Captivating 8th Grade English Worksheets with Additional 5th Grade from 9th grade english worksheets , image source: homeshealth.info
Keep this study aid handy during homework time, or keep a copy in the back of your binder for classroom reference.
Do you hate to teach poetry? Do you want your students to learn and enjoy poetry? Try these simple ways to learn how to teach poetry...
Analyzing character traits is a key fiction reading skill that is needed for successful comprehension. In most cases, authors do not just come out and tell readers the traits that a character possesses. By teaching
Teaching morphology can be a great way to help students with understanding unknown words, decoding multisyllabic words, and spelling.
Most great stories are exaggerated to make them seem even more exciting or crazy. Help your child understand hyperbole with this fill-in-the-blank activity.
A blog about the everyday experiences in a fifth grade classroom, including lessons, activities, organization tips, and an occasional freebie!
We are knee-deep in our 5th grade historical fiction unit right now. This is always a favorite each year. We've blogged about our various HF adventures HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. In 5th grade, kids have already completed a HF unit when they were with us in 4th grade. During that time, they all read the SAME book. This year, to take them a little deeper, the kids main focus is studying the ERA they selected. Due to this, kids are all reading DIFFERENT books that are within the same era as their book club members. Our students also had to select a different era this year from the one they studied last year in our space. Eras we focused on this year: Colonial America, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, Civil War, WW2, and Civil Rights. Our favorite part of this, is that kids of all levels are in book clubs together, really creating fantastic discourse tied to era understanding and how their book fit together. A huge part of any historical fiction unit is nonfiction understanding of the era they are studying. We spent the first week+ immersing ourselves in nonfiction materials tied to our era. Kids shared ideas with each other and created a group timeline outlining important events from their era. As we have been working through our books and discussions, they started to bring up and share where their books fit into these non-fiction timelines. Last year, we made "double timelines", which were fun, but only one book could fit in that framework. This year, our amazing student teacher, Megan Leverence (she's looking for a job, people...anyone hiring?? :) found a great blog post. You can read it HERE. She took the idea and changed it up a little bit, and found a way to connect it to the timelines the kids created. Rather than write up "reviews," like the blog suggested, she had the kids create "book timelines" of the books they had been reading. She had them find 5-10 important events in their books (no spoilers allowed), and create a timeline "flipbook." Once the kids created their "flipbook timelines", they placed their books on the nonfiction timelines. This created a fantastic visual of where all of the books we were reading fit across history. We utilized a huge bulletin board in our hall to hang all the timelines and books on. It's been a great discussion and visual tool for all of our kiddos. How have you taught HF units? How do you bring in nonfiction? We'd love to learn with you! Happy Teaching, Angela
Some ideas for teaching plot elements to help students recall stories in sequential order, summarize stories, and understand theme.
As I posted before, my kids have been struggling with transformations, specifically rotations. I created this project in the hopes that creating an actual template to move around as they transform…
By the time my friends reach 4th and 5th grade, there are some things that should be non-issues. There are some things I should not have to spend instructional time on. Basics. Thus was born the No Excuses list. Each year, after the first couple of weeks of school, I do a quick intro to the No Excuses list. This is a chart of things that, by the time they get to 4th or 5th grade, a student can reasonably be expected to be responsible for doing. Things like starting sentences with capital letters and putting endmarks on sentences. It is not unreasonable to expect those things of my students. However, I find so many of my friends do not have automaticity with them. They should be no-brainers, but my friends have shown (year after year) to be very lax in doing them. To intro the chart, I have the chart done with just the title. I explain what a No Excuses list is. I tell them that this chart will have on it the things that we know every 4th and 5th grader has been taught in previous grades and can be expected to do when reading or writing. These are things your teacher this year should not have to teach again because you learned, practiced, and did them in 1st, 2nd, and/or 3rd grade. I then have the kids brainstorm a list of what they would put on the chart. THEY KNOW! They know what they should be doing! Without fail, every year, they come up with the exact things we need to have on our list. I usually start with the top two; capitalizing sentences and using endmarks/end marks. (I always write endmarks as a compound word. I've seen it both ways band have just always written it as a compound word. Spell check does not agree!) We add teach item to the chart and in the bullet, put the date we add them to the chart. On my chart, the 27th and 28th were actually both added on the same day, but I was talking and writing at the same time and wrote the 28th by mistake. Except for those two items, I usually add items one at a time with at least a week or two between adding an item to the chart. This gives my friends time to work on each without being overwhelmed. What makes the chart work is the rule. Once it is on the chart, from that date forward, it is expected to be done on all work. No Excuses! If a paper is turned in with any of these errors, the student will get the paper back to fix or redo. Or, if I notice it on the paper before they turn it in I will say that I can't accept that paper and they need to check the No Excuses chart. I find that it is usually not that kids can't do these things. It's more that we don't, at some point, draw that line in the sand and say, "Okay, this is now on you! You have been taught and/or retaught these things year after year and now it is your responsibility to do them without being told. No excuses!" I know this might sound harsh to some, but I promise you after just a couple of weeks you will see a dramatic drop in students forgetting to do these basic things. I find the key for me is to stick with the expectations and be consistent in not accepting work that doesn't meet the standard. Now, I also know there may be some students you need to make exceptions for. But, in general, if something makes it on to your No Excuses list, everyone is usually expected to do it. What you have on your list can be tailored to the grade level, students' abilities, and the expectations you set in your classroom. You know your students best, so you have to create a list that works for you. The list can be added to as the year goes on, but I generally focus on things that have been taught in previous year(s) and are reasonable expectations of my students. Is this something you think would work in your classroom? What would be on your No Excuses list? Or, do you handle this issue in another way that might be good to share?
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Looking for 3rd grade anchor charts? We put together some of our favorites to use in your third grade classroom this year!
Reading Response activities will likely form a major part of your reading programme, whether you are running guided reading groups, a daily 5 system,
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 :)
Understanding characters can be tricky! Learn my favorite strategies for helping students master character traits and changes.
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7th Grade Ela Worksheets Printable from 9th grade english worksheets , image source: homeshealth.info
One of the first words my students learned this year was metacognition or thinking about your thinking. (I was pleased to see that some of...
This year, I revised the materials in my reader's notebooks. I'm using a combo of a binder and a notebook for reading workshop this year, and I'm not 100% happy with it. I thought I would share some of what I've been doing. Maybe you can help me tweak. Let me first tell you how I've been working it. In their binder, they have a section for anchor charts and handouts. There's an index where they write the title of the paper so they can see at a glance what they have. It' sort of like a mini version of my anchor chart binder, but they have only the few charts I give the entire class and the ones I give specifically to them as needed during conferencing. There's also a section in their binder to keep track of books they have read, books they want to read, and a genre tracker. Now, the notebook is more of our workhorse. The notebook is where they take notes during mini-lessons, jot their thinking about their independent reading, and write their weekly letter to me for assessment. These are the notebooks I use. I got them at Staples during the ten cent sale. My friends turn their notebooks in one day a week. This way I only have to read 4 or 5 a day rather than all 24 at once. As you can see, orange notebooks are due on Tuesdays. When you open the notebook, you will first find this page: I think the note is pretty clear. Our focus this year is all about thinking deeper about our reading. The next couple of pages give an example of friendly letter format and how to edit/proofread their letter. We edited "idea chart" to read "thinking stems" Next, there are facing pages that have the "thinking stems" we use. A reader had asked me to post a link to these, but I just can't find it. I pulled these pages from a file I've had for a few years. I know I originally found them on the web, but when I tried to find them again this year I couldn't. If you have ever run across these, please let me know where so I can credit the author. This is glued on to the left page of the notebook. The other pages is on the right side. I like them facing each other so they can see it all at once. For some reason, I took two half-page pictures of the other page, Update! (7/22/12) Special thanks to Marilyn who emailed me the link she found for these Thinking Stems. This link should take you to a Word document you can print out. I believe they are from the Calhoun School District, but again not sure. CLICK HERE TO GO TO DOCUMENT. These thinking stems are good for helping my friends who have difficulty coming up with something to write. I used them as a springboard when I modeled writing a reading response letter not just once, but twice for my friends. I will do more modeling of this as time goes on and I expect more from their letters. After these pages, I still have two blank pages. One is for a rubric that I have yet to put in their notebook. That's one of the things I've not yet figured out to my satisfaction. While the kids know what I'm looking for, I want a rubric in their notebook. The problem is I can't find one that fits exactly what I want and I've been too lazy busy to just sit down and make my own. I guess I'm going to have to just do it this weekend. The rest of their notebook is filled with notes from our mini-lessons, their independent writing about their reading, and their weekly reading response letter to me. It's actually all working pretty well so far, but I just have this gnawing feeling that I'm missing something. So, I'm throwing it out there to you! What are you doing with your reading notebooks? What do your friends do with their notebooks? Do you use a rubric? What and how are you assessing them? What's worked for you? By the way, don't forget to ENTER MY THANK YOU GIVE AWAY! There are only about 22 or so entries thus far, so the odds are pretty good! You have also been leaving some great ideas for picture books to use in mini-lessons. Click over and check out the comments. Even if you don't enter, you will get some great picture book suggestions.
Some people might think I am crazy, but I just love anchor charts. I think it is the elementary teacher trapped in me. It is rare that we d...
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
This blog post contains a FREE compare and contrast reading activity! Materials are included so you can replicate the compare and contrast anchor chart and lesson for your own upper elementary and middle school students.
