by Emily Starr | Feb 20, 2026 | Reading Aloud
If your principal pops her head into your classroom unannounced, what do you hope she sees? Something hands-on, right? You want your students actively participating in their learning – because hands on is minds on. At the very least they should be engaged in a heated...
by Emily Starr | Jan 6, 2026 | Featured Post, Lesson Ideas and Teaching Tips
I’m a child of the 80s. Back then, posters like the one shown here hung on walls in schools and libraries across the country. In Delwood Elementary in Delmar, Iowa (population 541), I remember seeing those bold READ letters, but I can’t recall whose eyeballs I stared...
by Emily Starr | Nov 22, 2024 | New Text Discovery
I hope these posts are helping you to discover some new nonfiction favorites of your own! Here are my favorites from this week: Mars Is: Stark Slopes, Silvery Snow, and Startling Surprises by Suzanne Slade – The photographs! Oh, the photographs! There is something...
by Emily Starr | Nov 15, 2024 | New Text Discovery
I’m back with five more favorites for your reading list! Here are this week’s favorites: Dive! by Chris Gall –As an avid scuba diver, I couldn’t wait to read this history of dive equipment. My husband is even more dive obsessed, so I handed it to him to read to...
by Emily Starr | Nov 12, 2024 | Lesson Ideas and Teaching Tips, Phenomenon Examples
This week, I published a blog post on The Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors blog. I’m a contributing author, thrilled to be joined by a group of talented, generous middle-grade writers. In that post, I shared a pre-reading strategy – using phenomena – that helps...
