Setting Up Your Classroom For Hands On, 21st Century Digitized Teaching!

Are you setting up your classroom for the beginning of the year? Are you restructuring your classroom because what you have been doing so far doesn't seem effective? Are you just trying to make your classroom a little more hands on and engaging? Well, no matter what the question may be, you have come to the right place! In this blog, I am going to show you how I have set up my classroom to make it hands on, engaging, inspiring, digitized and my idea of what it means to truly be a 21st kind of classroom!

I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, living in the "Information Age" can be amazing and VERY OVERWHELMING! Thanks to the internet we now have a wealth of resources at our fingertips not to mention so many great books and other amazing tools! Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed, I find myself losing track of my objectives and instead getting caught up in the abyss realizing I had wasted hours and still have nothing accomplished.

Where to begin??

And these are just SOME of the resources that I have available at my school or from the library! Like I said, it can all be VERY OVERWHELMING!

This is where my blog comes in handy for you! I do not, by any means, declare myself an expert but I can say that I am a great teacher. I know that I am a great teacher because: 1.) I care about ALL of the students and always build a trusting, respectful relationship with each of them. 2.) I am a pretty good judge of body language (which is HUGE when you are trying to be an effective teacher and 3.) Living in the 21st Century is very busy so if it doesn't work, I don't have time to mess with it. I want my students challenged, engaged, and enthusiastic at all, well almost, 100% of the time!

So, out of all those books above plus numerous others, these (so far) are my favorites and ones that have become my sidekicks! They are amazing and have really helped me make the most of my time, including planning time, to effectively teach math in the 21st Century.

Crosser Cares Best Sidekicks:

Books~ 

Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics

by John A. Van de Walle & LouAnn H. Lovin

Crosswalk Coach for the Common Core State Standards

by Triumph Learning 

Getting Smarter Every Day 

by Dale Seymour

And I tie it all together with:

Math Daily 5 Website

It does require a member fee but it is only $39 for three months or $69 for a year. In my opinion, a three month pass is more than enough unless you want it for reading too (it has AMAZING Daily Five & Daily Cafe that are transforming!) 

*You will notice that I don't have textbooks listed in the 

Crosser Cares Best Picks. Textbooks are useful for building the teacher's background knowledge and independent math practice for the students but they should NOT be your guide.  I have tried this in the past and even started doing it again this year when teaching math K-5. Trust me, it ends up making life harder because children aren't constructing their own knowledge.