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In this blog post, we’ll look at how to effectively scaffold your instruction and help students build increasingly sophisticated skills. We’ll also look at how you can help foster growth and independence through scaffolding. Scaffolding and Differentiating The methodology behind scaffolding is multi-faceted. Scaffolding can mean providing support

How are you meeting the needs of the English Language Learners in your classroom? There so many ways to assist your English Language Learners in your classroom. Let's focus on a few Dos and Don'ts that will help the most. Did you know that it takes between 1-2 years for ELL students to acquire social language, but between 7-9 years to acquire academic language? For this reason, it is important to give all ELL students support in the mainstream classroom. Even though an ELL student may carry on a conversation with you, he still may be struggling with academic language. But, there are many strategies that you can use to help your ELL students become successful. First, build a classroom community that fosters kindness and acceptance. Foster a love of all languages and always value a student's diversity. Do provide visual support to ELL students. Visual support comes in various forms. Have a print-rich environment. Label your classroom. Provide pictures with word walls. Model what you expect. Show, don't tell. Simply telling and talking will be too challenging for an English Language Learner. Do provide plenty of wait time. Pay attention to how quickly you speak. Too often teachers are in a hurry to say everything they need to say to finish a lesson. Remember that less is sometimes more when it comes to speaking. Slow down and speak clearly. Do value a student's home language. Take the time to get to know the cultural background of your ELL student. Ask him about his home language and cultural. If he knows that you value his background, he will be more likely to feel comfortable enough to participate more in your classroom. Do promote activities that allow your ELL students to participate in group work. When English Language Learners are given a chance to work in groups, they can practice language with their peers in a more relaxed and lower-risk setting. These are just a few suggestions for assisting English Language Learners in the mainstream classroom. Want to learn more? If you are new to my blog, please consider joining me on Facebook, Instagram or at Teachers Pay Teachers for more great ideas for working with ELL students. For more bright ideas from tons of different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting! What are you waiting for? Have a great time checking out the links to find more BRIGHT IDEAS! An InLinkz Link-up

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If there was a one hour a week task that could make 13x more likely to get sales, would you do it? Of course you would!

What if your next unit were self-grading and had students clamoring to work ahead? Yep, you read that right. Your next unit, whether it's skills or facts, could be presented to students in a visible trail of learning that compels them to keep moving forward. In fact, in our classroom, we're doing a game board system for GRAMMAR, and students are doing above the minimum to compete, succeed, and be creative. I've been slowly improving this system for five years in my classroom, and it has manifested into a really cool grammar program for my seventh and eighth graders. Now, I'm finally ready to share it with you. What madness is this? As any quick Google or Edutopia search will tell you, game-based learning is hot right now. A lot of people are looking at different styles of gaming to think about how we can hack the brain's motivation, reward, and learning cycles to help our students make engaged progress. My take on gaming is a basic one, at least for now, but it works. The game board I created is basically the full cycle of learning in disguise: introduce new information, practice, formative assessment, respond to assessment, and repeat... until a final summative assessment happens at the end of the unit or academic term. ...But when presented in the game board, suddenly all this learning isn't just a pile of work anymore - it's a compelling trail that makes students say things like "Challenge accepted!" Example 1: Grammar When I teach The Grammar House Cup, students follow a learning sequence for each grammar topic, gathering "points" for their houses along the way. (Learn more in this blog post.) Example 2: Essay Writing What if you sequenced your "game board" to teach all the parts of an essay, alternating between instruction and writing? The game board could have built-in checkpoints so that you are giving rough draft feedback (OR actually grading the essay pieces) as you go! It also opens up self-paced learning and a writing workshop format. Get the EDITABLE templates! I hope you've been inspired to think of options for how you could reframe or reformat your teaching and learning sequence! Check out my game board download on Teachers Pay Teachers if you want to try a game board program out for yourself! What do you think of this game board madness? Tell me in the comments below!

This article explores the most common rhythm syllable systems used in elementary music classrooms today and works through pros and cons for each method.

Corkboard Connections is a blog written by Laura Candler who enjoys connecting terrific teachers with amazing resources!

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!

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Looking for fun ways to teach phrasal verbs? Are you an English native speaker, but struggle to explain or teach phrasal verbs to your students? Read this post for 5 fun ways to approach this difficult grammar topic!...

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Schema therapy, which incorporates concepts from CBT and attachment theory, focuses on weakening early maladaptive schemas.

Show, Don't Tell: A Writing Minilesson! This blog post focuses on teaching students to write showing sentences instead of telling sentences. It includes an anchor chart and a FREE Bingo game!

Here are 15 engaging and creative TV episodes to use in ELA to teach genre, narrative techniques, characterization, and more. (Blog post)

Here's to another Sunday spent planning. The goal for next week is to get a few things planned before the weekend comes! To make this post a little shorter, I am breaking it into two parts. Tomorrow, I will share my reading and writing plans for some Minilesson Magic :) Science: This week, we have our mini-unit on genetics scheduled. Our students need to learn the following objectives: * Explain why organisms differ from or are similar to their parents based on the characterisitcs of the organism. * Give examples of likenesses that are inherited and some that are not. For my student journal pgs, click here (free and in a pdf). Monday: Set up science journals. The label shown above will be pasted into their notebook as a divider for our first unit of study. Complete the "Mice" assessment probe to see what students already think about how traits show up in organisms. After students think about their own explanations, we will use the explanations above to make a bar graph for how they think offspring's fur color is decided. (This assessment probe comes from Page Keeley, Uncovering Student Ideas in Science). Use 1st page of heredity video to explain heredity. Tuesday: Fingerprints Lab (found this gem linked for free online) Wednesday: Observing Human Traits Lab (free from Tamra Young on TPT); explain dominant and recessive traits and draw conclusions about what traits are dominant/recessive for humans based on classroom data) Thursday: Complete active sort around the room for Inherited vs Acquired traits and make flipbook (free materials from Jennifer Findley) Friday: Learn about Punnett Squares with Leprechaun Genetics (free from Making it Teacher on TPT) Other Resources that might be thrown in w/ extra time: Unit Outline from Moore County (includes a smartboard file to guide the mini-unit) Peas in a Pod (Mendelian Genetics) online freebie; Questions to go along with the reading selection included (I made these last year) Heredity (from Brainpop) DNA (from Brainpop) Animated Videos that explain DNA, genes, chromosomes, protein, heredity, and traits Math: This week in math, I will be getting to know my students better as mathematicians. I'm using some of the journal prompts/explorations from my Math Explorations that focuses on factors. (Not only will we learn about decomposing numbers, but students will be forced to use their multiplication facts). Since my Math Explorations are aligned with the mathematical practices, I thought it would be a good way to introduce concepts like communicating in math, perseverance, using multiple methods for showing work, using different strategies, etc. We are also going to continue working on our Summer Slide questions, which we started on Friday. Given time, I will also begin to introduce some of our math stations. For math stations, my team decided that we would have 4 stations this year, MATH SUPERSTARS, CONCEPT FOCUS, ALGEBRAIC, and something computer-based like Moby Max. Morning Meeting: We are going to focus on perseverance all week. We have a county-wide assessment that is designed with all tasks focusing on perseverance, so this fits in nicely with morning meeting. The kiddos may not even realize they are being assessed. Finish Strong Erik Weihenmayer on Oprah (start at 1:21) Hope you enjoyed peeking at my week! Tune in tomorrow for my reading/writing minilesson ideas for the week.

Kids love these engaging biography research projects with ready-to-go writing templates and hands-on biography activities!

Use Escape Rooms in ELA to promote collaboration and critical thinking. Here's how to develop and set up a successful escape room for your students.

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Whether they're completed on a piece of paper, a tablet, or a whiteboard, exit tickets are a powerful tool to use in your classroom. Exit tickets are formative assessments that provide a quick snapshot about your students' learning and understanding of a topic faster than any other tool in the classroom.

A blog about STEM and science topics, easy ways to use STEM in the elementary classroom, help with organizing materials, and tons of helpful hints.

Teaching Shakespeare's language, particularly thou & you, can help students understand characters' rank and relationship. Here are some tips! (blog post)

One year ago I started my journey as a travel blogger. So much happened since then and here's what I've learned after one year of travel blogging.

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Every English language arts teacher needs a variety of successful, student led discussion strategies that will provide opportunities for student learning.

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Whether you're teaching place value to kindergarteners, 1st or 2nd graders, there are some important and critical points you should know. Do I use pre-grouped or ungrouped manipulatives? What place value activities should be done? What's the progression in learning about place value? Read more about place value on my blog post. Sign up for the newsletter and get a FREE place value game activity! Read it now! #twoboysandadad #commoncoremath #math #placevalue #firstgrade #secondgrade #kindergarten

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As our readers know, we at the Inclusion Lab are all about connecting educators with practical tips they can use right away to welcome, reach, and include all learners. Our posts here tend to be meatier and more in-depth, but we also create lots of smaller tip sheets with bite-sized bits of wisdom to share […]

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Grammar instruction can be FUN for kids! Take a look at these ultra creative ways to teach comparative endings in 2nd grade.

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This post is about a chart I created with my friends over a three day period. It was really review for us, so the lessons were sort of quick hits. We did a section of the chart, they practiced in their writer's notebook with a quick share. My goal was just to review some areas in writing and grammar that I've seen they need a little reminding about. This is what the chart looked like at the end of day three: As you can see, it's a busy chart. That's why I really suggest doing it as a quick lesson over a few days. I will explain how I did it and give you some changes you might make so that it's a better fit for your friends. Day 1 Learning Goal: Using more descriptive verbs that relate mood This was the chart at the start of the lesson. We started with a simple sentence: The boy went up the stairs. I then focused my friends on the first column, the different moods I might want to create as a writer. We discussed how our simple sentence just doesn't do it. As a class, we brainstormed some different verb choices that better suited the moods. I charted these, and then we read the sentence again, substituting the new verb choices each time. To practice, my friends then worked with a partner for a minute or two to brainstorm their own verb choice for the same sentence and write it in their writer's notebook. We did a quick share of some and then off they went for independent writing. Modifications: This could be the extent of your entire chart. You don't have to go on and do the other sections. For younger friends, working on verb choice alone may be enough. You could also focus this lesson on synonyms for verb choice. How many verbs can you think of that would show someone going up the stairs in a happy mood? Bounced up? Jumped up? Pranced up? Skipped up? Danced up? Day 2 Learning Goal: Using adjectives or more descriptive phrases to relate mood and stronger visual images For Day 2, we briefly reviewed the previous day's lesson and then discussed how we could add adjectives or descriptive phrases to help relate mood and create a more powerful mental picture for the reader. We brainstormed together to fill in the last column. Notice that for our happy and carefree mood, we didn't really change anything. It was important for them to see that sometimes you just may not be able to think of a way to change the sentence. I come back to this at the end of day three, so I'll explain then. For independent practice, my friends followed the same procedure at Day 1 using the same sentence in their writer's notebook. Modifications: To simplify it, you could focus on just adding one adjective in front of the word stairs in the original sentence. Note: I'm a little embarrassed! It wasn't until I was looking at the chart after school on day 3 that I realized I wrote "creeped" when "crept" is grammatically correct. I did go back and correct it with my friends, but it's not in these pictures. Oh well, it's probably good for them to see that even teachers (this teacher anyway) need to proofread! Moving on. . . Day 3 Learning Goal: Correctly using and punctuating dependent clauses and creating vivid, descriptive mental images Dependent Clauses have been a stickler for some of my friends, especially using commas correctly with them. For this section, we worked on adding dependent clauses that related mood. As you can see, we also threw in some adjectives for the boy. I also highlighted the use of the comma. For independent practice, my friends went on to add a dependent clause to the sentence they had been working on in their writer's notebook. We did a quick share, and then I had them write their "Power Sentence" on a sentence strip. We hung them up in the room, and of course I forgot to take a picture of them! But, I think you get the idea. Modifications: Dependent clause is definitely an upper elementary focus, so you might want to simplify this section. In all, this would be a great chart for a simple adjective lesson. Your friends could focus on simply adding adjectives for the boy. You could also remove the "mood" section altogether if you wanted to just focus on adjectives, but I do think the mood really guides this lesson no matter how you modify it. So, as you can see from the chart, we went from the simple sentence, "The boy went up the stairs" to: With a gleam in his eye, the boy race up to the top of the staircase. Head bowed, the boy sighed and dragged himself up the long staircase. With a nervous glance up, the timid boy crept up the dark and shadowed stairs. While humming a silly tune, the boy bounced up the stairs. With a scowl on his face, the boy stomped up each step of the staircase. As I noted, these were quick lessons each day. They were meant to be a quick, meaningful review, not take up our whole writing period. The new sentences are complex sentences that create mood and vivid mental pictures. This is a skill my friends can always use practice with. On day 2, we never changed "the stairs" section of the sentence. One of the reasons I let this go was to point out to my friends that every part of a sentence doesn't need to be bedazzled. We sometimes use that term in class. I will tell my friends that their writing needs some bedazzling! It's a silly way for them to see that they have fallen back into the habit of using only "simple" writing. It's also important to point out that every sentence shouldn't be so involved. We have done lessons on varying sentences for structure and length, so my friends know not to "over bedazzle" their writing. Does that make sense to anyone but me?!! So, that's my chart that I call the chart that just keeps on giving. :-D I like charts that you can go back to over time. I find that my friends tend to get those lessons better when we are able to go back to the same chart a couple of days in a row. It just seems to imprint on their brains a bit more than the anchor charts you hit for one day only and then hang up. Hopefully there is something in this chart you can use. Have a happy weekend! See you tomorrow!

When I put my mind into something I get really crazy about it. That's why it took me a couple of hours on the 25th of March to get how Pinterest works and to open

Want to teach writing in French but need help with grading and differentiation? How I improves my students' French writing and saved time grading!

Hey there bookworms! I’m so excited to be back with you for another round of bright ideas! Here we go! One of the things I loved about my position last year was being able to go into so many different classrooms and learn new tricks from the fantastic teachers in our building. One of my ... Read More about Beat the Bell {A September Bright Idea!}