A Printable Elementary Art Rubric is a valuable tool for both teachers and students to assess and evaluate art projects in a structured and objective manner. This rubric helps to provide a clear set of criteria and expectations for the different elements of an artwork, such as creativity, craftsmanship, and effort. Designed specifically for elementary school students, this printable rubric enhances their understanding of the subject and empowers them to take ownership of their artistic achievements.
Do you use rubrics for self-assessment with your students? I developed this rubric based on others I had seen online. I wanted to get my students thinking more about their artwork and writi…
One of my goals this year was to have my students really understand the artistic behaviors. I thought last year the students were looking at them only on the surface. I want a deeper understandin…
Hello Everyone! Thanks for stopping by our blog to see what's happening in our first grade classroom! This week we are working very hard on "retelling"stories we have read. Learning how to retell a story helps our little learners as readers and thinkers. It helps to organize thought, and recognize the thoughts we have during reading. It helps us recognize when our thinking changes throughout our reading. Characteristics of good retelling are: using character names, telling about the setting, including the happenings or plot (beginning, middle, and end), discussing the problem the character is having, and describing how the problem was solved. Today I introduced our "retelling rope." Each symbol represents the parts of a story. I have used retelling ropes before, but revamped this with some better visuals. The kids really get it when they can actually manipulate the parts. This year I wrote a simple poem to go along with our retelling activities. We practiced retelling several stories together using the large retelling rope, and then the kids got to make their own mini one to manipulate during their own reading time. After putting these together, some kids chose to work with others to retell a common story (The Lorax has become a favorite for some reason :) !) We also practiced recording our retelling thoughts. We will continue to work hard on this important skill! When I read a story! For your printable of these pages plus larger visuals to make your own retelling rope click here! :) here's the link to the printable with student rope pics! :) Or click here! :) I love helping kids improve their retelling skills!! Don't forget to retell your own stories with your kids!!! Stop by again soon!! Joyfully! Nancy
Get your students reading and writing this summer with these fun and engaging enrichment activities for elementary grades.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
This was a collaborative project I did with one of the Science teachers at my school. He was teaching his kids about food chains and wanted an art project to go along with it. He found THIS image via Pinterest as initial inspiration for the project. UPDATE: The poster was designed by art director and illustrator Dhanashri Ubhayakar for the magazine Sanctuary Asia, an Indian nature and wildlife conservation magazine. I turned the digital image into a collage project using construction paper. I used 12 x 18" construction paper. Have a background colour (in my case, turquoise). Then start with your largest animal (the top predator, I guess... the Science teacher explained this part to the kids, heh, heh) I folded my paper vertically so I only had to draw half the polar bear and it also made it symmetrical. I collaged on the eyes, nose and teeth from scraps of paper. Then make all the other animals slightly smaller... My messy workspace below.... Ok- once you have all the animals (our students were required to have 3 animals plus a plant) it's time to layer them and glue it all together. This took some fiddling and such, but I found it easiest to lay it all out and then start from gluing the smallest middle part first (the plant- I lost my mini tree) and work your way up. I used dots of white glue. It went faster than using a glue stick. Grade 7 student results!
Problem: I would love to study poetry with my class but I'm not sure how to go about it. Solution: Read on! Here is a way to structure a week-long study of poetry: Preparation -
Teaching grammar and language art skills can be a challenge for anyone. How do you hit all of the skills...effectively? How do you know your students are
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
Check out these fun teaching materials for teaching comma rules to upper elementary including an anchor chart, videos, and graphic organizer.
Mary Cassatt's work focused on mothers and children, which is why kids will love learning about her with these simple Mary Cassatt Art Projects for Kids.
This post will give you more than 360 pages of 1st grade common core language arts worksheets with answer keys and posters to help your students learn!
This is the second part of a mini series about songs for teaching parts of speech. If you missed the first post about nouns and verbs, you can find it here. Click on any picture
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...
Are you required to leave emergency sub plans? If so, you may want to use a choice board! My art colleague Sharon had the idea to make a choice board that can be used multiple times if there is a s…
Three Exit Slips Assessment Design % %
Teaching narrative writing lessons can be SO fun! Here are my favorite lessons and activities for teaching personal narratives!
Find powerful point of view teaching activities and ideas including strong books and anchor charts to strengthen students' understanding.
This year, the paperwork has become more cumbersome than ever! I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but in NY, it feels like my district is trying to be the overachievers because we are being asked to do things for APPR that other districts haven't even thought of, particularly in the area of the specials teachers! One of the things we had to do this year was choose one class to be observed in. I would personally rather have my observations take place over all of the grade levels I teach, but my union won't let me. Since I'm teaching high school this year, I'd love to be observed there to get feedback, but I was still required to choose one area (and this is all from what our union has decided...sometimes I think they think more about the core area teachers than they do the special area teachers!). I would have chosen a high school level but I'm still being observed by the elementary principal (which doesn't really matter) but the next aspect of our observations is what made me stick with elementary because it will be less work for me in the long run, especially as I get closer to popping out this baby! ;) With whichever class or subject area we have chosen to be observed in, we have to fill out weekly lesson plans (and as rumor has it, next year we will have to do this for ALL of our subject areas/grade levels). And I don't mean just copy off our plan book anymore. We have to have full, written out lessons. If I chose Studio Art, I would have to have complete, written lessons for every day of the week, including daily objectives, bell ringers, exit slips, etc. While I'm working towards being able to do that, I am certainly not doing that now. By choosing an elementary class, my lessons are condensed down to 2-3 day lessons and more manageable to write out. Considering I have 12 different classes to prepare for weekly, I'm taking the easy way out! Last year I created and started using this lesson plan format to write my lessons and organize my grade level curriculum. I printed out a bunch of these templates and simply hand-wrote my lessons, so I was technically already doing this. The administrators liked my template and used it to create a common core template for everyone to use. Of course, when they did that, they left out all of the my art stuff. Now, I had planned on using these templates for my substitute when I go out on maternity leave so for me, the art parts were way more important than the Marzano stuff. I asked if I could alter my original template to include what was missing from theirs, and thankfully, they agreed. Of course, I ended up having to do two revisions because they wanted the Marzano stuff on the front, but I'm still happy with my ending template. This is my new lesson plan template. I have posted this to the SmARTteacher as well so you can find it there. If you open it in Word, you can simply click on the boxes in each category to mark what you are using, and then simply type in all of the information. I created a slightly different one for each level based on what the different listening strands are for K-2, as well as the basic common core math and ELA standards for each grade level. This is my district's lesson plan template for everyone to use.
Hello Everyone! I hope you are all having a good week so far! This week in writing along with "showing, not telling," we are also working on adding adverbs to make our good writing even better! I had the kids close their eyes and I gave them the sentence, "The fish swam." Then they had to describe the picture they had in their head. All the pictures were different! Then I gave them the sentence, "The mama fish swam quickly upstream after laying her eggs." (We are studying the life cycle of fish this week!) The kids described their visualization and were so much closer in what they "saw." Adverbs are a way to revise writing to make our stories more clear for our readers! We want to make our good writing even better! We brainstormed three different kinds of simple adverbs. Then the kids got busy creating and building their own sentences full of adverbs. A quote from one of my little cuties, "I just love doing this! I can't wait to use adverbs in my draft book writing!" They were so proud of their 15+ word sentences!! I was too!!! I did create a little unit (of course) just to keep me organized and on track. Here are a few pics. Unit includes nouns, verbs and adverbs. The kids know how to add adjectives. If you would like a quick copy of this unit, click HERE!! OK! Gotta run!! Working on some decor for our school's 10 year birthday party!! It's going to be spectacular!! Have a great rest of the week!! Don't be shy! Leave a comment! Your words make me want to be better! Joyfully! Nancy
I LOVE saving figurative language until June - it's such a fun language unit ... and perfect for our "dreaming of summer brains". We finished up our EQAO testing mid week, and this onomatopoeia activity was the perfect break from testing. How fun is that??? Students chose two contrasting colours - one for the background and one for the word and border "bursting out of the page". They also needed newspaper (cut just a fraction smaller that the "bursting out of the page border" and glued the newspaper on top. They glued their word on top of that (we had brainstormed a lot of onomatopoeia words, but for some reason most of them chose SPLAT for their word). I also had them do a little shading under their letters for that little extra POP (see, I know some onomatopoeia words, too). ;) I had seen this awesome idea on Pinterest and followed it back to Artisan des Arts. Her examples are FANTASTIC!! We also wrote simile poems this week. I found a little template HERE for the students to use for their rough copies. When students were finished their templates, I had them write out their good copies, and illustrate a few lines with a small image. I hung these up, too ... LOVING our bulletin board switch up ... even this late in the school year!!! (I have two of these "smART class" bulletin boards side by side in the classroom. 15 more school days left ... I think I can ... I think I can ... Happy Friday!!!
Give your child practice with his sentence building skills with this printable worksheet that's all about capital letters.
Teaching morphology can be a great way to help students with understanding unknown words, decoding multisyllabic words, and spelling.
Whether you're new to teaching or a veteran, this list has you covered for 4th grade.
Take a G and an E and O, And add a little R-G-E, To a W-A-S-H, I...N...G If you add 2,000 pounds, That makes a ton, So what have you got? You've got a lot!
If you are looking to add a high interest activity to your lessons, try using animated shorts. These printables help students compare and contrast skills.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
I am pretty excited to share with you something I have been working on all summer! As a first grade teacher, I have had parents tell me t...
The daily ponderings of a coffee-loving educator
