In honor of the Q&A section of my TPT store , I am sharing a little more about my paragraph puzzles today in VIDEO form! Questions answered in this video: What exactly will I get when I purchase a month of paragraph puzzles? Can these be differentiated to meet the needs of my strug
The start to the school year for newcomer ELLs can be overwhelming and nerve-wracking. It is our job to set them up with tools to help them feel comfortable exploring a new language in a
Storytelling activities not only build imagination and creativity, but they can be a beneficial learning tool too! Great for the classroom.
Follow this step-by-step lesson plan to teach your students how
Are you looking for new ways to increase your students' independence? Read this post to learn more about types of structured work systems!
Simple tips for improving writing in your second or third grade classroom. These tips are a must if you want better writers!
Get Fall reading and writing activities and fun, no prep freebies your students will love to make planning in October a breeze!
Paragraph writing is a big challenge for many students. This post includes a step-by-step method to help your students write great paragraphs in no time.
Welcome to the Free Resource Library for Montessori, early childhood and lower elementary teachers, parents and educators! I am thrilled to provide you with a curated selection of free printables. […]
Create a classroom of writers with these fun writing activities for middle school students! There's something for everyone!
What are Scrambled Paragraphs? Scrambled paragraphs are sentences taken from a complete paragraph for your students to rearrange. They are like puzzles your students will put back together using what they know about text structure. Teachers
Help the learning process with these simple strategies for making studennt thinking visible. Perfect for middle and high school English classes.
A lesson plan! A lesson plan! My kingdom for a lesson plan!
If you are looking for some fun ways to start the year with your upper elementary students, then consider adding in one of these 5 ideas!
Today I'm sharing one of my favourite tasks for building community in the classroom. Students are able to share an important aspect of themselves (the story of their name) with the class and with me, their teacher. Through this task we are also working on important skills, like reading comprehension, writing, and reflection. Day 1 To begin, I asked my students to write any name they wish they had on a sticky note. They then placed it in a mason jar. I read my class the story "The Name Jar" by Yansook Choi. We stopped at several points in the story to predict, make connections, infer, and ask questions. At one point, we paused in the story so that students could journal about the name they wrote down on the sticky note earlier: - Did they choose their own name? Or another? - Why? - If you chose another name, where did you hear that name before? Day 2 At the end of Day 1, students were given homework. (Stick around to the bottom of this post for a chance to get your own copy of this sheet.) I make it very clear, that while names all have meanings, your family may not have chosen your name for that reason. They might not know the meaning, and you can choose to look it up with your family if you wish. I also focus a lot on nicknames and your own feelings about your name. While I've never taught a student in foster care, or one who was adopted, I do think it's important to mention that this could be a touchy task in those situations, so be sure to know your students first, and modify as needed. Students use the homework task, and the journal write from the previous day, to write "The Story of their Name". Some possible options to include are: - who you are named after - the meaning of your name - a name you'd rather have - your feelings toward your name - nicknames you may have - the person (or people) who chose your name - how your name was chosen This piece of writing is then self, peer, and teacher edited, and a "good" copy is made. Day 3 I found this excellent step-by-step self-portrait from "Art Projects for Kids". I modified the task so that instead of drawing the left or right side of their face, they would draw the top half. Students find that folding their page into quadrants as she suggests is very helpful. Under the document camera I demonstrate each step, and students copy, adapting to their own facial features. Each student gets a mirror to look in to help them personalize. The final pieces are put on a bulletin board for display. Students also coloured in a bubble letter version of their names to complete the display. (I used the font KG Red Hands Outline for this.) Day 4 Once we've completed the task, the last job is to reflect on our work. I pulled some elements from our Arts Education curriculum (very relevant regardless of where you teach) for students to self-assess on. I've used the proficiency scale language our school has moved to for all reporting. A few students found it helpful to complete their reflection while looking at the finished product on their bulletin board, but most didn't need this. Want a copy of both my homework and reflection pages? Follow the image or button below to grab your copy. Take Me to the Free Download Pin this post.
A list of five no-prep Halloween activities and mini-units for busy teachers. Use these ideas in your upper elementary classroom around Halloween time!
These are steps to teaching preschoolers how to write their name. It comes with an editable name writing practice template for kids too!
Enjoy these free printable name writing activities for preschoolers. Download the printable sheets, grab your pencils, and write!
Use letter activities like alphabet collages or letter mats to help kids learn letter recognition and to reinforce letter-sound associations. Here are over 200 material ideas that you can use for your
Free, printable Prewriting Tracing Worksheets for preschoolers and young kids to practice learning to write. Prewriting skills activity pages.
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than 'normal' people. Not that teachers aren't normal ... though ... you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don't you? Anyways. I had
Discover fresh, fun, new writing games and use them to help students improve their writing skills while also enjoying themselves!
Fall Crafts for Kids that are fun and educational. Great for September, October and November to celebrate cooler weather in all grades.
Check out this Google Classroom tutorial that includes 10 tips to help you make the most of this online teaching platform!
easy to use Kindergarten Writing Workshop Units that include writing prompts, ideas and activities for beginning writing throughout Kindergarten
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR NAME It is so exciting when children become curious about how to write their name. I believe teaching them to write their name should be the first word they learn how to spell . It is personal, concrete and helps them realize that putting letters together in writing has me
This ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform activity is a fun, hands-on history experience. Become ancient scribes writing on clay tablets with reeds.
Here is a printable pre-writing notebook. Great for teaching the basic strokes of handwriting in a fun, no-pressure way.
I've put together 30 poetry activities for reading poetry, writing poems, and incorporating poetry into your other subjects and lesson plans.
Here's how to decide if the Handwriting without Tears preschool program is right for your child. The most important thing to keep in mind is...
Read about ten activities to use in your classroom for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas for your upper elementary students. From STEM challenges to printables these activities cover curriculum and bring engagement to your students.
Students come to us on all different levels, which can be a challenge- 3 great ideas on how to teach a mutli-level class.
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
Learn why one-pagers are one of my go-to activities for breaking down complex topics and texts. Understand what they are, why you and your students will love them, and how to implement them in your ELA classroom. I even have the advice to help you tackle the biggest obstacle you’ll encounter with this activity.
Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than 'normal' people. Not that teachers aren't normal ... though ... you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don't you? Anyways. I had
When I think about student writing, one of the most difficult concepts to teach is sentence fluency. Much of excelling at fluent writing revolves around students’ background with literacy. Certainly,...
Your students will be thrilled with this engaging persuasive writing project. In this project, they'll step into the shoes of a defense attorney, passionately arguing that their chosen fairy tale villain is innocent! A fantastic project to help your students understand character point of view. This completely planned, zero-prep project takes students through each step, guiding them as they dive deep into the motives and actions of classic characters such as the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella's Evil Sister, the Queen from Snow White, and Goldilocks. All you have to do is print the necessary materials, run the digital slides, and witness your students engagement. What's Included: ✅Teaching guide ✅Step-by-step digital slides for your students (just sit back and present!) ✅Choice of 5 popular villains ✅Five classic fairy tale stories ready to print out: Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and The Three Bears, and The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella & Snow White - all featuring villains to defend ✅Brainstorming/Planning Graphic Organizers ✅Sentence stem ideas printable to kickstart students' writing process ✅A student finished task example to provide clear expectations ✅Publishing printables for students to showcase their final defense arguments ✅Ready-to-use assessment rubric for evaluating students' writing and delivering constructive feedback ✅Blank planning and publishing pages for students to choose their own villain to defend Your Students Will: Create a compelling persuasive argument by stepping into the role of imaginary defense attorneys for fairy tale villains Analyze the motives and actions of villains from a unique perspective and develop a persuasive argument to defend their actions Enhance their critical thinking, persuasive writing, and oral presentation skills Showcase their final defense arguments using the publishing pages Perfect For: Persuasive Writing Project High-engagement writing projects Character point of view units Gifted & talented programs No prep end of term/semester project TEACHERS LIKE YOU SAID… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Jaqueline B. said,"This was a great way to introduce our defend a villain writing project. Students had a lot of fun thinking about fairy tale villains in new ways and then were able to pick a villain of their choosing to do roughly the same thing." ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Megan R. said, "My students loved this resource. They were engaged and excited the whole time." ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Carol Z. said, "My students loved this activity. They were engaged and were so excited to share at the end." ⭐️ Bundle & save for a discount ⭐️ Purchase the Character Point of View Bundle to get this resource, plus Fairy Tales on Trial Reading Passages. The two resources complement each other perfectly! I think you'll also love: Fairy Tales on Trial Create a Villain Fairy Tale Character Diary Entries For Sensational Savings and Benefits Follow my store to be notified of new products and sales. New products are 50% off for the first 24 hours! ⭐️Leave a review on purchased products to earn credit to spend on TpT purchases! ___________________________________ Copyright © Teaching With Imagination Permission to copy for single classroom use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.
Find out why teachers should be using icebreaker activities for small groups all year long and not just at the beginning of the school year.
Analyzing writing curriculums, planning writing workshop and teaching writing lessons can be overwhelming. You might think, how am I going to fit everything in and produce successful writers? Where d
Copywork is a simple task that yields high results in the areas of handwriting, and vocabulary. Read more about the benefits of copywork.
Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.
