Number Talks allow students to take back the authority of their own reasoning, but they also bring interest, excitement, and joy back into the math classroom.

In Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker’s Making Number Talks Matter and their newest companion title, Digging Deeper: Making Number Talks Matter Even More, teachers learn not only how to use Number Talks to develop number sense, but how these short, daily routines can help create a thriving classroom community where students actively share their thinking and teachers become expert listeners.

Katherine Mills Hernandez thinks that movement, talk, and physical environment in the classroom all contribute and influence students’ learning. In her book, Activate, she offers many ideas to help you create a classroom that is ideal for deeper engagement and lasting learning. Below is a quick activity you can use right away.

“The book and the lesson sets have really rocked my teaching world. I’ve never been happier teaching in my 24 years, and I know this is a huge part of it.” ~Patti Austin, Second Grade Teacher from Islip, NY

Many Stenhouse titles focus on building tolerant, accepting communities inside and outside the classroom, helping students see beyond themselves and the immediate world around them. Preview these titles online to find the one that best fits your students.

Start with Joy by Katie Egan Cunningham

Start with Joy: Designing Literacy Learning for Student Happiness links what we know from the science of happiness with what we know about effective literacy instruction. By examining characters in the books they read, children develop empathy for others and come to understand that we all struggle and we all love. When given a choice about what to write, children express hopes, fears, and reactions to life’s experiences. Literacy learning is full of opportunities for students to learn tools to live a happy life. 

Black Ants and Buddhists by Mary Cowhey 

Mentor texts can become powerful teaching tools in writing instruction. In their new book,

Welcome to Writing Workshop, Stacey Shubitz and Lynne Dorfman describe mentor texts as “examples of exemplary writing that can be studied to lift the level of student writing.” They describe three distinct types of mentor texts—published, student written, and teacher written —that can be used with students. Here’s how they define each type and how they can be used to teach your students to read like writers.

On Tuesday, May 14, Stenhouse hosted its third #StenhouseMath Chat with well-known Canadian math expert and author, Marian Small, to discuss the ideas from her upcoming book, Understanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It. Here are some of the Tweets from Marian that really resonated with participants.

Katherine Mills Hernandez thinks that movement, talk, and physical environment in the classroom all contribute and influence students’ learning. In her book, Activate, she offers many ideas to help you create a classroom that is ideal for deeper engagement and lasting learning. Below is a quick activity you can use right away.

It’s always a challenge to think of new ways to foster independence and agency in students and break them of the habit of always asking, “How long does it have to be?” Consider switching from a teacher-directed writing program to a student-propelled workshop model with Jennifer Jacobson’s No More “How Long Does It Have to Be?”