Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
Fun and easy BRAIN BREAKS for elementary students that will help classroom management
Stop taking away recess and using other punishments to control your students. Find success with 10 powerful classroom management strategies!
With this material students can look for the flags and colored and paste them on their notebooks or a piece of sheet. Then they can ask each other the names od the flags and try to guess the name of the countryh - ESL worksheets
Last week there was a great question posted on my Facebook page about how to manage pencils (sharpening, losing, etc) in the classroom. This is a common question and can be such a tough area
Massive list of classroom jobs for elementary students in preschool, kindergarten, first grade, or second grade - such great ideas for classroom jobs!
Thousands of teachers have used these tried and true GUARANTEED tups to stop students from blurting out. Chatty Class? YOU NEED TO READ THIS!
Bird Themed Classroom Beach Themed Room Pirate Themed Classroom Jungle Themed Classroom ...
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NO DAVID! I LOVE reading this story the first week of school! It is a great way to talk about class rules and expectations. ...
It’s no secret that I am a MAJOR fan of class jobs – I mean…many hands make light work, right? Aside from having 20 or so helpers around the classroom, there’s a whole bunch of other reasons I think class jobs are super important: Helps build a sense of community…this is OUR classroom Gives students ... Read more
Got a talkative class? Check out these 5 ways to quiet the chatter!
Summer is almost over! How did that happen? Where did the last 2 months go? With a little under 2 weeks left until we go back to school my mind has been increasingly drawn to planning for the ne…
How do we, as parents or educators, teach children gratitude, such an abstract skill? Here are 20 Ideas to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude in Children.
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tom...
A clever classroom trick to help children learning to write inside lines
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
When I was teaching, I often had a tricky time getting my prep students to line up in an orderly fashion. It was even harder to get them to walk sensibly around the school. That’s when I made my mystery walker cards! All you need to do is print off enough cards for your whole […]
Have a chatty class? Do your talkative students get louder and louder during small groups until it feels like chaos? Do they talk when you'r...
I think it is so important for students to take ownership of their learning environment. I want the students to feel at home in our classroom and feel like it is their room. This year, I had the students create our alphabet chart so it was THEIR alphabet chart using their handprints. Students were so excited about this activity. Each student was able to create a letter so it became their letter. I added the little details that were finishing touches to each of the letters. It was such a fun project to complete! The students were so happy to see their handprints hung on the wall and it made them so excited about our alphabet chart since it was created by them. They enjoyed it so much, thay I also created a class handprint alphabet book for our classroom library. Is is such a great way to get students interested in learning the letters of the alphabet. This can also be made into students handprint alphabet books. You can check out this product in my TPT store by clicking on the image below. Included are directions and examples to make each of the letters, the letter and the word for each letter as well as a template for an alphabet book. For the posters, all consonants are in blue and vowels in red to help students learn to identify vowels. It is an editable product so if you have a different picture that you wish to use for one of the pictures, you will be able to! I also made little flashcards to match the handprint pictures. They can be used to help students learn letter names and letter sounds and also learn the vocabulary of the pictures. You can download the flashcards for free by clicking on the image below.
Catch your students' attention with our back to school bulletin board ideas. A fun and interactive way to establish a fun and welcoming classroom community.
Learn about the brain and create your very own printable brain hemisphere hat perfect for a human body and brain study.
In this lesson, using a blank sheet of paper, you will help students understand how hurtful words can create a lasting, negative impact.
I've done a lot of experimenting with desk arrangements over the years. I've definitely found my favorite. Keep reading, I'll tell you about it. I've also discovered that it's smart to pick a few
The Starry Night (1889) “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big,” wrote Van Gogh to his brother Theo,…
Art projects that are fun for kids and bring in big bucks for your school auction!
An Elementary Teaching Blog with tips, ideas and freebies for your classroom. For new teachers and seasoned teachers alike!
Final product wise, this might just have been my FAVORITE project this past school year. I am so unbelievably proud of the work these 5th gr...
A simple way to teach your students classroom procedures and expectations at the beginning of the school year
A fun gunslingers and outlaws project to do with 4th, 5th, or 6th graders. Great for Gold Rush lessons!
Geometric Art
In my ‘Organization in the Secondary Classroom’ series, I’ve written about how I manage the paperwork in my classroom (this post has been viewed an incredible 81,000+ times) and how I tackle lesson planning. Today I’m sharing how I manage student absences! *Update: Due to multiple requests, the two forms I use that are mentioned […]
Somehow summer is over and I have no idea how that happened. Maybe its the weather - it's been hot, hot, hot and sticky for the last couple of weeks around here - but whatever it is, I am NOT ready! Regardless of my desire to stop time, my middle kiddo goes back to school tomorrow and my oldest has been in school for almost three weeks. (Which is still hard for me to wrap my mind around since we are so used to starting school after Labor Day.) This year we compiled a "Summer Fun List" of around 30 things we wanted to do during the summer. (We still have several items on our Summer Fun List that we haven't completed, but I'm going to claim an extension until the autumnal equinox on September 22nd for those. Is that cheating?) This activity was inspired by one of the list items - "Go Stargazing". I found a site called Lie Back Look Up that has a lot of great activities, including a printable star map for kids which I printed out and brought with us to the beach in early August. The girls were able to find a couple of the easier constellations (i.e. The Big Dipper) but were struggling with identifying the others. (I think its a bit like using a microscope with children. You may know what you are seeing, but the kids can't distinguish between an air bubble and an amoeba due to their limited experience.) When we got home, I started thinking about ways to explore the constellations with them. I found an awesome book by HA Rey (the creator of Curious George) called Find the Constellations. I also saw quite a few constellation cards on Pinterest - check out my Science with Kids board to see some of them. My favorite are these from Lie Back, Look Up that includes information about each of the constellations on the back. We printed those, laminated them and stuck them on a key ring for future reference. Then I had a flashback to my own elementary school days and remembered making constellation tubes out of those black plastic film canisters. Since those are pretty few and far between these days (who uses film?!?) I thought we could make them using toilet paper tubes (one of my favorite things to repurpose). I found a few examples on the web, but no super clear instructions and since I did them completely wrong the first time, I figured it might be a good DIY project to write up in case other people have the same problems that I had. So, here it is. Let me know if you make them and have any feedback!! Step 1: Print out the constellation patterns from the About.com Space site. I think these may have originally been intended for use with the smaller film canisters because I found that I needed to print them at 120% size to match the approximate diameter of the toilet paper tube. The other key thing here is to make sure to select "flip horizontally" found under the 'layout' option in the print screen. I ended up with inverted constellations the first time because I didn't do this step. Because the words also end up flipped, I would print out an extra sheet not flipped so that you can use it as a reference. (I developed the ability to read upside down pretty well when I was teaching in the classroom but trying to read stuff flipped gives me a headache!) Step 2: Gather the rest of your materials. We used the following: empty toilet paper tubes glue stick tape scissors black construction paper squares (4.5" x 4.5") black sharpie marker giant push pin cork board Step 3: Cut around the outside, dotted line around the constellation pattern. Glue to the center of the construction paper. Step 4: Place the construction paper on the piece of cork board (I doubled it because my cork was fairly thin) and use the giant push pin to punch holes where the stars are located in the pattern. Step 5: Trim around the square into a rough circle shape (it does not need to be perfect!!). Then make cuts from the outer edge of the construction paper into the center, but do not cut into the constellation pattern. This allows for easy attaching of the construction paper to the cardboard tube. I made cuts to divide the piece into 8 wedges - you could probably do more to make the fit even smoother, but I wouldn't do less. Prefold the wedges by holding the circle with your thumb on the edge of the white constellation paper and folding the wedge upwards. Step 6: Center the constellation in the top of the cardboard tube and tape each wedge down. Start with the wedges opposite each other (i.e. 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock) then move on to the ones perpendicular to those (i.e. 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock). Finally tape the remaining 4 wedges down then go all the way around with another long piece of tape to add extra security. (You could also use duct tape here.) Step 7: Using the sharpie marker, write the name of the constellation on the side of the tube. Step 8: Close one eye and use the other eye to look through the tube at the constellation pattern. Start by sharing the name of the constellation with your child and have them look through the tube at the pattern. As they get more comfortable with the patterns, do it the opposite way and see if they can tell you the name of the constellation after viewing the pattern. Step 9: Because the tubes are fairly delicate, store them in a secure box. We chose to use a fairly thick shoe box. Also, because we only had enough rolls to make 4 constellation tubes to start, I put the extra patterns in the box as well so we could make more as we collected more empty toilet paper rolls.
10 fun and easy hallway songs to prepare students to go into the hall quietly!
This solar system craft is so fun for the kids. It helps teach them the order of the planets from the sun and reinforces coloring, & cutting skills.
Happy Saturday everyone! Today, I wanted to share a new writing rubric that I created with my students this week for their personal narratives/stories. I don't know about you, but my students always have a hard time assessing their own writing. Plus, I always have such a hard time grading it (I always procrastinate with grading writing for this very reason!) because it can be so subjective to grade. Over the years, I've learned the answer to these two issues- RUBRICS! Rubrics are such a great way to help your students learn to assess and judge the quality of their own writing. The best part of using rubrics is that my students help to make them, so they take ownership of them which in turn makes them more meaningful to the kids. Each day this week, we looked at different 2nd grade writing samples (from other classes) and judged the writing in each area on the rubric. As we judged them, I helped the kids write the criteria for each section on the rubric. We found that using the words ALL of the time, MOST of the time, SOME of the time, and NONE of the time were easy to use for a 4, 3, 2, 1. Here is the completed rubric if you'd like to download it and use in your classroom! Comparing it to a cheeseburger was a fun way to help my students understand the difference between a 4, 3, 2, and 1. We talked about how a 4 is like a deluxe cheeseburger with all of the toppings- it can't get any better! A 3 is a complete cheeseburger but is missing some of those yummy details. A 2 is a burger with just a bottom bun- there is a lot missing! A 1 is just a bottom bun- no one wants to eat this because it's no good at all! What are some ways that you use rubrics in your classroom? I'm linking this up with Heather at Peacocks and Penguins- be sure to check out her linky for some great ideas! Have a great weekend!
