It's been a while since I've posted a project - it always seems to be that I'll have a couple of weeks where we are "in process", then sudd...

Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.

As Spring Break approaches, I find that my fifth graders are in need of some reminders as to what it means to be kind to each other. In general, they are sweet kids, but at times the words they use and actions they take, particularly on the playground, aren't the kindest. Our read aloud for the month is Wonder by RJ Palacio so the theme of kindness fit right into our room. It just so happens that a new book, We're All Wonders by RJ Palacio, a picture book intended for younger readers to access the story, came out this week as well. So the timing was perfect. (the two links above are my affiliate links and will take you to Amazon to buy the books.) I began by asking the students what kindness is. We brainstormed a list of ideas and created an anchor chart. Then I read the picture book to the students. Because we had just finished Wonder, they were so excited to read this new version. When we finished, I asked the kids to think of all the ways, in both the picture book and the novel, that people were not very kind to Auggie (the main character). The kids were able to fill our entire circle map in no time. It was easy to recall how people would scream in his face, recoiling at the way he looked. They remembered the names Auggie was called and the no-touching game that was played. The instantly told me about all the awful things that happened to him. I then asked the kids to brainstorm ways that, if they were in the novel with Auggie, they could be kinder to him. Again, they had no problem thinking of ways they could be kind to Auggie. Next, I asked the students to think about their own real life. I asked them to reflect upon how they personally treat others and how they personally could make better choices when speaking to others. Here is where things got a little challenging. You see, when students are talking about fictional characters, or reading news stories about OTHER kids they don't know being treated unfairly or unkindly, they know exactly what they would do if they were there. Because they aren't there. They know they never will be there. But when confronted with their own lives, and real possibilities for what they would have to do to step in or change situations, it is a bit harder for them. So I asked them to brainstorm 15 different ways they PERSONALLY could show kindness to our classmates. (I drew a lot of inspiration for this next part from Study All Knight's FREE Kindness unit, which you can grab here.) The students then used tempra paint and painted 15 (or so) rainbow sunshine rays. They also drew their own Wonder-Inspired portrait. (I have previously done this before, but had them focus on precepts and writing....if you would like to do that, click here. It is one of my fav lessons too!) The students then glued their Wonder portraits into the middle of the rays, used Sharpie to outline and write the 15 ways they could show real kindness in their lives (one way per ray) and were done. They came out amazing. (See the picture at the top of the post!) What is better though, is that the past two days, my students are actively trying to be kinder to each other. They are watching their words. I have seen people purposefully go up to those who tend to wander during group time and invite them into the group. I have seen students smile at others just a bit more. It truly has been a Wonder. Right now, for a limited time, Amazon has the book available for $3.99!!! Snag up to 4 copies at that price. Use my affiliate link here to get your copy ASAP before they are all gone!! SaveSave

Begin each of your classes with bell ringers or warm up activities that your middle or high school English students will love!

I have been meaning to update my Read and Sequence pack for a while now. This pack is a combination of all of my Read and Sequence...

I have used the reading workshop model for about 8 years now. It has changed a lot over the years! One thing that has stayed the same is the ‘Respond to Text’ station. This is a time where students get to write about their reading. The station stays the same all year, but the activities in the station change. Below is a list of activities you can add to your ‘Respond to Text’ station at the beginning of the year. 1. Bookmark Book Report At the beginning of the year, some students struggle to finish chapter books. I find that this bookmark book report helps them stay engaged in their reading. The students keep track of the pages they read, and complete activities as they read their book. There is a fiction and nonfiction version available for download. 2. Text Structures Tri-fold Students can use this trifold to ‘hunt’ for different text structures. Just put a basket of nonfiction books at the station and you are set! It’s a great way to get them reading nonfiction books. 3. Choice Board Students get to choose what activities they’d like to complete. This is great because it can be used for the story of the week (if you follow a basal) or the chapter book they are currently reading. You can have the students glue this page inside their reading notebook, or have them staple their responses to this sheet and turn in. Download the Printables: Click here to download the bookmark book report. Click here to download the text structures trifold and choice board. Add editing tasks to your reading workshop block! Math Resources: 1st Grade Tri-Folds 2nd Grade Tri-Folds 3rd Grade Tri-Folds 4th Grade Tri-Folds 5th Grade Tri-Folds Thanks for reading! I hope you will find these printable helpful :) Visit my blog @ Learning With Mrs S. Visit my TPT Store Follow me on Pinterest! Follow me on Instagram! Follow me on Facebook :)

Whether your students are lethargic or super-charged, adding movement to your lesson plans will help to solve both issues. Not only is it healthy to move throughout the day, but it can also help students focus and become more engaged with the content they are trying to master. Due to the nature of English classes, ELA ... Read More about 10 Ways to Add Movement in the ELA Classroom

With the beginning of the school year right the corner, it is time to start thinking about which lessons will be most valuable for our students. Starting the

Peak into Room 213's lesson plans: her kids are learning about prewriting & are brainstorming with candy. They are also working on speaking & listening.

One of the most challenging things for a (new) teacher is planning and pacing the curriculum. After all, there are so many different standards to teach,

Pixar short films are a great way to target essential literary elements and techniques from characterization to theme to conflict to symbolism. These Pixar short films inspire class discussion and analysis, and students can then in turn write essays based upon these films. They are an excellent to

One of the most challenging things for a (new) teacher is planning and pacing the curriculum. After all, there are so many different standards to teach,

We have a variety of pre-formatted graphic organizers for teachers and parents to use with their children. Graphic organizers (sometimes also referred to as concept maps or mind maps) are a great way for children to organize their thoughts on a particular topic. These can be used to help with later writing about the topic of interest.

Are you looking for a fun way to teach describing characters and character traits? Try this! Fold each side of a horizontal sheet of paper to the middle. Have the kids draw a picture of the character on the front. Put words to describe the outward appearance of the character on the outside. This can be things that are obvious from the text. Next, open the page up and write character traits and words to describe the character's emotions on the inside. These are things you have to infer about the character's traits based on the evidence from the text. It's pretty fun and these make a great display!

Many of you were wanting more information on Mentor Sentences (warning there aren't many pictures in the post). I guess let me first defi...

Supercharge your morning work with I Heart Literacy! Each page features a fun theme so your students will not only be practicing reading and ELA skills, but will also be learning about a curriculum-based topic. A wide variety of Common Core skills are addressed. Try these five free pages for free! Happy Teaching! Rachel Lynette ... Read More about Morning Work ELA and Reading Freebie!

So, are you itching for winter break to get here or what?!? I am drowning here, people! Between report cards, conferences (for my students and my own kids!), shopping, baking, parties, wrapping... DROWNING!Don't get me

I know that many of you are excited about using Notice and Note by Kylene Beers and Robert B. Probst in your Language Arts classrooms. I have previously posted about some short stories I used last …

I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!

One of the most time-consuming things teachers deal with is student absences! I no longer worry about this because my students completely take care of it!

Encourage creativity, critical thinking, and even kindness and empathy with this engaging, no prep, print and go set of activities and project menu. This product is designed for students to complete after and even during reading "Stargirl". Since this is a PDF file, this product may be easily shared...

HAVE YOU EVER....needed something and wished you had it right on hand?! This resource is for you! I'm telling you- I looked at the CCSS exemplar texts for poetry and knew I needed to kick my butt into gear to get my kids ready for some rigorous poetry but still have a meaningful experience! I set out research public domain poems that would be great and challenging for my students. This resource saved my poetry teaching. The ones with our reading series (if any!) are small and not given much attention!!! This was a huge wake up call. I chose to study this in December not April (National Poetry Month) because we need to get in the vocabulary surrounding poems and practicing the skills used to analyze much longer before state testing. I LOVE fun rhyming poetry but obviously that was not going to get my students to where they needed to be - much to my dismay :( This labor of love is packed with so many truly great poems by classic authors - just ready for students! Check out the many uses below. Comparing 2 William Blake poems (hello CCSS.RL.9 - SO TRICKY!!) There are more comparisons included as well! For the few poems I couldn't include the text there are QR codes (and just web links!) to reach these poems! This made CENTERS a breeze for poetry month!! The questions are tricky but I let them work with pairs at centers for plenty of practice as a class, in pairs, and independently as well. Here we are comparing "The Eagle" by Tennyson and "How Doth the Little Crocodile" by Lewis Carroll. This was one we worked on as a class so they understand the vocabulary in the question and what it was asking. We brainstormed ideas together and they wrote the paragraph answer in their notebooks which I went around and checked as their exit slip while they moved onto reading rotations (spelling choices, grammar, literacy skill) Click any of the pictures to get more info! This is truly something that saved my poetry unit and really vamped up the rigor! Check it out if yours could use some updating too! The sheets work great for CENTERS, homework, independent class work, assessments, and I included answer keys for all sheets along with small copies for interactive notebooks! Below is another sample page of the type of questions and poem selection. We spent about 3 weeks in December on poetry studying and analyzing while creating some of our own.

A simple way to teach your students classroom procedures and expectations at the beginning of the school year

This summer, after attending a reading workshop, I've made it my goal to amp up and improve my guided reading and shared reading instruction. With this in

Reading Response Activities for Wonder

Do your students need help summarizing informational text? Use the TAAMIO strategy to write great informational text summaries.

We are starting our unit on Bears! Last week we read many versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Part of our work on the story i...

Need a lesson where each component takes less than 15 minutes? Consider adding a mixed-media still life study to your art curriculum.

Want to know how to ensure at-home reading accountability without using reading logs for elementary students? Read this blog post to learn how I got rid of reading logs and implemented status of the class instead to instill a love of reading and support students in their daily reading habits both at

We started the year with a new idea for our Language Arts. We are doing themes this year, which I just LOVE! We started out the year with Kevin Henkes. {More will be coming soon about that! I have a packet created, it just needs the finishing "TPT" touches when I can find the time...} I quickly realized that my kiddos were having a difficult time with the words "Character" and "Setting." I whipped these up and the kids had a blast! You can pick up a copy of these activities on the For Fans Only Tab on my FB page! We group sorted picture cards. I made a set for each table. The kids had a great time discussing and working together. It was the first "group" activity I had them do! To assess all the learning, I created these cards to hang around the room. The students got to use clipboards and go to each numbered card and circle whether it was Character or Setting. They did such a fabulous job for their first time! I think I only had a handful that were circling the same thing over and over, even though they were telling me the right answer! lol I actually created 20 cards. We did 1-10 the first day. On the back I copied my page for students to draw a character and draw a setting. Here's a closeup of the worksheets: The next week, I put up 11-20 and they walked around again circling. They did a MUCH better job this time and were super speedy! :) Click on the picture to go to my FB page to grab it! Hope you enjoy it! :)

Free prinatble for the classroom. You're a Kindergarten Star printables for back to school or the end of the year treats.

This week in Grade 1/2 We are working on finding the "Main Idea" when reading. Here are a few things we did... Main Idea Tab...

Grab a bunch of ideas for February! Lots of FREEBIES, book suggestions & lesson ideas to make your month go smoothly!

Planning to tutor over the summer? Here are tips for quick and easy planning! Hi there! It's Sarah! I've been tutoring kiddos for the last year and have developed a routine that makes my planning easy and my session flow smoothly. All of the kiddos I tutor are grades K-2 and in need of a boost in their reading skills...fluency, comprehension, and phonics. Warm-up I like to start with some reading that is simple or familiar. I'll either have the kiddo re-read a text from the previous session or read fluency sentences. I have my kiddos keep a composition notebook with past passages to go back and re-read. I use lots of guided reader books to find the just right text for my kiddos to read. These are also great books to leave for kiddos to practice between sessions. Fluency sentence strips from The Moffatt Girls are a GREAT help to boost fluency and confidence! They are also super easy to leave for practice between sessions. Fluency Reading Practice My kiddos have all had good sight word recognition and really need fluency work. I switch between leveled readers and text passages. I usually have kiddos read the text themselves first. After reading, we go back through the text and find words that were tricky and read them. Next, I have the kiddo read through the text with me or by themselves if they are confident. Using a leveled reader Using fluency passages and recording words read per minute (the kiddos love to see their growth!) Find these fluency passages HERE! Using text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Comprehension After some fluency practice with the selected text, I move into comprehension work. In our district, kiddos need to do a written response comprehension question as part of their reading assessment. I have my kiddos practice a written response question with every text and in every session. Comprehension with level reader I use these question stems to develop questions based on the text. Grab the question stems HERE! Completed written response, kiddos write in their composition journal Comprehension with text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Here I use a reading passage with several comprehension tasks for a 2nd grade kiddo. Find these reading passage + comprehension packets HERE! Phonics After the reading and comprehension tasks are complete, I work on some phonics task with my kiddos. One of my favorite tasks is doing a word family word splash. I select a word from our text. I like how this tasks shows kiddos that if they can spell a work like bat, they can also spell cat, mat, sat, etc. Writing short sentences with words from the Word Family Splash Word building and sounding out Extras I like to use phonics poems as an additional fluency tool. The kiddos glue them into their composition notebook so they can go back and re-read between sessions, continuing to build fluency with familiar texts. These phonics poems are from Susan Jones. I use our Literacy Bags in between reading tasks. Literacy Bags break up the rigorous reading and fluency practice we do for much of the session. You can find Literacy Bags HERE! I'm working with a few Kindergartners who need sight word practice. I use the K version of our Differentiated Reading Fluency passages. In K, the passages start as reading letters, then sight words fluently. It perfect support for my K kiddos! You can grab these HERE! Additionally, our Print a Standard packs have been a great support for targeting specific skills students need to work on. Each pack contains tasks for one standard and has several activities for that standard, so there are a lot of opportunities to help the student learn, practice, and master standards based skills. You can grab Print a Standard packs for ELA AND MATH HERE! Connecting with students and parents on a more personal level is the best part of tutoring. I love giving kiddos instant feedback and celebrating their successes! I also love that I can give them more choices to foster a love of reading. In the picture above, I'm showing several text selections. The kiddos I'm working with is able to choose the book he'll read with me for the session. I also love being able to help parents foster learning at home. I've found most all of my parents did not really know about their kiddo's reading level or reading abilities. This makes it difficult for parents to find the best "just right" books for reading at home. After I work with a kiddo, I leave the text piece we worked on for that session (a passage or a book) so the kiddo can re-read it with parents. I leave their composition notebooks with phonics poems for the kiddos to go back a re-read. I also leave the fluency sentence strips for practice between sessions.

Growth Mindset: The Power of Yet Recently my 1st grade classroom has morphed into a K/1 combination classroom and then resulted in HUGE gaps (academically, socially, & emotionally) between my s…

This week the movie Wonder released on DVD + Bluray. To celebrate I'm giving away two copies to two lucky readers. Plus, download these free printable Wonder activity sheets. Based on the New York Times

These free Bible coloring pages tell the story of Saul. Use them as a Sunday School activity or sequenced story teaching aid.