Darling Ideas

Even though the school year is in full swing, small groups can still be a tough nut to crack. Between managing the rest of the class and keeping up with…

Fall is such a fun time in the classroom, but let’s be honest—it can also be a bit of a rollercoaster! The kids are coming in from weekends full of…

It’s Halloween season! And as much as I love Halloween, it does take some creativity to maintain some sort of order in my kinder classroom! It’s like the kids flip…

Whole Group vs. Small Group Phonics Instruction: What’s the Difference? Hey there! Let’s chat about something that’s always on our minds: phonics instruction. We all know it’s crucial for our…

Setting the tone for a new school year is one of the most important things any teacher can do. I think most of us know this, and that’s why so…

One of my favorite things to do at the end of each school year is to look at my students’ beginning of the year work and their end of the…

Hey there fellow educator, Let’s talk about effective small group instruction aligned to the science of reading. As we dive into this critical aspect of teaching literacy, it’s essential to…

Blending interventions, no way! We were learning letter names, learning letter sounds, (phonemes), and then blending those sounds whole group! We were trucking along, and this teacher thought we were…

Segmenting words into individual phonemes can be such a challenge for new spellers (aka Kindergartners). But with quality instruction from you and a whole lot of we do practice, most…