Set ACTFL-aligned Performance targets to assess your language students in the Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational modes.
Guest blogger Peg Regan reflects on why teachers teach: they're leaders who serve, fulfilling their own high expectations, giving to those who need to receive it - and ultimately, they were born to teach.
Do you struggle to plan P.E. games for your students? Here are a few resources that elementary teachers might find useful when planning P.E.
This post is going to have to be short and sweet. Mainly because I have forgotten to take almost any pictures in my classroom the last couple weeks. I feel like the second I walk in the door everythin
Check out 40 of the best infographics that will inspire your own infographic design.
Step-by-step instructions for using this engaging instructional strategy; video included!
I’m a teacher. Now what do I do? There are several ways to engage learners in the classroom. Here are a few ideas if you get stuck. Additional resources: ~Mia
One of my favorite things to teach is foreshadowing. I think I love it so much because the kids love it and really get into it every year. I always start teaching foreshadowing the same way. I ask them what happens in a scary movie when someone says, "I'll be right back." Because so many kids are into those types of movies they always know the answer! I talk to the students about how to look for clues. I let them know that they need to look for anything that seems a little off, out of place, out of the blue, warnings, or ominous weather. I then show students a foreshadowing prezi that gives more examples of foreshadowing in film. The kids really get a kick out of seeing examples from movies that they know and realizing that they there are foreshadowing clues hidden within. I then like to move on to finding foreshadowing in songs. I like to start my students out with songs because they feel such a sense of accomplishment in finding the information in short passages that they feel ready to take on a bigger challenge. Every single year my kids' favorite song that I use to teach foreshadowing is this song called "Buenos Tardes, Amigo" by Ween. It is a really weird song and the kids mock it initially, but then they REALLY get into it and BEG to hear it again. Once we finish with songs, the students are ready to move on to more difficult pieces of literature. I have the students break out into their differentiated learning groups and give each of the groups a different reading based on their level. Lower Level: "Death by Scrabble" and/or "A Secret for Two" Mid Level: "The Landlady" High Level: "The Veldt" I assign each level different amounts of clues they must find. The highest level has to find the least amount of clues because they have such a long reading and deeper hidden clues. The lower level needs to find the most clues because they have a short passage and clues that smack you right in the face! The kids LOVE these stories and really work hard charting the stories. The last activity that I do with my kids before giving the students the test, is to show two different Twilight Zone episodes and having students chart the foreshadowing found within. “Time Enough at Last” Foreshadowing Clues: 1. The narration as Bemis is called into his boss’ office 2. His reading has gotten him in trouble previously (Boss, wife, customers) 3. His glasses fall off as Helen rips up the novel 4. Newspaper headline about bomb being capable of total destruction 5. Continued references to time 6. He does not seem to care for his glasses very often 7. He knocks the counter over breaking the glass before he finds the gun. 8. “If there were only something to do!” 9. “All the books I’ll EVER need” 10. He starts planning his life in books 11. He mentions that he has ALL the time in the world IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2883299097/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnfhKGaUuI Bonus: You can also discuss irony with his glasses breaking at the end and his having ALL the time in the world. “Eye of the Beholder” (LOOOOOOOOVE this one) Foreshadowing Clues: Why doesn’t the audience see the actor’s faces? They are always hidden or in shadows and silhouettes. Red Herring foreshadowing with all the references to how “Ugly” the patient is makes us think she will be odd looking to “us” Narrator, “Don’t be surprised by what you are about to see.” We know the society is odd because they mention: She wants to “fit” in with society They don’t want to spend more money to help They won’t let her go outside They have segregated off people of her ”kind” like a ghetto or concentration camp She can’t live a life around “normal” people There are rules against people like her Ugliness is a crime Doctor is not compassionate and lacking bedside manner Doctor is supposed to be careful about saying out loud that people should be allowed to be different The “leader” discusses glorious conformity Society can terminate undesirables IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi383559449/?ref_=tt_ov_vi Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyUUC27cX7E Finally, I give the students a foreshadowing test that has been differentiated for my three different learning groups. The low group has to match SUPER short stories to their twist endings. The mid level group has to find clues in short passages. The high group has to chart a 2 page short story. The students refer to these lesson all year and many students ask if they can take copies of the stories home that they didn't get to read in their learning groups, which I think is just amazing! Products mention in this post if you are interested:
I've been completely enjoying my time in 3rd grade. The kids are a scream! I've been making anchor charts for them because I'm a visual learner. I like to see in print what I am learning. So, I just assume these kids can also benefit - hence the love of anchor charts. I'm literally obsessed with pinning them on my Pinterest account. Anyhow, here's my recent anchor chart for our prefix and suffix lessons coming up: As you can see, I sorta ran out of room with all those suffixes, but it's better in person. It's just a teaching tool....basically so I don't have to keep writing these things on the board each and every day! I know my Phonics chart made a real difference with the kiddos, and that's all the proof I need! It was so handy to scaffold the information from lesson to lesson, and class to class. Frankly, anchor charts make me feel smarter and also make me look good...Why? Because all I have to do to remind myself of the answer is LOOK AT THE CHART! It's all about making things easier for the teacher. At least, that's what I'm discovering each and every day.
Are you teaching the 3rd grade Florida BEST Standard MA.3.AR.1.2 to your students? I put together a teacher guide for you to use as you create lesson plans. You will find resources, anchor charts, math
Dyscalculia. This is going to be a short one today, because dyscalculia shows so many similarities to the dyslexia we covered last week. This one I know about on a very personal level. I’ve…
Who likes teaching grammar to little ones?
Today we are going to talk about how to teach phonics to ESL children. At times, when teaching English to ESL students, phonics can be often overlooked. However, phonics is extremely useful when teaching English to ESL students. You may also be wondering, if I am teaching phonics to ESL students, how will they know how to use the sounds in words? Do I need to teach them new vocabulary too? These were the questions I was asking myself when beginning to teach groups of children with various langua
In this post I would like to teach you how to use the words DESPITE, IN SPITE OF, ALTHOUGH, EVEN THOUGH, BECAUSE OF and BECAUSE correctly. I will explain the meaning of the words and the grammar. To help you with this there are two games, a mind map, a video explanation and a graphical […]
I'm back! I totally apologize to all my readers for disappearing for the last couple of months. I took my first real grad class this fall and had no time to breathe. Something had to give and unfortunately it was my blog. But, the class is over and I am back! I have so much to tell you but instead of one long post, be looking for short posts over the next week or so to catch you up! The class I took was TONS of work but also very rewarding. In Massachusetts, if you have even one student in your class who is and English Language Learner, you need to take a class called Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL). It's basically an intro to ELL and walks you through tried and true activities that helps ELLs succeed in the classroom. Being my second year in district, I found the class to be EXTREMELY helpful and my biggest takeaway is direct vocabulary instruction. I have always felt that vocabulary is such an important part of teaching social studies and last year I just knew I wasn't cutting it. My students were just understanding vocabulary on the most superficial of levels and I knew it was because I was teaching a population I had never really experienced before. In the class they taught us a vocabulary activity called the Seven Steps to preteach vocabulary. Here is a fabulous example of Seven Steps from an elementary teacher: I knew this was exactly what I needed but I decided to tweak it for my class. Now, almost every day, my kiddos walk in and we preteach a word or term they are going to need in order to understand the upcoming content (Tier 2 and Tier 3 Words). We do it in the same order every day: Introduce word and have them pronounce it twice. Ask if they know anything about the word and identify and prefixes, suffixes, and/or base words. Have them write down a student friendly definition. Tell them how we are going to use it in content. I also like to tell them how it is used in other contexts (for the word "convention" this week, we talked about the Constitutional Convention but we also talked about ComicCon). I show the kids a YouTube video that better illustrates the word or a visual. Lastly, the students are given a sentence stem that they need to finish with the students in their table groups. We then share out as a class. This method has truly revolutionized my class! Not only are the kids truly understanding the vocabulary, it has allowed me to frontload my teaching. As an example, I taught the term Articles of Confederation three days before we really learned about the Articles of Confederation. The kids absolutely love it and have been acing their vocab quizzes like champs. They can use the words weeks later in a sentence and I really feel like it has helped me make bigger connections in my content. I showed two different videos with this term. The first clip, I explained to them, is how the British knew how to fight and the second video was how the Americans learned to fight from the native Americans. We were able to compare and contrast the two styles and this whole lesson took less than ten minutes of my class. If you're interested, I have started to gather together these vocab lessons and have made them available on Teachers Pay Teachers. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mesopotamia-and-First-Civilizations-Direct-Daily-Vocabulary-Instruction-1675580 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/American-Revolution-Direct-Daily-Vocabulary-Instruction-1672787 Head on over to TPT to check these out and look for more as I progress in the year!
I love learning about arrays because they are so visual which allows for a lot of really fun rectangular arrays activities and practice! I l...
Anyone who knows me, reads this blog, or uses my resources knows that I am passionate about differentiation. I think that is because I grew ...
What's A Good Way To Memorize Time Tables Because I'm Struggling With Division And MultiplicationHere's a helpful tip :)
Teaching coordinate graphing has never been so lively! Here are ideas to engage all kinds of learners.
5 questions teachers too often forget to ask themselves while planning that can increase engagement and improve classroom management.
I love learning about arrays because they are so visual which allows for a lot of really fun rectangular arrays activities and practice! I l...
I love learning about arrays because they are so visual which allows for a lot of really fun rectangular arrays activities and practice! I l...
Welcome back, magical unicorn teachers! I’m back again with another post on OutSchool! This time I’m sharing the details of how I created and executed my first OutSchool class. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the process and how I figured out the technology to make the class work, because this is new territory
My new obsession this year has been making and using anchor charts for my lessons. Here are just some of the anchor charts I have made this year. Some of these charts are original ideas but many are ideas I have seen and used from other teachers. I am not good at drawing so I use clipart from my computer to add pictures to my anchor charts. I print them out and glue them onto the chart! It’s so much easier and looks so much better than what I could draw! I also laminate my anchor charts so I can use them year to year. By laminating the charts I can easily write and erase on them by using an Expo marker. Click HERE to download the worksheet writing templates for opinion writing, informative writing, step writing, personal narrative writing, fictional narrative writing, and postcard writing that match these anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the files needed to make the Sequence of Events and Transitional Word Examples anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the file needed to make the Fiction/Non-Fiction Sort anchor chart from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the words I used on these anchor charts on my TpT store!
It took me years of searching, but I finally found the BEST homeschool spelling curriculum! This spelling curriculum teaches spelling rules.
When I began using the Station Rotation Model with students, I made a habit of printing directions for offline stations and typing directions for my online stations. I used Google Docs for my online directions because it was easy to mix text and images then share that document directly with students. My goal was to […]
This was just posted in my DBT group, and I had to share it here because it just opened my eyes to all the maladaptive coping skills that I have been employing over the past month. Namely: wishful...
Welcome back to our 10 week series on Reading Comprehension Strategies! So far, we’ve covered using your schema, making connections, making predictions, and inferring word meanings. Today, we will cover visualizing, also known as making mental images while reading poetry. If you’re new to this series, I would encourage you to read our introductory post. These ... Read More about Visualizing- Making Mental Images with Poetry
