. They look like everything wrong with a worksheet culture. They look ridiculous next to advanced

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12 Tips to Prepare Kids to Move

Moving is stressful for everyone, even when it’s positive change. For kids, it can be even more stressful because it’s rarely their idea, and they often feel powerless. I’ve got 12 tips to prepare kids to move that can help minimize that stress. You may not need all of them,

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7 Tips for New Year’s Resolution Success

I’m sharing seven tips for New Year’s resolution success! It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to New Year’s resolutions. About 45% of us set them, but only about 7% of those who set resolutions actually accomplish them. Goal setting is a strategic executive functioning skill that benefits

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The Truth About Teachers

I’m going to tell you the truth about teachers. But first, let me go backwards a little bit. A few weeks ago, someone posted a comment to a post on my blog. I didn’t let it go through because I would have had to go all cray-zay on the person,

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Fantastic New Science Resource {giveaway}

The Backstory When I was at the TAGT conference in San Antonio, a fantastic new science resource caught my attention. I don’t promote products very often (read: as in never), but I absolutely fell in love with this, so I’m sharing it. When I was looking at it at the

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Christmas Story Collection – Free Audio Download

There’s nothing like a wonderful Christmas story to get you in the holiday season, and I’ve recorded a few of my favorites for free download. I’ve annotated the list to share why I think it’s a great shareable story. You can click on each title or image to hear or

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The Day My Little Free Library Came Home

I hope you’ve seen Little Free Libraries. In fact, I hope you have a Little Free Library in your neighborhood or even in your yard. If you’re not familiar with them, Little Free Libraries were started by awesome Wisconsite Todd Bol, who wanted to honor his mom, a bibliophilic former

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That Time I Went to Jail

I went to jail last night. I went there to read. Because, you know, reading. If you know me, I’m probably on your list of Top 50 People Least Likely to Go to Jail, so I’ll share the backstory. How it All Began. When my parents retired, they returned from

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What’s Your Sentence?

What’s your sentence? What is one sentence that would convey what you are all about? I loved this idea when I saw it in this video: It’s part of Dan Pink‘s work on motivation, which I love and speak about in my trainings on internal motivation. I started incorporating “What’s

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