My work is grounded in the belief that all children are uniquely gifted and profoundly capable when we create the right conditions in our classrooms and our schools. My role is to support teachers, coaches, and leaders in building, refining, and reflecting on those conditions through the deep study of children, developmental continuums, and research based practices. I work within and across many different curriculums, and remain committed to my own learning and growth in anti-bias and equitable practices, foundational literacy, and the role of curiosity and play in learning. I am pro-kid, pro-teacher, and pro-growth in all its myriad forms.
A Teacher’s Guide to Today’s Classroom
By Christine Hertz, Kristine Mraz
The classroom of your dreams starts with one big idea. From the first days of school to the last, Kids First from Day One shares how to put your deepest teaching belief into action…
A Teacher’s Guide to Igniting Deep and Joyful Learning Across the Day
By Kristine Mraz, Alison Porcelli, Cheryl Tyler
Play is serious business.
Whether it’s reenacting a favorite book (comprehension and close reading), negotiating the rules for a game (speaking and listening)…
Kristine Mraz is a teacher, writer, pun nerd and consultant. She is coauthor—with Christine Hertz—of the Kids First from Day One, which provides a practical blueprint for increasing the child-centeredness of your teaching practice. She and Christine previously teamed up for the bestselling A Mindset for Learning, which provides practical and powerful strategies for cultivating optimism, flexibility, and empathy alongside traditional academic skills.
Latest news, articles and more!
Several weeks ago Christine and I ended our relationship with Heinemann, and are no longer offering PD, nor publishing through their company. We stand in solidarity with the BIPOC and LBGTQ authors who raised their voices in resistance, and with the authors who refused to...
Unlike Rose with Jack, there is plenty of room on this lifeboat for all of us. Let’s talk about our youngest readers. Jamboard and Storytelling Okay, first things first, I am kind of old. Fine. But because I am old, I remember with great joy,...
Dear Readers, For the next few weeks I am going to posting units for your use as we enter into the new school year. They are free, I encourage feedback, and I hope that you find them useful and meaningful in the months to come....
Dear Readers, It’s been a while. Though I have not been writing, I have been thinking, reflecting, and working on myself, like many of you. I wanted to take a moment to resurface and share some of what I have been thinking and reflecting and...
Alright folks, part 2. This is a sign study to support young writers. Some people have requested SEL work, and I think this IS the SEL work; empowering kiddos to take charge of their learning and feel powerful. Thank you everyone who snapped photos of...
Hi Everyone! I hope everyone is faring okay out there. The sun is helping! The flip side of that is when its cloudy I want to crawl in a hole and never come out. Lots of you asked for support for writers. There are tons...
Hi everyone, The easiest and fastest resource to get up was a quick letter and visual for families about spelling. As always, it is a draft, give feedback, and MAKE A COPY if you would like to edit it. Here it is! I would also...
Hi Everyone, I have been playing around with how shared reading could look over Zoom or GoogleMeet using slides. I know there are a ton of issues with kids having access to wifi, kids having access to devices, kids having family members who are essential...
Updated to reflect changes! Hi everybody! Updated to reflect changes! PK-2 Play Packet for Families I worked on it quickly to try and get it out as fast as I can, so please let me know if you catch a typo or another kind of...
Hi Everyone, If you have been following this blog series, you may have the following kind of day unfolding. At some point in the morning you make a schedule for the day with your kiddos. You decide on a mantra to get you through the...
I just read an article about how we record memories in stressful times in more detail, so when we remember we perceive the extra details as meaning things took longer. In other words, it is only Wednesday and yet it feels like a hundred years...
When I started this project, I was laboring under the optimistic delusion that we would be at this for 2 weeks and then go back to our lives. More and more I see that this is not the way the wind is blowing and it...
A note about this series: There are meant to be daily practices. Low-tech, low energy, but high leverage when it comes to maintaining your child (ren)’s intellectual growth, keeping a positive relationship forefront, and giving you time to ugly cry in the hiding area of...
Here is lesson 6. Take your five year, or your fifteen year old, or your twenty five year old. Tuck them under your arm and read a book together. Laugh if its funny. Cry if its sad. Marvel at the human being next to you...
Okay, I love hearing about what everyone is trying and how its going. It gives me a sense of community that is helpful at this time! None of these lessons require a virtual element besides you reading it on your device. There is a ton...
Day 2, almost done. For context we are in the middle of moving to a new house. It is a whole another level. We have hit the stage of moving where there are just piles everywhere and it is not doing much for my capacity....
Ok, families, you made it through day 1. Maybe. It was a close call there for us. Also I read the news halfway through the day and that really blew the whole thing up. New plan: no news. Someone text me if the world ends....
Hi All! I know I promised video for this one, but like all of you, I am trying to calibrate working and having a kid at home. It’s … going. With no further ado, Skills this lesson addresses: Literacy: stretching and writing words, spelling Math:...
Okay, I am working with haste to get this in the hands of people as fast as humanly possible. My mind keeps going back to the work of Alison Gopnik and her beautiful book The Gardener and The Carpenter. In it she tells us that we can...
Hi Everyone! If you were one of the lovely attendees at CCIRA or WSRA, here are the slide decks as advertised! Sorry for the slight delay! Towards a More Inclusive Writing Workshop Powerful Play Building Compassionate Classrooms And for those of you interested in...
Hi Everyone! Just a quick update on the “Making Guided Reading Work in a Reading Workshop K-5” webinar: Date: 2/4 Time: 6-7:30 EST/ 3-4:30 PST To register: email kristimraz12@gmail.com Once you email, we will add you to the list. If you have emailed already,...
Since moving out of New York City, I have become acutely aware of how privileged I was when it came to professional development. As a teacher connected to Teachers College Reading and Writing Project I got to hear amazing speakers, attend conferences, and still sleep...
“We give children the resources, tools, and infrastructure they need to solve problems we haven’t even thought of yet.” Alison Gopnik The Gardener and The Carpenter It’s time to admit something: I have no psychic capabilities whatsoever. I like to think I do! I like to...
Hi Everyone! This took a little longer to come together than I intended, but as the saying goes, “better late than later”. With final preparations for our move to California, plus school ending, plus deciding to potty train for some ill advised reason, it just...
Hi Everyone, Often we meet teachers who want to get rid of clip charts or punishments and rewards, but aren’t sure how to talk to others about making that change. Well, we are here to help! In the ten minute clip below, I will break...
I owe everyone part two of teaching social skills within the writing workshop, and it’s coming! Its half done! But my partner and I had a conversation that felt useful, and I wondered if it might feel useful for other people, too. Everything I...
Fancy title, eh? One of the conversations Christine and I find ourselves having lately with lots of thoughtful educators is about the tension between curriculum demands and wanting to support children in their social emotional development. Those two ideas don’t have to be in direct...
To paraphrase a Boyz II Men song popular in my youth: I am thrilled to announce that my family and I are moving to California! Los Angeles, here we come! First, the goodbye. New York City has been an immeasurably powerful force in my...
Lately in my coaching work, the conversation has circled to supporting students with special needs within the reading and writing workshop. The wonder and the difficulty of workshop teaching is the ability to differentiate within any day. It is amazing. It is daunting. Let’s buckle...
Sometimes you see a tweet and it leaves you thinking for days. Thinking before you go to bed, thinking when you get in the shower, thinking as you commute to work. Kate Roberts (@teachkate) wrote a tweet that struck like a thunderbolt: I guess...
One big puzzle I have been sitting with these days (along with some very smart thinking teachers) is teasing out the fluctuating dynamic of a child’s language development and literacy development. When I first started teaching, I often diagnosed a child’s emerging language skills as...
In Christine’s last post in our series, she set us up with some powerful rituals, routines, and reasonable expectations to get a school year free from rewards and punishments off to a strong start. We’ve been proactively practicing solving problems, using self-regulation strategies, and practicing...
Change is hard. Very hard. I have had a variation on the same haircut since I was 8. It has gotten longer and it has gotten shorter, but one look at my second grade school picture and you could pick me out by the bangs...
Dear Colleague, Yesterday I read this powerful and heartbreaking post by Dr. Kim Parker. Before you go any further, please go and read it. Okay, here we go. I read this post and my heart hurt so much for Dr. Parker and her little boy, and...
Now is the time of the year when the daydreams of August turn into the real work of teaching. What were your hopes and dreams before school started? Have they gotten buried under a heap of paperwork, assessments, and things not going the way you...
This blog is rapidly transitioning from one of purely teaching thoughts to free therapy for my life as a new parent. Having said that, for me, having a child has rapidly crystallized and underscored ideas about teaching in a new and dynamic way. That’s not...
Not too long ago I tweeted out an article about how when kids appear aggressive, it might actual be a motor planning issue. One of the conclusions drawn was that in the absence of big body chores (like hauling logs and digging holes) and big...
My colleague at the EdCollab, Dana, wrote a blog post about being genderqueer and a teacher and in it she called out educators with privilege to take a more proactive and active stance in supporting marginalized people and marginalized bodies. As I read it, I...
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland For those of you that follow me on twitter, you already know that this blog has been quiet for two big reasons. Christine Hertz and I are working on...
I am so excited to share that in a week or so my new book (with Alison Porcelli and Cheryl Tyler- play gurus and authors of this handy book on choice time) about PLAY will descend upon this fine earth!!!! Now, listen, there is nothing...
My husband is not just a talented comedy writer, but he is also a gifted musician. Because music is one of his great loves, our apartment is filled to the brim with records (Actual Vinyl), various musical instruments, and all sorts of technical looking equipment...
So, I’ve been thinking a lot, and if you’ve seen me talk recently, you’ve heard me ask this question: If the world became your classroom, would you want to live there? I sit with this question every single day, and it has pushed me harder...
I’ve been so so so so so fortunate to have the opportunity to write books with some amazing thinkers: Christine Hertz, Alison Porcelli, Cheryl Tyler, and Marjorie Martinelli. One of my favorite parts of writing is the research, and the way it can both answer...
This is going to be a rather short post, but I have been thinking something in the document Play For a Change which mentions two views of children- one where we are waiting for them to be adults, and one where they are fully functioning and valuable...
When I first started teaching, I used to revel in making homework packets. It felt like I was being a Real Teacher. Fill in the missing vowels! Match the rhyming pictures! Sight word word search! Both fun and practical! Then I would spend an insane...
I was biking home from work today when I passed a group of tourists on the Queensboro bridge. I cross the Queensboro bridge twice a day, which means this year alone I have crossed it 110 times. Usually I zone a bit, consider what I should...
“A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would be two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any...
(Alternate Title: Life After Clip Charts) It’s day 700 7 of kindergarten. Some things are going great, some things are not, but EVERYTHING is going exactly how it is supposed to go on day 7 of school. There is lots of running, and just as...
Christine Hertz and I just had the privilege of participating in an online day of (free!!!) learning with The Educator Collaborative. This event brought some of the best ed thinkers out there to our own homes, and the best news- its all archived! I loved Kristin Ziemke’s,...
I have been thinking about the comments and the thoughts that have popped up around my last post on clip charts, and I started wondering how to better explain how building up community looks different than clip charts or other public behavior systems. The clearest...
Have you ever been publicly shamed? I have. It stinks. It was in first grade. Our desks were arranged in a U shape, one next to the other, and we were supposed to be silently reading. “Who is your best friend?” whispered Kerry Latzah (name changed...
There are many things you may know about me already: I teach kindergarten, I have a dog, I consult in schools, I write books. There are also many things you may not know about me: I love romance novels, I am very stubborn, and when school...
I was in the middle of nowhere, and I was on the verge of tears. After weeks on the road, I was finally heading home. The word “home” itself had gained a magical mystical quality to me, and with all my heart I just wanted to...
Yesterday my attention was drawn to this article in the New York Times called: “The Fallacy of Balanced Literacy” by Alexander Nazaryan. I also read this incredibly well written response by Gaeten Pappalardo over on edutopia. And 24 hours I am still annoyed beyond words. I...
I, and everyone else, have been thinking a lot about testing. I have been thinking about good tests and bad tests and what they actually measure. The times I have appreciated tests and the times I have not. I, personally, am tested most when I...
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers When I was about five years old, and my sister was around seven, our...
I love analogies. I feel like they let you learn something sideways, when something is too hard to take face on, relating it to something you know and understand is like opening the side door in your mind, or walking on the diagonal up a...
My husband and I went snowboarding over winter vacation. Much as I would like to claim otherwise, I am a novice (read: terrible) and so we signed up for a lesson. In the midst of what seemed to be infants doing tricks on snowboards, Geoff...
At the risk of sounding like Dear Abby, the only authentic way to start this post is by saying I received a really moving and motivating comment from a teacher named Becky, who wrote on behalf of herself and some of her colleagues in Washington...
First: this blog post brought to you by #nerdlution. #nerdlution was started by Colby Sharp, a third grade teacher and a person who manages to inspire in 140 twitter characters- not easy, Franki Sibberson, possibly the biggest heart and biggest cheerleader of teachers out there,...
Sometimes my student teachers ask me: “Can you show me how you plan?” This question always sets me back a little because my process, like that of many teachers, is not exactly black and white. I think this is (roughly) how I plan: I obsess...
When I was in middle school, I tried out for the basketball team, despite having never played more than a game of “HORSE” every once in a while. My dad had been a basketball coach, and in many ways I felt basketball skills lay dormant...
I remember the time of my very first close reading experience, although at that time I was only about six and words like close reading were about as familiar to me as kale, and other non-white foods. It involved a two-page spread from my...
Hi there, I am Kristi Mraz. Former literacy consultant with Teacher’s College, co-author of Smarter Charts (with Marjorie Martinelli) and Writing Non-Fiction Chapter Books (with Barb Golub and Lucy Calkins), and current kindergarten teacher. This blog is a place for me to share what is...