There are many benefits to having a classroom website that your students and parents can view. With today’s tools, there’s no coding involved, and you can build a site that’s both functional and elegant quickly and easily.

Structured teaching, an intervention for students with special needs, includes the physical organization of the classroom, individualized schedules, work/activity systems and visual organization of materials. There are elements of structured teaching from which all students — not just those with special needs — can benefit.

Teachers know that their students are more than just a set of grades. But the DOE’s standard single-page report card doesn’t give them the opportunity to demonstrate it. That’s why some elementary schools have turned to alternative progress reports.

In my pre-K classroom, I strive to strengthen my students’ nonverbal communication skills because understanding facial expressions and gestures allows for communication to be fluid, natural and meaningful. For English language learners, these skills are just as important as listening, speaking, reading and writing English when it comes to acquiring English language skills. 

When locating materials to use in the classroom, high-quality resources are a must. Many well-known and respected organizations have fully digitized their collections of primary sources and made them available free of charge, so they’re a great place to start.

As we think about gearing up for a new school year, here are a few tips to help us navigate the busy, sometimes overwhelming job of managing a classroom.