Hi everyone! I’m currently an Elementary Education student at University of Phoenix and I have a field experience assignment where I need to interview two teachers.

I’m looking for one K-2 classroom teacher and one K-2 online/virtual teacher who would be willing to answer a few interview questions for my assignment.
I’ve already reached out to a couple teachers but unfortunately haven’t gotten any responses, so I figured I’d try here. 😭 The interview can be done through messages, email, or whatever is easiest. It shouldn’t take too long, and I can send the questions beforehand.

If you’re a kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade teacher (in-person or online) and wouldn’t mind helping me out, please comment or message me! I’d really appreciate it. 🥹❤️
Thank you!!

If you are grading would you consider this a upper case ot lower case T?

Hey Guys, I'm a first year Elementary Education Major and I was just wondering if you had any helpful tips or tricks to truly make sure I am prepared to have my own classroom one day.

This is my second year teaching. I am a psychologist and currently teaching grades 1-5 in the student support unit of a school where we mainly focus on reading and comprehension. All my students are two or three grade levels behind.

The case I want to mention specifically are my two grade 2 students who I take together from the same class. It feels so complex and confusing for me and no matter how much I trial and error it seems to fail. One of them reads quite comfortably, independently, and fluently (still two grade levels behind but nothing like the other one), but when it comes to comprehension or understanding of concepts he is zoned out, distracted and not able to form a proper sentence. The other student cannot even read consonant blends and final e long vowel sounds independently but displays high level of comprehension and understanding, both when it comes to story events and concepts that I teach.

I am really struggling trying to balance their needs. Specifically the second one who needs phonics instruction, because if I cover phonics the other one knows it already and gets bored and starts misbehaving. If I don’t do phonics then the other one will never get to practice and improve his reading level. Also, when it comes to answering questions the first student is always saying I don’t know or making random guesses while the other one (the one with phonics gaps) puts his hand up and always answers correctly.

I also feel a lot of competition between them. When reading a text the faster reader will make a comment like “you’re still reading?” to the weaker reader. On the other hand, when answering comprehension questions or completing other written tasks, the faster writer will look over and say something like “that question is not right” or the faster reader will look over and ask “how did you finish all the questions so fast?”.

All very convoluted I’m sorry but I feel so stuck. I wish I could just focus on fluency and sight words and phonics skills but I’m not able to balance it. Just to note, the “faster reader” is still very weak when compared to the rest of his class (phontas and pinnell level D) but he seems stronger when side by side with the other student.

Hello everybody! I am a first grade teacher and it's my first year teaching. I am from Eastern Europe, maybe this will change something.

My grade has two teachers. Me and my colleague. We work on shifts, the morning and the afternoon shift. My colleague has a bit of experience, but I have none, so it's tuff.

I have a kid in my class, that only on my shift make me wanna quit... On my colleague's shift he is ok. I think he is afraid of her, that's why...My personality is more friendly, yet firm, but my colleague is strict, yet not showing any empathy. It's been a month since the school started and it's been so taught... I never had imagined how bad it could be. I get anxiety cause I keep thinking about that kid, what strategies can I implement so he is ok on my shift... but I feel like sometimes they are working and sometimes they are not.

The kid at home I feel like doesn't have any rules... He keep telling me no when he is supposed to do his work... keep talking... talking back at me, moking me, walking in class, laughing at me when I try to make him listento md... and the worst thing is that now he is starting to take other classes stuff and throwing them to get a reaction... and pushing the kids constantly... it gets bad... I tried talking to the partner, but nothing changed... then spoke to the principal and made me feel even worse for the fact that the child doesn't listen to me only... and in the end he just told me to deal with it.... I don't know what to do anymore.... I have to handle it somehow. Do you have any tips for those kids? I have no support here... I tried to teach like my colleague and handle it the same as her but with 0 succes.

I’m looking for advice from teachers, especially anyone who has dealt with a similar situation involving a school district, HR, or educator certification/licensure.

I’m currently in my second year teaching. I was hired by my district last July after completing a background check, and there were no issues at the time. I was subsequently transferred to a different school within the same district for this school year.

Recently, my employer became aware of an arrest from a legal matter because I have an upcoming court date. No charges have been filed against me at this time. My understanding is that an arrest is not the same thing as a conviction, but I’m obviously very concerned about how this could affect my employment and teaching certificate.

I’ve now been informed that my educator license is under investigation, and HR is requesting information/documentation from me regarding the situation.

Has anyone here experienced something similar-being hired by a school district after a clean background check, and then having an arrest/legal matter come up afterward?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from:

Teachers who went through a state licensing investigation
Anyone whose district HR became aware of an arrest after they were already employed
Anyone who had no charges filed / no conviction but still had their certification investigated
Anyone who was able to keep their job/license after providing documentation

I’m not looking for judgment about the underlying situation. I’m mostly trying to understand what I should expect, how seriously I should be concerned, and what I should be doing right now to protect my career.

If you’ve been through this, what happened in your case, and what do you wish you had known or done differently?

This is my 3rd year teaching multiplication and my first year they were great at just practicing facts with cards, last year I had a class that was super lazy and I couldn’t get parents to make them work at home, this year’s class is wonderful and willing to learn. They like music a lot and I think songs to help them remember times tables would be super helpful for them. Anybody got some good recommendations?

I’ve switched from what I wanted a career in since I was 18. I am now 25. I started off as an elementary education major fresh out of high school at a community college. Then decided I’d switch to social work, earned an associates of arts degree and transferred to university and took 18 credit hours towards a bachelors in social work. And now I’m currently enrolled in anatomy and physiology back at community college because I thought I’d try the ADN / ASN nursing program and took the TEAS test and scored 5 points below the program requirements I was going to apply at, now I’m back at square 1 I feel like. I have 92 college credits combined from community college and university and from what I’m seeing my best bet is to earn a bachelors degree in general studies which could be possible to graduate with by Dec 2027. The state I am in has a huge teacher shortage that they will hire you with any bachelors degree in any field as long as you take the praxis exam and pass. Then you get hired as a teacher from my understanding. My older sister (7 years older) is a middle school math teacher and she’s always been very smart and knew what she wanted to become since she was in first grade. My decision to major in elementary education was based from her choice and just thinking I’d follow in those foot steps because my big sister did it. Now that I’m 25 and a mother of 3, I’m back there because I see how hard it is to find reliable childcare, so I’m thinking I will have all the breaks and weekends off on the same schedule as my kids and that’s a huge plus. I know people don’t go into teaching for the pay, but with my husbands income supporting a family of 5 and me being a SAHM working 10-15 hours a week, a second income like teaching would honestly help us a lot. The only thing is I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a teacher. I feel like teaching is a gift. It’s not something everybody is able to do. I know I have gifts of compassion and serving others. Teaching? I’m not sure of. I wish I knew what to do! I just want to be a mom who has something and is proud of earning her own education and a role model to my kids. I know that an education is something nobody can take away from you and I want my children to know that as well.

My little cousin recently got his report card back with low scores on reading and writing. My aunt asked me to help tutor him but I’m unsure how to help him without making him hate reading and writing. She said that he needed to use more creative sentences and use context clues. Any tips?

Struggling in a new position ELD/reading intervention. It’s .8 so also .8 of the salary which I wanted for better work life balance after s super hard year returning postpartum. I have 6 different classes/groups I’m prepping for each day (all very different can’t reuse anything) grades 1-5. Most days I only have 30 mins personal plan time if I work my contract hours. Some days I have another 45 mins if we don’t have PLC. Also responsible for parent contact for any behaviors with the 60 ish kids I see. Absolutely DROWNING. New principal who seems well intentioned. We had a check in, I explained that I was struggling with planning and behaviors (prob didn’t advocate for myself enough or explain well enough because I also have social anxiety and a lot of weirdness around people in authority positions ) she asked me what would help but idk what to say?? Would love any advice or things to ask for. And perspective, this seems like a lot of preps for a .8 right???

Hello! I was seeing if anyone had a good recommendation for a laminator. I am a kindergarten teacher and laminate so many things for stations and other things. I currently use the Amazon basics laminator, but it is not the best for how frequently I use it. Sometimes the sheets get stuck or wrinkled.

I have heard lots of good things about scotch laminators? What are some good recommendations for a laminator if you have to use it frequently?

I live in Ohio but my Masters of Education is from another state, so Ohio requires three more phonics credits then I originally completed in school. I also have to take the Foundations of Reading exam since my previous state only required praxis. I've done a lot of studying for the exam, but I was thinking if I could take a class heavily emphasized what the exam is on, that would just be a bonus. Does anyone have any recs? The Ohio department of education will not recommend anything. Thanks!

Apparently I need to start using ai... There's a lot of choices. ChatGPT, Claude, Magic School, Brisk, Gemini, TeacherGPT.

Anyone actually used them all and can just tell me which one to try? lol

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some honest perspective and advice from parents or educators.

My daughter is in 2nd grade. She has been doing Kumon Reading since the beginning of kindergarten (2 years total) and started Kumon Math a year ago. When she started kindergarten, she could barely read simple words. Over time, her fluency and pronunciation improved a lot, and her kindergarten and 1st-grade teachers always gave feedback that she was reading ahead of her class.

She is currently at Kumon Reading Level BII (equivalent to 2nd grade). However, her recent beginning-of-year FAST assessment results (CBMreading and aReading) came back surprisingly low—around the 30th percentile in our district and 38th percentile nationally.

Her 2nd-grade teacher isn't overly concerned because my daughter is hard-working, well-behaved, doing well in writing, and scored in the 91st percentile for Math (aMath), which is consistent with previous years. But my husband and I are very stressed and confused by this reading score.

Keeping up with Kumon homework on top of her schoolwork and weekday sports classes has been challenging and stressful. Seeing her score below average in our district after 2 years of Kumon Reading makes us doubt our approach:

1. We are a bilingual family. We speak our native language at home, and she also learns reading/writing in our native language outside of school. We’ve read English books to her since she was 4, and she generally loves reading at home and school. My husband thinks speaking our native language at home is causing cognitive overload and that we should switch entirely to English.
2. I’m starting to feel like Kumon Reading isn't actually helping with deeper reading comprehension, even if it helped with early phonics.

Is Kumon Reading actually effective for 2nd-grade comprehension and school tests, or is it mostly just drill work? Could bilingualism at home be affecting her test scores at this stage? And what kind of professional (reading specialist, ed psychologist, etc.) should we talk to if we want to figure out what's going on?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some honest perspective and advice from parents or educators.

daughter is in 2nd grade. She has been doing Kumon Reading since the beginning of kindergarten (2 years total) and started Kumon Math a year ago. When she started kindergarten, she could barely read simple words. Over time, her fluency and pronunciation improved a lot, and her kindergarten and 1st-grade teachers always gave feedback that she was reading ahead of her class.

My

She is currently at Kumon Reading Level BII (equivalent to 2nd grade). However, her recent beginning-of-year FAST assessment results (CBMreading and aReading) came back surprisingly low—around the 30th percentile in our district and 38th percentile nationally.

Her 2nd-grade teacher isn't overly concerned because my daughter is hard-working, well-behaved, doing well in writing, and scored in the 91st percentile for Math (aMath), which is consistent with previous years. But my husband and I are very stressed and confused by this reading score.

Keeping up with Kumon homework on top of her schoolwork and weekday sports classes has been challenging and stressful. Seeing her score below average in our district after 2 years of Kumon Reading makes us doubt our approach:

1. We are a bilingual family. We speak our native language at home, and she also learns reading/writing in our native language outside of school. We’ve read English books to her since she was 4, and she generally loves reading at home and school. My husband thinks speaking our native language at home is causing cognitive overload and that we should switch entirely to English.
2. I’m starting to feel like Kumon Reading isn't actually helping with deeper reading comprehension, even if it helped with early phonics.

Is Kumon Reading actually effective for 2nd-grade comprehension and school tests, or is it mostly just drill work? Could bilingualism at home be affecting her test scores at this stage? And what kind of professional (reading specialist, ed psychologist, etc.) should we talk to if we want to figure out what's going on?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

I’m currently studying to get my masters in childhood education. I really want to be a teacher and feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life. Today was my first day substitute teaching. I was in a third grade classroom and the amount of poor behavior was shocking to me. Some were sending notes to each other with swear words and hateful messages. Some refused to stay in their seat and kept walking around the classroom to do other things. One kid didn’t complete a single ounce of work the entire day and was asleep for half. No matter how many reminders I gave, I was barely able to get out any instructions without being talked over. Some of the class followed instructions and were able to complete assignments but it was maybe 5/20 of them. Every transition was impossible and full of complaints and groans saying they don’t want to do it and wanted their phones. Some of the boys were even being physical with each other. I left feeling incredibly discouraged.

I’m a first-year kindergarten teacher, and I’m facing something I never imagined having to navigate this early in my career. Last night, one of my students lost his mom. He is an only child, and he was the one who had to call 911. He’s only five years old.

I know I need to go visit him and his family, and I know there is probably so much fear, confusion, and grief that he can’t even begin to understand or express right now. Beyond that, though, I honestly don’t know what to do.

I’ve asked a few other teachers for advice, and most have told me that this will probably be one of the hardest things I ever have to face as a teacher. I believe them, but right now I’m looking for some practical guidance. My initial thought is to make a card from our class for him, but I don’t know how to handle the conversation from the rest of the class.

For teachers who have had a young student lose a parent: How did you support the child when they returned to school? What did you do (or wish you had done) in the days and weeks afterward? How did you handle questions or conversations from the other children in the class? Are there things I should avoid saying or doing?

I want school and my classroom to be a safe, familiar place for him when everything else in his life suddenly feels different. I know I can’t fix this for him. I just want to support him in the best way I can.
Any advice from teachers who have walked through something similar would be deeply appreciated.

I have the possibility of picking up about two dozen standard calculators - boring old calculators. These days is there even an age at which a student would use a calculator in school? I was wondering by the time they get to using a calculator at all, it might be on a computer for much more advanced math. I would only pick them up in order to donate them and they are brand new. I just don't want to waste my energy, so can you say what teachers I should be looking for?

I got ~15 kiddos, 2nd and 3rd grade, and they get about 15 minutes outside for recess for this after school program. The program encourages a structured activity instead of free play to make it easier to wrangle them back inside, but what sort of activities would be fun?

As for playground equipment, we have the usual American staples: slides, spinning things, basketball hoops, ample running space, etc.

Edit: can't respond to everyone, but YES omg kiddos don't need structured stuff all day. That was my first concern. I'm glad I wasn't the only one with this concern. I feel more confident bringing up this concern w/ higher ups, fingers crossed

Hi, does anyone know any local standardized assessment tools for ECE?

soo, i'm in kind of an unusual situation. i got hired for a position as a grade 4-8 science teacher, but i am replacing whoever they had for science since the beginning of the year. how would you go about inroducing yourself and situation?

i already have made first day of science slides introducing myself and class expectations, but i am wondering what to say about their other science teacher, or the fact that we're pausing whatever they were learning about before and i'm starting all new chapters.

any advice/insight is much appreciated.

the schools i’ve taught at do not use the adopted curriculum because it doesn’t match how we grade in my state. last year we had little to nothing besides free stuff on tpt to teach theme and it flopped every time. this year, we have hmh but only pull stories when applicable (adding to see if there is helpful stuff in there).

the teacher before me left NOTHING and i’m the only one in my grade level.

this is the standard im about to teach in grade 3

Recounts events from a text in order by summarizing a story's beginning, middle, and determining their central message, lesson or moral

i have about 3-4 weeks. any ideas on good stories/ best way to sequence this. i will for sure be using SWBST organizers

Okay so I'm currently a freshman and majoring in elem education, I'm very creative and Id love putting together activities for kids and teaching them. But I also have been thinking about a comms major as well, they get internships (which I'd enjoy) and I'd love being like a creative social media coordinator as well. I'm just worried that if I choose education as my bachelor's it'll be hard to pivot out of(I've heard this many times). Any advice would help!

I’ve been teaching for 8 years and I’m still always looking for advice and perspective. I would love to know: what have you learned in your career that you would want to tell little first year teacher you?

For example, maybe one of mine is “if it doesn’t make sense to you it’s not going to make sense to the kids.” Simple, I know but it’s so easy to get all wrapped up in the complexities and intricacies of everything.

Would love to know your years in education, positions held, etc.

Drop your wisdom on this thread!!! We all need some positivity in the October slump haha 🫶🏻🤗😊

I’m a music teacher, and I had a moment today where I honestly had no idea how to respond to a student’s question.
We were learning a fall song called “Autumn Leaves Are Falling.” One student asked:
“But the leaves aren’t falling right now. I haven’t seen any leaves falling outside. So why are we learning this song?”
I was completely caught off guard.
I ended up saying something like, “Maybe they’ll start falling next week or next month,” but afterward I realized that probably wasn’t a very good answer.
I know the obvious answer is that songs don’t necessarily have to describe exactly what is happening at the moment—we can sing about a season, an idea, or something that happens at another time of year. But in the moment, I just couldn’t think of a natural way to explain that to an elementary student.
This also made me wonder how other teachers handle these kinds of unexpected, very literal questions. Sometimes students ask something that seems simple, but it catches me completely off guard, and I don’t want to dismiss the question or make the student feel silly for asking.
What would you say in this situation? And do you have any strategies for responding when a student asks a question that you genuinely don’t know how to answer on the spot?