Hello!
My name is Steve Reifman, and I am a National Board Certified elementary school teacher, author, and speaker in Santa Monica, CA.
SteveReifman.com is a resource for elementary school teachers and parents. My mission is to teach the whole child—empowering students to succeed academically, build strong character, learn valuable work habits and social skills, and take charge of their health and wellness.
Blog
Discover over 100 posts filled with teaching tips, links to YouTube videos, and other useful ideas and strategies for teaching the whole child.
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Teaching Resources
Explore these print books, e-books, courses, and other resources that offer effective, proven ideas and strategies that improve student learning.
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Chase Manning Mystery Series
Each book in this award-winning mystery series for kids 8-12 features a single-day, real-time thriller that takes place on an elementary school campus.
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Workshops
Looking for a presenter for your next conference or workshop? Check out these engaging, innovative sessions that address a wide variety of topics.
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Two New "Learning How to Learn" Strategies:
This week my new video series features the first two independent learning strategies I shared during my “Learning How to Learn†Workshop: 1) Flash Cards and 2) Chunking. I hosted this workshop for my students and their families on October 26, 2011. About two-thirds of my students attended this hour-long, after-school workshop, and I followed up with the families of the remaining children at a later time. Though I try to create rich, authentic, contextual learning experiences for my students on a daily basis, there are still times when they need to learn how to study and remember discrete pieces of information independently, especially as they progress through the upper elementary grades and into middle school and high school.
New "Learning How to Learn" Video:
For the next month or two, my weekly blog series will be a weekly video series, and I will be featuring new instructional videos on YouTube. Including this week's video, I have seven videos posted on the site. This week's new video features a “Learning How to Learn†Workshop I hosted for my students and their families on October 26, 2011. About two-thirds of my students attended this hour-long, after-school workshop, and I followed up with the families of the remaining children at a later time. Though I try to create rich, authentic, contextual learning experiences for my students on a daily basis, there are still times when they need to learn how to study and remember discrete pieces of information independently, especially as they progress through the upper elementary grades and into middle school and high school.
Introducing My New Weekly Video Series:
For the next month or two, my weekly blog series will be a weekly video series, and I will be featuring new instructional videos on YouTube. Currently, I have six videos posted on the site. The first video features two former students demonstrating the important role that revising plays in the writing process. The next four videos are part of my “Rock Your Students’ World†series and feature students demonstrating a variety of movement activities that help children learn academic content. The sixth video is the one I am debuting with this post. In this video I share a powerful way for teachers to create a favorable first impression with students and their families at the beginning of each school year.Click here to see my YouTube page that contains the six videos.
Empowering Moments (4th in an Occasional Series):
We are all familiar with the expression “teachable moment†that refers to those times in class when something happens that offers us an opportunity to impart a valuable lesson to our students. Recently, I first heard the expression “learnable moment,†which basically refers to these same opportunities, but focuses on what the children are gaining, rather than what the teachers are sharing. I love both of these expressions, but I have to say that I prefer the latter because of its emphasis on the student’s perspective.
In this blog series I introduce the expression “Empowering Moment.†An Empowering Moment is a classroom occurrence that affords teachers the opportunity to develop character, foster independence, and build students’ capacity for the future.
Featured Appearances:
