These engaging strategies to incorporate movement in the classroom are perfect for the fidgety students & kinesthetic learners in your class!
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Come learn about my FAVORITE technology tools for digital communication and collaboration with elementary students. Use these tools with Chromebooks, laptops, computers and some can even be used with iPads. Global learning is making its way into the classroom and we need to make sure our students are prepared so they can make the most of these authentic learning experiences!
Scaffold your instruction with these teaching scaffolding strategies to help bridge readiness and mastery for your elementary students!
Do you want to get started with project based learning, but you’re not sure how? Maybe project based learning sounds too complicated, in-depth, and overwhelming to you? That’s how I felt when I first delved into PBL. But now I know there is nothing to be afraid of! In this post, I will give a quick explanation of project-based learning and then give you some tips and ideas to begin to implement it in your own classroom. What is Project Based Learning? Project based learning, simply stated, is an authentic learning experience
Teaching phonics is an important aspect of a literacy program. This is especially true for ELLs. Phonics is the relationship between sounds and the letter or letters used to write them. Phonics connects sounds with letters and combinations of letters. In the English language, there are 26 letters and 44 sounds (called phonemes). A grapheme
Thousands of teachers have used these tried and true GUARANTEED tups to stop students from blurting out. Chatty Class? YOU NEED TO READ THIS!
Which Back to School Activities Elementary can I use for Building Community in my Classroom? Which All About Me Activities are most engaging for my students?
Geometric Art
springtime, math, freebie
Stop taking away recess and using other punishments to control your students. Find success with 10 powerful classroom management strategies!
Therapy Resources: We provide mental health professionals with worksheets, group activities, & more!
How to decorate an ESL Classroom; 8 ESL classroom decorations for a welcoming and inclusive environment for your multilingual students.
I am so excited to launch my first "series" of blog posts! It's making me feel all grown-up and blogger-like :)My first series is going to be on increasing student engagement in the classroom. Over
Got a talkative class? Check out these 5 ways to quiet the chatter!
Have you ever had a class with so many difficult, disruptive students that you felt that you could barely even teach? What can you do to get past it? In this post, I am going to address this problem with my best advice, and some advice from others as well.
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
From anchor charts to board games and free printables, these ideas will drive the concept home.
Looking for a unique way to help your class learn the scientific method? Students will love this scientific method flipbook.
Need a fast and easy way to create a differentiated lesson for your students? This handy one page "cheat sheet" or reference guide is all you need to create a lesson to meet the needs of your GATE students. This idea was developed by Sandra Kaplan who has worked in the field of Gifted Education for years. YOU MUST HAVE SOME BASIC KNOWLEDGE ON DEPTH AND COMPLEXITY AND HOW TO PLAN DIFFERENTIATED LESSONS IN ORDER TO USE THIS PRODUCT. It is a guide only. Here's how it works: You decide on the thinking skill, content area, resources, and the product the students will complete. There are 2 one-page guides that will help you during lesson planning or creating assessments. * It helps to be familiar with Sandra Kaplan's programs and Bloom's Taxonomy methods and ideas in order to use this sheet, but it can be useful to any teacher. * Check out USC Rossier School of Ed's YouTube page. Search Sandra Kaplan and you'll find great videos that help.
Do you have a child who struggles with handwriting? Have you looked into Dysgraphia? Learn more about this condition and discover 10 Strategies to Improve Dysgraphia with your student.
This Force and Motion Worksheets unit is a perfect supplemental resource to use for primary science lessons. They cover a variety of topics about force and motion, such as types of force, types of motions, cause and effects, and more. There are different types of resources, too. There are reading comprehension passages about weather, graphic ... Read more
A list of the best teacher websites, blogs, and online resources recommended by teachers for teachers.
In this post, you'll see a fun lesson that we did about the country flags of the world and be sure to get the four sets of free printables!
L'enseignante est seule devant la classe avec ses 20 ou 28 élèves et doit trouver plusieurs façons ingénieuses afin d'aider ceux qui en ont besoin quotidiennement. La façon suivante en est une parmi d'autres. Elle consiste à responsabiliser les élèves et à développer une culture d'entraide. Au départ, il faut faire beaucoup de modelage mais avec le temps, les élèves utilisent cette méthode et la gestion de classe devient plus facile pour l'enseignante. Étape 1: Pense Regarde autour de toi Avant de lever la main pour obtenir de l'aide de l'enseignante, l'élève doit penser à la tâche exigée. Il doit se poser des questions en regardant autour de lui. "Que font les autres élèves?" Qu'est-ce que l'enseignante nous demande de faire?" "Est-ce qu'il y a des indices au tableau?" Étape 2: Demande à 3 amis avant moi Si l'élève sait quoi faire mais a quand même besoin d'aide, il doit demander à trois amis qui sont assis près de lui. Étape 3: Demande-moi Si l'élève sait quoi faire et a demandé à trois amis de l'aider mais ne comprend toujours pas la tâche exigée, il doit demander à l'enseignante. En respectant les étapes mentionnées, l'élève apprend à être débrouillard. Ces affiches en couleurs sont à vendre dans ma boutique. Si elles vous intéressent, cliquez sur l'image.
The next topic in my series in Communication is with the teachers you work alongside everyday. Let me begin by reintroducing myself: I am Mrs. H, I am a special education teacher, and COLLABORATION is my middle name. :) This year will be my tenth year teaching and I have been in special education all ten years. Every year keeps getting better and I feel more and more confident in my ability to deliver special education services to children in their areas of weakness, all while building on their strengths. One of they keys to make this possible is great collaboration. I have been fortunate to work with some outstanding teachers throughout my tenure and it has made collaboration and co-teaching a joy and most importantly beneficial to students. There are 5 Classroom Models of Co-teaching: Below you will find pictures of each co-teaching model and my simple definition for each model: The delivery methods and the lessons are obviously incredibly important, but the planning and outside of the classroom collaboration is as equally important. I created Co-teaching team weekly planning forms to help you and your co-teachers plan and stay organized together. Click on the picture to download from my TPT store. In this pack you will find forms for making co-teaching effective and efficient. The forms include: Weekly Co-Teaching Planning Sheets Classroom Teacher IEP Input Sheet Daily Lesson Plan Planning Sheet Note Cards (You can use these to send notes to parents, other teachers, administration, etc.) My suggestion is to copy several copies of each sheet for each teacher that you co-teach with and place in a binder. You will always have the binder to take with you to your planning meetings. In my effort to go paperless and reduce the amount of binders I have to keep up with: I have a little tutorial to share with you.... But you have to wait until tomorrow! :) To be prepared...if you have an iPad download: Evernote, Dropbox & GoodReader apps You can find me linking up with Fourth Grade Frolics fro Monday Made It!
Top online learning sties for upper elementary classrooms for in school or home or distant or remote learning. Websites for reading, language arts, math, science and art included.
The most common mistake I see is #1 ... this is great advice for people teaching handwriting to kids in preschool and kindergarten. The tip about worksheets is so important. #handwriting #preschool #penmanship #kindergarten
Are you planning an All About Me theme for your preschooler? These fun All About Me activities covering science, literacy, math, art, and sensory play will be great additions to any unit! With these hands-on activities, preschoolers will playfully learn about their body, their name and age, their family, their interests, and their emotions. All
With World Down Syndrome Day and Autism Awareness Month right around the corner, this is the perfect time to think about hosting your own disability awareness day to help students throughout your school better understand different types of disabilities! Last year, I used this Disability Awareness Day Kit from The Bender Bunch to host a schoolwide awareness day for 3rd-5th graders. I was lucky enough to have a principal that let me get a sub for the day to run this wonderful event. I set aside about an hour and 15 minutes per session and did each grade level at their own time. For the event, I sent out parent volunteer forms and got parents to sign up for a time slot to help run a table! Traci from The Bender Bunch included so many great things for me to use during this event. There are some things that you need to grab ahead of time that you'll see in my pictures, but overall it was really just making copies, finding volunteers, and setting up the stations! For my event, I created my own questionnaire to send out to teachers about a week before the event to have their students fill out. This gave me a great idea what they knew about disabilities already, what questions they had, etc. They answered a very similar questionnaire after the event so I could see what they learned! I also spend about 15 minutes at the end of the the event talking to each grade level about ways they can be a good friend to someone with a disability, asking them questions about what they learned, and answering any lingering questions. Overall, it was a GREAT success! In the future, I'd love to do it again (with help!). I did this event last year all on my own and although it turned out amazing, I would love to do it again with a little less stress (and someone to help me answer questions, those kids had some awesome questions!). Each station was set up at a table like this with everything you needed to run the station smoothly! I grabbed a bunch of gloves from our school lost and found and had the students trying to pick up pennies, tie their shoes, etc. It was eye opening for them! Finger spelling word puzzles, these were awesome! One of our stations had Google Chromebooks set up with a couple different things. One was white noise where they had to listen to the white noise while doing the specified activity. I also had some set up to show them a video through the eyes of someone with Autism. They all loved this! I e-mailed the Autism video to classroom teachers in case someone didn't get a turn. You can see the video HERE. I loved this station. All of the kids were like "I can't see that!!!" and I'm like "that's the point ;-)" haha! Have you ever done something similar at your school? If not, I highly recommend doing it! This event was a huge eye opener and big hit!
Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.
Track student behavior the quick, efficient way: use a checklist. Free, editable trackers can be used to document and graph behaviors.
It's hard to talk to students without making it a lecture. Empower students while you teach them about respect using hands on activities
Exit tickets are valuable classroom tools. Here you'll read 7 reasons to use exit tickets in the classroom and...
Free map printables! Welcome, homeschooling parents, to a journey of exploration and
Checking for Understanding Formative Assessment Exit Slips
Hey, everyone! It's Deanna from A Primary Owl, are y'all gearing up for the end of the year? It's closing in on us really fast! Packing up, end of the year checklists, grades....all of this just piles up so quick! Plus I don't know about you but if you have your own children you also have chorus performances, dance recitals, coach's gifts and teacher gifts, etc of your own to get. So I thought I would put together some ideas of things we all could do now at the end of April (almost May) to help get a jump start on things and maybe, just maybe we can get ahead???? CLEAN OUT YOUR COPIES So this is a huge clutter area for me, my team sends so many copies and frankly I just don't do all of them. So last week, I organized. I figured out what I still needed to do before the end of the year. I also decided what might be saved for next year and then with all the left overs I asked a parent volunteer to make review packets for my kids to take home for the summer. Not all of them will do it, but I do have parents that appreciate a little work over the summer and I don't feel bad for wasting all that paper. START TAKING THINGS HOME I collect junk from home around my desk! Like coffee mugs, water tumblers, lunchboxes, sweaters, gifts from parents, you name it! Plus I always leave one winter coat at school just in case I forget my coat, so last week I took home a great big bag of all that stuff.....a more few things that I won't have to drag home the last week of school. What do you have around that you could take home now? CHECKLIST/SUMMER PROJECTS Start your checklist now! Or at least get ready to start it! Designate a basket for special projects that you want to work on over the summer. When you come across something as you are cleaning or organizing, throw it in there. I already got my school's end of the year checklist, so I put it on one of my special clipboards so I don't loose it. I also keep my own checklist of things I need to get done around my room. I love printing these off and putting them on my clipboard to keep me on track! {click the picture to get your FREEBIE!} INVENTORY ITEMS Does your school do a huge inventory? We do, so I've already started finding some bar coded things I know are going to be on the inventory list and put them aside on a shelf. I also started returning items to the media center that I have checked out that I no longer need. I also ask my media specialist for a list of things I have checked out that I need to start looking for. At least then, if I am missing something I can start looking for it now and not later! GRADING This one is huge! I start getting so burned out on grading papers! But if I get too behind then I can't catch up when grades are due. Make the important grades a priority (like I have stack of opinion writing that I keep shoving to the bottom of my pile) and figure out what papers you can just put some stickers on and call it a day! How do I keep my papers organized? I love my IKEA cart! MOVING Are you moving to a new classroom or a new school next year? Start looking for boxes NOW! I am moving a new school next year and I already asked our copy lady and our cafeteria manager to save me some boxes. Organize as much as you can before you start packing and it will make unpacking so much easier! END OF THE YEAR GIFTS This is the best time to start thinking of all those gifts you need to get, room moms, volunteers, the teachers on your team....and your own children's teachers! Starting early means hopefully you won't be rushing around at the last minute and forget anyone. Need some more end of the year ideas? Follow our Pinterest board! And pin this post for later:
How to plan collaborative project-based learning activities in the math classroom. Check out these engaging PBL ideas for 3rd grade students!
Effective ELL teaching strategies with our top 10 tips to support Level 1 students. Includes a free resource to help newcomers...
My kids are always going on “explorations” around the house. And during the winter, is the perfect time to channel that built-up energy into some fun learning activities. So I have gathered some fun Explorer related printables, books and activities. Use these as part of a larger Explorer unit or study the Explorers individually. Either...