Think of working memory like a mental sketch pad; a place to store information for short periods of time while we're working through a task. Kids, teens, and adults use this skill on a daily basis to completely basic and complex tasks. For students, these tasks range from completing simple mental ma

Using cipher codes is a great way to get reluctant students to write. Grab the 4 free codes to get students started creating secret messages.

5 key reasons to teach students to analyze differing perspectives

Get fun, free printable worksheets and enjoy cool science activities to do at home

Basic vocabulary, like knowing prepositions, is necessary for beginning readers. Teach prepositions with this simple game.

Last week we started our study of verbs. I have used a few free verbs study packs I've found on TPT to introduce the concept. I love thi...

Section speaking tips. Teaching English online has become more and more popular in recent years. Through the following courses below, we will show you how to adapt your existing skills and knowledge to suit this specific area of the teaching world.

Teach your child to recognize and read consonant digraphs /th/, /sh/, and /ch/ with a digraph garden!

Hello Everyone! What a great day to start a study on clouds!! Dark clouds this morning releasing a deluge of rain! By 1:00 beautiful clear sky with just a few cirrus clouds! Perfect example of our ever changing skies. I'll share our Cloud Unit in a second, but first I wanted to show some pics of our whole group math lesson. We are continuing our study of place value. After all the activities we did last week, it was time to see how all of this fits in relationship to other numbers. I pulled out our bigger than life 100 board and handed out some mystery picture clues. Each clue described a number in place value (tens and ones). The kids took turns putting their cards on the number for which their clue stood. When we finished putting all the clues down, a cloud was revealed! Use your imagination! It looks like a cloud, right??? The kids loved working together to create it!! I'm not even sure they realized they were growing their number sense!!! I did put together a little integrated cloud unit. We are going to try to get most of this in this week!! The unit also includes some poetry, another science activity and more!! You can get it if you click HERE!! Stay tuned for more cloud fun later in the week! Until then, have a wonderful week!! Thanks for stopping by for a peek!! Joyfully! Nancy

Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.

When your Kindergarten kids have mastered the skills of blending, spelling, and reading words, you may be thinking, "Where do I proceed from here?" Digraphs or consonant mixes are the following phonics skills you can focus on with your kids. Digraphs are two characters that form the same sound,

Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.

The Montessori-inspired Beginning Language Bundle in Action (Pink Series/CVC Words).

The activities below are available for free download, and are to be used in educational and/or private settings. They may not be used elsewhere or for other purposes (such as for profit) unless exp…

Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.

Types of Sentences Is it a declarative? An interrogative? Maybe an exclamatory or an imperative? Use this packet to engage your kids in games, writing, identifying, and FUN! This is a great packet to learn the four different types of sentences! exclamatory imperative declarative interrogative Use it with the whole class, small groups, or in a center with little to no prep at all! This packet includes: Anchor Charts – project it on your screen to teach the skills Matching Game - match the sentence to the type of sentence it is Sentence Cards – use these as a SCOOT game, center, or partner work - the sentences are missing the punctuation to make a little more difficult Flipflap Book – make a foldable to use to write examples of each of the different types of sentences - great for partner work Sentence Sorting - sort sentences into the different categories and then write your own sentences Printables – use these pages for independent practice, homework, or an assessment This packet is also great for test prep before state testing. Download the preview to see a sample of the pages included in the packet. You might also like: Reading: Reading Centers Made Easy Grade 2 Math and Language Arts Test Bundle Reading Games – Great for RTI Grammar: Singular and Plural Nouns VERBS – Become a Verb Superhero! Common and Proper Nouns Visit My TPT Store ******************************************** Come Collaborate with me! Facebook Pinterest Instagram Blog (Smith’s Safari Adventures – Tracy Smith) Want to receive email updates when I post new products, freebies, and SALES? Click the green star at the top to start following my store! © Tracy Smith 2014, 2017

You need to work with your ADHD child's teachers to ensure that their educational needs are met. There are requirements that public schools must meet, but you must ask.

This is a role-playing game to practice complaints in a shop. There are four different situations to complain about.

Last summer I attended a GT training and was introduced to choice boards! I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! I think that students are more engaged and even challenge themselves more when they are given choices. The great thing is....they aren't just for GT students. Choice boards work similar to tic-tac-toe; the student completes 3 activities in a row {up, down, diagonal} They can be adapted for ALL students and actually lend themselves well to differentiated instruction. On Tuesday, I will be attending another GT training specifically on choice boards and differentiated instruction {I'm super pumped about it!} I can't wait to learn more about these learning tools! {I promise to share what I learn!} Choice boards can be set up in many different ways. You can base them off of abilities, learning styles, intelligences, and even levels of questioning. I have found it easier, if I focus on just one of these types. When creating the board, you want to plan out what type of activity each square will focus on. {You don't want to have 2 of the same type of activities in a row} The goal of the CBs are to have equally acceptable activities that you want the students to complete that are similar end products, but have varying ways to accomplish the final product. {For example, you are studying the Alamo. Students could choose activities from writing a diary from the viewpoint of being in the battle, recreating a model of the Alamo, creating a movie, etc.}The wonderful thing about CBs though...students can choose an activity they are willing to complete {taking into consideration their own likes/learning style/intelligence}, but they will have 2 other activities they will need to complete that will focus on other skills that they possibly may need to strengthen {but at the very least they're practicing other skills}! It's a win-win situation! I recently put the choice boards I created for my homework reader's responses in my shop. My students are required to read 20 min nightly, however I found that many of them weren't really reading every night! These choice boards give student's different options to respond to their books, while focusing on varying skills. I've also included 4 blank {editable} choice boards so that you can create your own boards! .....And I used the adorable sneakers clipart to jazz them up from KPM Doodles {love her stuff!} Here is an example template of how to begin creating a choice board based on Multiple Intelligences: Source: Dare to Differentiate Here are some great resources: Dare to Differentiate (AWESOME site for resources!) PVUSD Choices based on intelligence

Make reading exciting for your students with these fun phoneme segmentation activities for kindergarten! They are a fun way to support these essential literacy skills so you can set your students up for reading success. Thanks to new research about how we really learn how to read, we now know that it's more important than ever to fully develop our students' phonemic awareness skills before we expect them to read the written word! Students learn best when they start with something concrete and gradually move to the abstract. This new research about synthetic phonics tells us that our students’ reading abilities are directly linked to how well they can identify and manipulate the sounds in words. This makes sense. Speaking is a physical act; all of us understand it intuitively. Reading, however, is an abstract skill that requires consistent and explicit instruction. Our kindergarten kiddos need us to start with what they know - spoken language - so they can learn to read more efficiently and to ensure all our students are set up for literacy success. What is phoneme segmentation? Although it's easy to lump this skill in with the whole bubble of phonemic awareness skills, segmentation is about breaking a word into individual sounds. It's an intermediate phonemic awareness skill preceded by phoneme isolation and phoneme blending. They all fit within the umbrella of phonological awareness skills. Learn more about these different terms in Phonics vs Phonemic Awareness. Levels of Phonemic Awareness Phoneme isolation Phoneme blending Phoneme segmentation Phoneme addition Phoneme deletion Phoneme substitution At this stage, your students should be able to hear a word and break it into sounds. The word frog should become /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/. The word cat should become /c/ /a/ /t/. This can be taught in many different ways, and it's an essential skill to practise throughout kindergarten. How do you make phoneme segmentation fun & engaging for kindergarten students with a short attention span? I highly recommend getting hands-on! Use manipulatives and include a variety of physical movements, like drawing, playing, clapping, and more, to help make this learning as engaging as possible. To them, it will feel like play, but they’ll be laying the foundation for their future phonics skills and reading abilities every single day! 7 Phoneme Segmentation Activities for Kindergarten There are countless ways to practise identifying and segmenting phonemes! You can turn almost any material into a tool, depending on how you use it. You don't need to buy all of the tools right away, and you can often get by using materials you already have on hand! Be creative and focus on the skill, not the stuff. 1. Listening to Sounds in Words This is the easiest and most simplistic phonemic awareness activity. Your kids need only their ears (and maybe some fingers) to identify and segment the individual phonemes in different words. It will take time for your kindergarten students to get used to this concept at the beginning of the school year, but if you keep modelling and practising, they'll get it! Start by modelling this practice yourself. Break apart words verbally. Starting with your thumb, lift a finger for each phoneme you hear. Examples Dog: /d/ /o/ /g/ House: /h/ /ow/ /s/ Chin: /ch/ /i/ /n/ 2. Sound Boxes Also known as Elkonin boxes, sound boxes are a phenomenal way to support your students to identify the individual sounds in words. This practice supports orthographic mapping, which helps your students encode these spelling patterns to their long-term memory more efficiently than traditional memorisation. These are best to use when your students have had a chance to isolate and blend sounds together, but you can also use them from day one of your instruction. Essentially, students listen for the different sounds in a given word to get used to breaking them up. When they're ready to start writing, add the letter or groups of letters representing that sound in each box. For example, digraphs would go in one box since they represent one unique sound. This visual approach really makes this abstract concept easier to understand. It's such an effective skill that I recommend using it with your whole group, small groups, or independent practice every single day. Any time you introduce a new word from your word list, run it through a sound box first! You could also use these googly eyes to make it even more fun! There are a bunch of great sound box activities and templates on my site to get you started: Animal Word Mapping Mats CVC Orthographic Mapping Activities Free Printable Word Mapping Templates 3. Interactive Digital Slides Since we have so many little things to track every single day, I highly recommend incorporating custom digital slides! I created them to be interactive to keep interest high, evidence-based to make them powerful and effective, and convenient so you won't have to worry about hunting down missing materials again. I have a variety of slides to support different phonemic awareness skills, including: Phonological awareness slides: These are perfect for the beginning of the school year! Practise counting the words in sentences, identifying the beginning and ending sound in words, and more. In the 'count the sound' slides, the sound buttons are animated to flash as you say each sound. Heart words interactive slides: Instead of teaching sight words the old-fashioned way, teach them using the best evidence-based practices to help your students learn them faster than ever. As part of The Hive, you'll also have access to my plethora of sound boxes and phonics activities! The Hive is an intuitively designed and nimble digital teacher planner, but it’s also so much more. It includes literally hundreds of custom-built apps, downloads, printables, and more, so you can set up your entire day in just one program. You'll be able to incorporate these phonemic awareness activities into your daily lessons and routines with no extra prep at all! Join The Hive today and check it out! 4. Rhyming Games One of the best ways to teach young children phoneme segmentation is by playing rhyming games! Kids love listening for rhyming words, and there are so many great rhyming books for kindergarten to reinforce this skill. Most rhyming focuses on the vowel sound, which can be tricky to identify as they often sound similar. Start by identifying word families (-all: ball, call, fall, etc) and then incorporate these rhyming words activities. Once they're ready, challenge them to listen for rhymes in longer passages, like with these poetry games. ​5. Missing Sound Task Cards One fun, accessible way to practice this skill is to incorporate picture cards with missing sounds. Students will need to say the name of the item on the card to identify the lost sound. Note- this is a more advanced way to practise segmenting, as it also incorporates phonics skills. For example, if there is a picture of a pig and the letters __ig, students will need to think or say the word

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.

House and Home! What is the difference between A House and A Home?

Download and print out the POSTER here (PDF file)

Hello darlings! Amy here from That Teaching Spark! When I teach spelling, I am often on the hunt for fun, yet practical activities for my students to practice their spelling pattern for the week. This year, I am meeting with my students in small groups to work on differentiated spelling lists. One of my rotations is called Choice. This is where students get the “Choice” of the activity they would like to complete. They are allowed to choose from a list of activities on their Choice Board. We glue these boards onto the inside cover of our Word Study Journals so students have them all year. (Freebie at the end of post!) At the beginning of the year, I introduce each activity choice and have students practice it. That way when rotations come along, I have a well oiled machine with students working independently. While I completely agree that activities such as these are NOT effective in long term application of spelling words, research shows that adding kinesthetic activities helps with memorization. I teach the understanding and the word pattern “rules” during my Teacher Rotation. A few Favorites…. I created the Michelangelo Spelling activity after our art teacher did a project with my kiddos about the Sistine Chapel. My kiddos LOVE taping their paper to the underside of their desks and “painting” like Michelangelo. Of course, they are just writing their spelling words, but it is incredibly motivating. My kiddos also love Ghost Spelling. They write their words on paper with a white crayon and then color over the crayon with a marker. It “magically” shows up. Another favorite of mine is Context Clues. Students must write a sentence with the word that is so detailed, that another student could figure out the word if the word was covered up. I use the little sticky flags for this activity. I wanted to give this Choice Board to you FREE!

Guessing games are a great way to practice speaking, critical thinking and vocabulary building in ESL classrooms starting from young learners through adults. Whether you are an English teacher or a parent trying to improve your child's vocabulary in a first or second language, guessing games are a MUST! Here's where to start: Ages 3-4:

This is another 5-senses activity. We did 10 different materials, ranging from feathers to sandpaper and everything in between. We had the kids feel each piece of material and then had them glue them onto the hands. We asked the kids to describe the material and what if felt like to them. I LOVE the answers that we got from some of the kids. My own little girl, had some that made me crack up. The sandpaper felt like Poppa's face, the fake leather felt like a couch and one of them felt like her dog Brody. It was fun to hear their answers. Fabric stores are great to look for material for this project. A remnant can go a long way when your talking about 1 inch pieces. Also look at the craft supplies and hardware stores. We used sponges and Brillo pads, the possibilities are endless.

Children will practice using context clues as they identify the correct homophone in this grammar and spelling worksheet.

Have you ever thought about using wordless videos in your speech therapy lessons? It increases engagement! Start with these videos...

Click here to download a Spot the Difference Printable that's fun for both kids and adults. Can you spot 10 differences between the 2 pictures?

This is a fun board game about animals. Your ESL students work in pairs or groups, they throw a die and need to name different types of animals.

We are a Leader In Me School and talk a lot about using the 7 Habits of Happy Kids in our everyday lives. I love the idea of encouraging kids to act as leaders in the classroom and beyond. What I have noticed, however, is that sometimes "leadership" comes off as "bossypants" and that is not the route we want to take! I know you've probably heard of Sheryl Sandberg (of Facebook fame) and her campaign to end the word "bossy" (read or listen to an NPR story HERE), but I was hesitant to come straight out and use that word in our class. Instead, I wanted them to think on terms of "boss" and "leader" to recognize the differences between the two and to think about their own language choices in the classroom, in small groups, on their sports teams, and more. We first looked at this picture and talked about what we noticed: (source) This led to some discussion about leadership versus boss behavior. While the kids were discussing, I was passing out example cards to their table spots. Before I dismissed them, I shared this leadership quote from John Quincy Adams: They were then given instructions about our activity. I had printed example cards on two colors: blue for boss and green for leader (although they didn't know that yet) and they needed to read their card and find someone with an opposite color card and opposite example (good time to incorporate the word antonym, too!). I dismissed them to their tables and first had them converse with students in their table group to ensure they understood the word or phrase on their card. When they gave me the thumbs up, I told them to find their match and them meet to discuss why they went together and be able to give examples. We then began assembling our Anchor Chart. Each pair would come to the front of the class and would explain which card was descriptive of a "boss" and which was descriptive of a "leader" and why. They gave examples and I elicited a lot of help from the classroom for additional examples and language that both a boss and leader may use during that example. I would tape the cards to the Anchor Chart and we continued through each pair. There were two groups of three (with two leaders to one boss) and that worked out perfectly with my class (definitely feel free to adjust if you have lower numbers). Our completed anchor chart looked like: It was so powerful to see how often kids may think they are helping, but instead find themselves on the "boss" side of the chart instead of the "leader." I know several of the examples are repetitive, but we really talked through these and used examples from our own lives to recount when using "leader" words and language set us up for success. I also explained the "me vs. you" mentality of bosses versus the "we and us" mentality of leaders. Overall, it was a very powerful lesson and I look forward to referring back to this Anchor Chart this year, especially when "bossypants" behavior leads to conflict. I think these concrete examples can help guide the naturally strong leaders in my class to make better language decisions that can help grow them as leaders and really inspire others, just like the Adams quote! If you'd like a copy of these cards and quote, you can download this as a *freebie* HERE. How do you address bossy vs. leader behavior in your class? Share in the comments, I would love to build on this lesson!

Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour

Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.

Understanding the difference between inference and prediction is one of classic challenges in literacy instruction.