Teaching 5th grade was never something I thought I would do. Sure, I did some student teaching in 5th grade, but I was determined to teach Middle School. Fast forward 4 years and I’m leaving 5th grade to teach middle school and my heart is broken! It was destined to be that I spend my first 4 years of teaching in the challenging yet wonderful world of upper elementary and I wouldn’t give that time back for anything!
I learned so much about myself as a teacher and as a human in general, spending time with those lovely kiddos. But I won’t tell you that it was easy! It sure as heck wasn’t!!! That first year especially, moving across the country by myself and starting the year late really didn’t help matters either. I had no idea what I was doing and I sure didn’t have any curriculum to fall back on! I always loved writing and creating my own stuff during student teaching but that was a lot harder when teaching full time. So I did what anyone would do…I went to Teachers Pay Teachers.
Now, being the first year (poor) teacher that I was, I relied heavily on the free products. But as time and experience set in, I moved on to the wonderfully amazing products of some creatively masterful teacher authors, and I am going to show you my tried and true products from these wonderful people. I give credit where credit is due, and the following creators and products, without knowing it, provided me with so much support through my first years of teaching.
Kristine Nannini’s blog and products are my #1 go to when teaching 5th grade! She is amazing and I honestly could not have done it without her! I could go on and gush about this wonderful woman, but I would rather show you my ride-or-die products from her.
Anything and everything from Kristine is phenomenal! Definitely go with the bundles though, because they are wholeheartedly worth it!
Teaching and Tapas, the cutest name, and the most bomb products! I am obsessed with her reading notebooks and everything else she does for 5th grade. I definitely used her work every day the past couple of years!
I used Alysha’s passages for everything, and the kids loved them! Win-win!
Melissa from Teacher Thrive
Melissa’s work is EVERYTHING!!! I am obsessed with her vocabulary and grammar sets, her hands-on math, and just everything in general.
Lauren from Teaching is the Sweetest Thing
Everyone of Lauren’s passages are fantastic! I have so many sets and I just can’t get enough. Switching to MS to Writing I know that I can still use her passages and questions in so many ways, and if that isn’t saying something I don’t know what is!
These four women have helped so much in my teaching career and have provided such engaging content for my students. I can’t thank them enough!
The remaining products are from other creators just as amazing and I used each of these products so much in my tenure as 5th grade teacher.
I know I have already said this, but there are so many amazing teacher authors on TPT that make our lives so much easier, and I can’t thank them enough!
Do you use any of these products? How have they changed your classroom? What do you swear by?
