Writing lesson plans shouldn't be painful or overly time consuming. These elementary lesson plan templates save you time!
One of the things I do every year that really makes a difference in my students' learning is having them use notebooks to store notes, examples, work, and
When I teach science I like to have some stations set up for students to rotate through. I find this gives me the chance to meet with small groups to go over concepts and I also find my students easier to manage when they are working in small groups. I usually make one of my […]
Math Test Practice The tests are coming! The tests are coming! We all anticipate state standardized math tests and look for practice tests in math. They come once a year and our kids end up exhausted. Material is crammed and teachers are stressed. This year, make math test prep easy and FUN! The students won't even realize that they are working! 1. 4TH GRADE MATH TEST PRACTICE TASK CARDS Play games with these task cards. Have your students go on a math scavenger hunt around the classroom. Play SCOOT! There are so many ways to use task cards to make learning fun. 2. 4TH GRADE MATH TEST PRACTICE This 4th grade math test printable is a great way to test prep before your state standardized tests. Students can work with partners or you can use these questions to play a fun game with your class. Another awesome idea is to have students get up and move around the classroom and select a corner labeled with A, B, C, or D for the multiple-choice items. This 4th grade math test with answer key is a sure way to make learning fun! 3. FIND SOMEONE WHO GAME This Find Someone Who Game is a FUN way to get kids up and moving around, all while reviewing math topics from the year. Students walk around the room and initial squares after they solve other students' math problems on their worksheet. This a fun math review game for 4th grade. 4. MATH JEOPARDY EVERYBODY loves Jeopardy. Pair math with Jeopardy and you have an amazing combo! JeopardyLabs.com is my favorite Jeopardy website, mainly because you can keep track of each group's points and the questions are ready to go! 5. GALLERY WALK ACTIVITIES Jennifer Findley has the best math test prep idea with this post! Students walk around the room, while answering questions that are posted around the room. LOVE IT! Check it out! This gallery walk is sure to get kids excited about math test practice. 6. ALLOW STUDENTS TO WRITE ON CHALK OUTSIDE This is such a cute and CREATIVE idea! Have students work in math groups and take a math test prep worksheet outside. They can write their answers on the pavement and you can check their answers together. GENIUS! 7. PLAY THE STINKY FEET TEST PREP GAME So, this game sounds super fun. Get your students into heterogeneous math groups and let the fun begin. You will need math practice questions to ask them. If they get a question correct, they have to select a post-it that has positive and negative points written on the back of them. I HAVE to try this game this year for sure! What math test prep games do you recommend? Comment below!
Thinking about implementing a Daily Three reading structure for reading rotations? Check out this post for details and example activities for each roation.
Capturing your students’ interest and curiosity during the first few minutes of class is the key to keeping them engaged for your entire lesson. But not all math warm up activities are created equally. Math teachers miss out on activating their students’ critical thinking and reasoning skills when
Teachers and parents, do you need suggestions for good 4th grade read alouds? Here are ideas for your students and children.
effective strategies for launching reading workshop, what is reading workshop? how do I start reading workshop? strategies for starting reading workshop in upper elementary classroom
Learn how to provide math intervention that will make an impact in your classroom while making your life easier!
Do your students need help summarizing informational text? Use the TAAMIO strategy to write great informational text summaries.
Teaching writing to fifth graders doesn't have to be intimidating. This post details exactly how I teach writing in 5th grade.
These reading logs will give you a range of choices for your students to track their reading at home.
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!!
Get your students up and moving with this fun compare/contrast activity! It makes a great, no-pressure assessment. There are 3 ways to set it up, and two of them are very LOW PREP!
This post shares 10 of the best novel studies for 4th and 5th graders. A FREE PRINTABLE list with book and Lexile reading levels is included.
Fun, hands-on human body for kids project to learn about body systems, organs, bones, muscles, and more! Print playdough mats for activity.
I giggled to myself as I created the title to this blog post! If you are new to my blog, I'll have you know that this is the THIRD time I've written an "ELA in
Here's how to write a middle grade novel.
Remembering all the things can be difficult for students. Grab these FREE reading test prep helpers to support your students with 4th and 5th grade reading standards.
Make the most of your writing block with these funny picture prompts! Go here:
For the most part, reasoning, deducing, inferring, and critical thinking are not skills that come naturally to our students. Rather, they must be nurtured and developed. We want our students to become critical thinkers so they can reason and apply logic to solve novel problems throughout their lives. These skills will set them up to...
This post shares The Word Collector activities and ideas that incorporate vocabulary, theme, comprehension, One Little Word, free printables, and more!
Changing grade levels is difficult for teachers, so I've written this post about moving to 4th grade to help get you started.
Last week I shared one of my FAVORITE Pixar shorts "Mike's New Car" on Instagram as a way we practiced recording cause and effect relationships in our classroom. Although the number one way our students should practice reading skills is through their own books, my students REALLY enjoy when I throw a Pixar short at them to practice skills with. These shorts are SO SO cute and you can literally find one for EVERYTHING. I had LOTS of requests to share my favorite Pixar Shorts and skills they can be used with in the classroom. My BIGGEST suggestion to you is to simply watch any Pixar short you think you might want to use and decide what skill it would work best for. Most of them work for plot, but seriously just watch them! You will see SO many different ways they can be used! They are AWESOME and your kiddos will LOVE them. I also had lots of requests for the graphic organizers I use with these Pixar shorts in my classroom! I created a pack for you guys that contains over 20 different generic graphic organizers that can be used with any Pixar Short. The file has a PDF version if you want to be able to just print and go, and an editable version in case you'd like to add in some starting points for your kiddos before printing. Click HERE to check out this pack on TPT. Alright... now for the moment you've ALL been waiting for... a list of ALL the Pixar shorts I use and LOVE LOVE LOVE! I know I haven't included every single short out there, so if you see one missing that you love, let us know in the comments! Click here to grab the FULL list of Pixar shorts.
If you are looking for some high interest teaching activities, try using animated shorts to to teach the reading skill problems and solutions.
Make the most of your writing block with these funny picture prompts! Go here:
I stopped using timed tests to assess math fluency. Check out what I'm doing to foster meaningful fluency and help my students develop number sense!
Exit slips are a great way to quickly assess your students on reading skills and standards that you are teaching. Grab free reading exit slips on this post.
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Every teacher needs a few fun, fast, easy, tricks up his/her sleeve. Here are a few easy classroom management tricks I've picked up over the years. Need a Second to Get Ready for the Next
Using visual brain teasers in the classroom encourages critical thinking in your students, plus, kids love them!
In this blog post you will learn about how to implement and be successful at soft start mornings in your elementary classroom.
