Growing Minds Here

AI has really helped me to turn my ideas into usable resources! Would you use any of these ideas in your classroom? What is your go-to way of using AI for teaching?

Filling my cup outside of work, to allow me to wholeheartedly show up for my learners. ✨️🌻☕️

Many of you know me as an EAL Teacher or Literacy Coordinator. But only a few know that in a "previous life," my focus was entirely different: researching play-based mathematics for the early years as part of my Postgraduate Honours degree.

​While my daily world is often filled with phonics and syntax, I’ve always been a firm believer that mathematics isn't found in a workbook: it’s found in the "doing."

​I’m incredibly passionate about bringing hands-on, practical learning to the classroom. There is nothing quite like the "aha!" moment when a learner explores, discovers, and hypothesizes through tangible experiences. Seeing children experiment and test a theory through play is where the real magic happens!

​If you’re looking to move away from worksheets and toward discovery, here are my top tips for planning practical small-group math lessons in the early years:

Nothing more "real teacher life" than starting a post at 7 am and only getting around to posting it at 8 pm... the day was busy, but the gratitude remained! These are a few things that I truly appreciate as a teacher.

October has now become synonymous with Practical Pedagogies, I am looking forward to attending this wonderful conference again! 🇫🇷

More about my session:
Curriculum Differentiation: A roadmap to student confidence & wellbeing

This presentation explores the critical role of explicit and systematic differentiation across subjects in international education. International school classrooms are inherently diverse, not only culturally but also in learners' curriculum backgrounds, prior educational experiences, exposure to teaching approaches, and language proficiency. Drawing on research conducted in an international primary school in the Netherlands, the session highlights how differentiation in core subjects such as mathematics and literacy enables teachers to meet learners where they are. By using assessment-informed practices and targeted scaffolding, teachers can effectively support progress and reduce achievement gaps, ensuring equitable learning outcomes

https://www.pracped.net/u/Emma_Smit_PetzschCurriculum

Spent Easter in Bologna as an expat teacher… and it reminded me of something important.

Sometimes we forget what it feels like to learn.

To not understand everything.
To feel unsure.
To take risks anyway.

That’s the reality for so many of our students.

And moments like this bring that perspective back.

Expat life is more than travel —
it shapes the way we teach.

Ready to take your teaching career global with a South African passport? 🌍✈️

So many teachers think it’s impossible without an EU passport — but that’s not the full story 👀

From 🇮🇹 Italy to 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇳🇦 Namibia, 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan and 🇦🇺 Australia… there *are* opportunities out there. Some are easier than others, some require patience, and some come down to who you know 🤝

The key?
✔️ Build experience
✔️ Be open-minded about locations
✔️ Apply directly to schools
✔️ And don’t underestimate the power of networking

Teaching abroad isn’t always easy — but it can be life-changing 💫

👇 Tell me in the comments:
Which country would YOU choose?

💌 Save this post for later & share it with a teacher who needs to see this!

They say, ‘You’re just a teacher.’

But they don’t see…

✨️The colleague who supports others after a long day
✨ The friend who listens to little (and big) worries
✨ The coach who builds confidence one small win at a time
✨ The cheerleader who celebrates every success
✨ The guide who helps children navigate their world
✨ The safe place when things feel overwhelming

We are never just teachers. Teaching is so much more than "JUST" teaching.

We are the calm in the chaos, the voice of encouragement, and the person who believes in every child: even on their hardest days.

If you’ve ever been more than “just a teacher”… this is your reminder that what you do matters 🤍

Save this for the days you forget.
Share it with someone who needs to hear it.

teachercommunity

We don’t just write stories. We build them, scaffold by scaffold.

In an international primary classroom, teaching descriptive language requires more than just telling students to "use more adjectives."

It’s about creating visible, repeatable systems that help every learner find their voice.
​This week, we took a deep dive into our "Vanishing Rainforests" project.

We’ve moved from googling synonyms to building color-coded vocabulary maps (nouns in green, verbs in blue, adjectives in orange, adverbs purple! 🟢🔵🟠🟣).

​Watching my students navigate the "Story Mountain" and then hunt for their own spelling errors has been such a highlight. The final draft isn't finished yet, but the growth in their descriptive confidence is already so clear.

​The Process:
1. Define & Synonym Hunt
2. Color-coded Vocabulary Mapping
3. Story Mountain Sequencing
4. Sentence Scaffolding (3 per picture!)
5. Targeted Error Correction & Noun-Adjective pairing ✨
​
To my fellow EAL and primary teachers: Which of these steps do your students usually find the most challenging? Let’s swap scaffolding tips in the comments! 👇

​