Short on time? Feel like you need an assistant? I was sceptical at first but in this blog post I'll share 10 ways teachers can use ChatGPT to save time.
For this Monday, Rachel of R's Loft and I decided to exchange blog posts! Fun, right? I've never had a guest post on this blog b...
I've been teaching sociology for three years, now, and almost immediately, I stumbled upon Introsocsite. It's a fantastic resource for any sociology teacher.
Once in a while I do a blog post more aimed at a music teacher audience, and this is one of those posts. This is the hello song that I sing to start every music for kindergarten and first grade. …
In this article a series of tips to practice the Milton, inclusive of an infographic and a video for you to use.
The Eight Sensory Systems
In 70:20:10 for trainers I advocated the use of the 70:20:10 model by L&D professionals as a lens through which to view their instructional design.
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.
Oh so many phonics rules to remember! From remembering that vowels have two sounds to the more advanced rules- WOW! It’s quite a bit for our little readers and writers. As we teach the rules, it’s always helpful to incorporate visuals and stories. It gives our students something to anchor to when coming across a […]
We all know and love Kahoot, right? If you do not know about Kahoot then we have a few blog posts with tips and ideas to get you up to sp...
Free Printable: Word Wheel where children have to find as many wrds as possible from 9 letters.
Infographic by Global Digital Citizen
AI integration in education can enhance higher order thinking skills by using AI to generate higher-level questions that promote critical thinking & creativity
Check out these activities for teaching interjections including mini posters, Youtube songs, games, suggested books to use, and more.
This blog post features five free idiom activities, like a free idioms PowerPoint, game, task cards, and an engaging anchor chart!
This blog post features a contraction anchor chart. Plus, two free concentration games are provided... one contraction game for lower elementary and one for upper elementary!
Visit the post for more.
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!
English Movie Lesson Theo and Celeste. "Would you still be my friend if there were things about me you didn’t know?” Celeste asks her friend Theo while they’re on a seesaw. The two of them start an innocent game and come up with increasingly surreal questions.
January is rolling along and my kids (both my school and actual kids) are finally readjusted to our routine after winter break. While in real life, I find January-March the three most difficult months to
Teamwork in the classroom is essential in order to have a high functioning and welcoming environment for students. Check out three easy ways to build teamwork with your students.
This really is probably going to be the most disjointed blog post ever! There were a few different education and non-education topics swirling around in my head, and I'm just going to lump them all into one post. I haven't blogged in a bit for no good reason than it is summer, and I'm being a bit lazy. Every morning, this is the plan: But, then I get distracted. One of my biggest distractions this summer has been this little app: Yes, that devilish little Kindle app on my iPhone! It has been so nice to have time to read fluff. I am still in the middle of two different professional books, but I just lost interest for a bit. I might need to delete this app for a couple of weeks so I can get something done! Like blogging and working on my TpT stuff. Figuring out this whole Tpt thing was is one of my goals this summer. I have some things I want to get done, but the time-suck that is my Kindle app has been getting the best of me. It was so fun seeing all the pics of bloggers who attended the Tpt gathering (convention?) in Vegas last week. It looked like so much fun. I've been reading lots of blog posts on it, and I have yet to hear of anyone that didn't have a great time, meet some amazing bloggers, and learn lots of helpful tips. In fact, I posted this pic on my Instagram account during the festivities. More on Instagram later! My goal is that by next year my Tpt store will be up and running and I will attend the next gathering One thing I am getting done is summer school. I have the best group of kids this year! I truly love them to pieces. They are so sweet, just really nice children who are willing to learn. No attitudes! They really make heading to work on nice, sunny, beach days not so bad. And, there are only 7 of them which has let me get so much done. My summer friends will be entering 4th grade in September but have reading levels 1-2 years below that. One thing I learned right away is that they are unfamiliar with the most basic of affixes. I know they were taught them in 3rd grade, but the recall is not there at all. So, when deciding what to do with them for word study this summer, affixes it is! I wanted to get the most bang for my buck. They certainly need help with spelling patterns, but as soon-to-be-4th-graders I feel mastering some basic affixes will help them more with decoding the grade level words they will encounter. For visuals with my lessons, I've been using this beach themed packet of 31 different prefixes and suffixes by Rachael Parlett that I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. It is awesome. And, free! She actually has this same pack available in different themes (pirates, jungle, Hollywood, and more) along with other for sale resources that compliment them. We've been doing one a day. I write the affix down, and then I give the kids a basic word that has that affix. I then let them try to figure out what it means. Once they do, we write the definition on the chart we've glued in our notebook. We then work together to brainstorm a list of words. After that, they select a word and use it in a sentence that shows they know the meaning of the word. Finally, they sketch a quick picture showing their sentence. This form is another freebie I also found on Teachers Pay Teachers created by Gaily Girl. It's a pack of various materials, including this chart/organizer. I will say that I did tweak it a bit, but it is essentially the same. I just changed the font, made one line dotted, and changed the center box to put in the particular affixes we are using. The form is editable, so it was easy to do. I only have my friends for five short weeks this summer, so we are spending two weeks on prefixes, two on suffixes (there they are below, ready to go!) and on our last week we will be combining the two. The best part of it all is that I can really see this clicking for the kids. They are using the new words they learned in our conversation and have stopped me during our read aloud more than once to point out that I said a word that had a prefix we learned. Score!!! After summer school today, I went to my school to grab some materials from our supply room. If you are not a teacher and wonder what schools look like during the summer, here it is! I really feel for our custodians in the summer. Our school is not air conditioned, and it is hot as blazes in that building. They are busy clearing out the classrooms, stripping and freshly waxing floors, cleaning the rooms, making repairs, and actually working to retile some classrooms this year. It is hot and sweaty work! They have to empty every room, do all that work, and then put it all back again. But, it all very much appreciated when we come back to shiny, clean classrooms in September! So, frozen peas. Yup, that's me driving home from school last week with a bag of frozen peas on my knee. At dismissal last Thursday, I tripped on some uneven sidewalk and did a full-on face plant (really more of a knee injury) in front of all the summer school staff, students, and parents. It was so bad, I literally couldn't get up for a minute. I was going to post a picture of my knee today, but it is so ugly I didn't want to subject you to it! It is blue, green, purple, black, red, yellow, and every other color you can imagine. I honestly can't believe how bad the bruise is. It is still really sore, but I'm just glad I didn't break anything. And to prove how sweet my kids are this summer, I can't begin to tell you how upset they got when I fell. I was so busy reassuring them that I was fine that it wasn't until after they were all gone that I realized how bad it was. To keep on with this disjointed post. . . I might be mildly obsessed with getting some Jamberry nails. I'm seeing them all over the web. When I first heard of them, I thought I could just pick them up in the store. But, I think it is some kind of home party sales thing. I do see though that I can order some on their website. They aren't cheap, but I think it would be a fun treat. Have to look in to this some more! Do any of you do Jamberry nails? How do you like them? Where do you get them? My other mild obsession this summer has been banana frozen yogurt. I tell you this for no reason other than I feel more people need to know about banana frozen yogurt. (You know I'm an elementary school teacher because I can't even type the word banana without thinking of Minions and laughing!) I posted this picture of some on Instagram a few days ago. It was a bit disappointing due to the lack of toppings. Notice there aren't really any? I wanted some fresh fruit, and there was none! When is the last time you went to a fro yo shop that had no fresh fruit?!! Speaking of Instagram, I have just started using my blog Instagram. I find I am much more of an Instagram person than a Facebook person. I use FB in my personal life for friends and family, but I find it really difficult to switch back and forth between my blog FB page and my personal FB page. As a result, I sort of don't pay any attention to my blog FB page which isn't good. Some of you have been so nice to follow me on it which means you are probably on it more than I am! However, I find it much easier to blend my personal and blog Instagram in one. I think I'm more of a visual person and just find Instagram more appealing. I need to add an Instagram link to my buttons up top, but you can find me HERE. I've only posted a few pics, but I think IG is one social media I will keep up with. So, that's my disjointed post. Which seems about right for summer blogging! :-)
Teaching upper elementary or middle school students about correlative conjunctions? You'll definitely want to check out this blog post that includes an anchor chart lesson!
Life is hard. Disappointments happen. Sometimes we lose when we deserve to win. Sometimes we win when we deserve to lose. As adults, we've had practice coping with letdowns. But for children, the pain is fresh and the wounds particularly deep. They're not prepared for unexpected blows, nor do they understand how a loss might benefit them long-term. One rejection can feel like the new norm, and with every subsequent defeat they may fear they'll never break the cycle. Once a…
Let me start by saying that relays are not an original idea..maybe you have been doing them for years…but they are new to me, (and i love them) so I figured I’d share in case anyone els…
Teaching firsthand and secondhand accounts? Check out this blog post that contains a mentor text idea and an anchor chart!
Effective spelling instruction emphasizes the structure of the English language. Effective spelling instruction can lead to reading success as well.
One of the objectives we’re working on this week {and last week} is alliteration. There are SO many great books to read to introduce and cover this topic. Some of our favorites are… Shel Silverstein poems are great for alliteration, too! My kids loved Picture Puzzle Piece, Noise Day, and Spoiled Brat 🙂 the most!! …
I have frequently been asked and I have seen similar questions posted on Kodaly and Music Ed Facebook groups. "I am interested in learning ...
Incorporating social issues into our literacy studies is a great way to help students think more deeply about texts and get more engaged.
Look at the pie chart and text and do the exercises to improve your writing skills.
When it comes to complex sentences, things quickly become... well... complex. At the mere mention of independent clauses, dependent clauses, and subordinating conjunctions, many young eyes immediately glaze over. One year, when I was about to introduce the topic of complex sentences to my fifth graders, I decided on a whim to use an image of a nurse helping a patient walk. I was amazed by how much this simple image helped my students. I told them that the nurse in the picture was like the independent clause. Just as the nurse can stand alone, so also can an independent clause "stand alone" as a complete sentence. Then I told my students that the patient with the crutch leaning against the nurse was like the dependent clause. The patient could clearly not stand on his own, just as a dependent clause cannot stand alone, either. A dependent clause depends on the independent clause to help it be part of a complete sentence. This idea resonated so well with my students that I've used this explanation ever since. As you can see, I discarded the nurse/patient image I had previously used. (Although it did the trick, it wasn't very visually appealing.) When I ran across the image below when I purchased a clip art set by Educlips, I upgraded my image to this one. A FREE PARTNER ACTIVITY As you can see, there is a lot of information on this anchor chart. Students will only retain these concepts if they get an opportunity to interact with the various elements of complex sentences. Therefore, I created an interactive exercise where students can manipulate each clause and then write complex sentences using the clauses. Personally, I would have students complete this activity with a partner, but students can also do it independently, if you wish. (CLICK HERE if you would like to download this free activity to use with your students.) First, give each student the two worksheets and the writing mat. (This photo shows only the first worksheet, and the writing mat printed on yellow paper.) They follow the instructions written at the top of the worksheet: 1. Read the clauses in each pair. 2. Underline the dependent clause with a green marker. 3. Underline the independent clause with a red marker. 4. Circle the subordinating conjunction with a blue marker. 5. Use the two clauses to write a complex sentence that starts with a dependent clause in the first box of the writing mat. 6. Use the two clauses to write a complex sentence that starts with an independent clause in the adjacent box. **Don't forget to use capital letters and punctuation! Although it's not written in the directions, if you want, you can add a step between Step 4 and Step 5 where students cut out the strips. This might be helpful for students who would benefit from physically moving the dependent clause directly in front of the independent clause before they write the first sentence on their mat. Then, students can move the independent clause to the front before they write the second sentence. Once students are done, they will have eight complex sentences written in both formats. I recommend checking all of the sentences to make sure students used commas in the first column, and that they refrained from using commas in the second column. If you are looking for additional resources for teaching about compound and complex sentences to your upper elementary students, feel free to check out the following resource. I have placed my bundle image here, but all of these items are also available for individual purchase in my TpT store. Finally, I wrote a related blog post at my own blog about compound sentences. Click HERE to check it out! Thanks for stopping by today! FREE Newsletter! Blog TpT Store Instagram Facebook Pinterest My YouTube Video Pin for future reference:
This post is part of our Fair Is Not Always Equal…Now What? blog series. Stay tuned for many more posts! Happy Thursday, everyone! Today I’m bringing you a list of critical success factors for all co-teachers, excerpted and adapted from Julie Causton’s book, The Educator’s Handbook for Inclusive School Practices. If you’re currently […]
Teaching Shakespeare's language, particularly thou & you, can help students understand characters' rank and relationship. Here are some tips! (blog post)
Teach kids about adverbs - a surefire way to instantly improve and enhance independent writing.
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!
April, 23rd. again, the most important day of the year for bookworms the world over Do you know why? Many things have been said ...
We can look at the SmarterBalance/Badger Exam as a stressor in our lives OR we can look at it as an opportunity to strengthen our universal instruction. We can look at some of our students and say "they can't" OR we can look at those students and say "they will" and find a new way to reach them. We can look at our colleagues and find their faults OR we can discover ways to share our strengths and make everyone around us stronger in the process. We can worry about how far we still have to go OR we can look at the exceptional things that go on at Van Brunt each day, and build on those positives. On a daily basis, I am impressed with what goes on at Van Brunt. Your hard work digging into curriculum, relationship building, and supporting each other are some of the things that make Van Brunt a great place to be. High Fives: *Our youngest learners were deeply engaged in a Lucy Calking writing lesson. They were so eager to share their thinking on paper. *I loved to see how excited students were when their classmates experienced success during a spelling lesson. It's great to see such positive responses from our students. *Teachers were using data to reassign students in RAZ-Kids. The students were challenged to work hard and meet new goals. *A science review game had the students so engaged that they may not have realized how much they were learning! Students were encouraged to pay attention as questions were asked in a variety of ways. *Teachers were coming together as a team to problem solve and think of creative ways to meet the needs of every learner. *Guided reading lessons are becoming stronger and even more focused. Students know the expectations and rise to the high standards you have set. Important Information/Updates: *RtI Committee Updates: Our current assessment tools were discussed and conversation was had around which one (MAP, AIMS, F&P) we want to put the most weight for determining interventions. It was decided that MAP is what people currently like the best. There was also discussion around the percentile cut-offs for intervention. The high school currently uses 1st-10th percentile for Tier 3 and 11th-20th for Tier 2. There will be further discussion on this topic. We have also received PRESS, a resource for Tier 2/3 intervention in reading. *Information: As you are sending home information to parents, please provide a copy for the office. This would include things such as newsletters, permission slips, field trip reminders, etc. If it is going home...we would like a copy in the office. This will make life much easier as we receive parent phone calls. *Attendance: We have been using the automated calling system for absences. It is so important that accurate attendance is taken each day. If a child comes in late, please make sure to change your attendance. I completely understand that mornings are busy, but we don't want to worry parents when unnecessary safe arrival calls are being made. As I was in classrooms this past week, I saw that book groups were being introduced. Here is an interesting article: Assessing Learning During Student-Led Book Clubs Week at a Glance: Monday, January 26 PBIS Committee Meeting 7:30 Tuesday, January 27 I am out of district at the Badger Exam Training (Morning) Wednesday, January 28 I am at an Admin Meeting 8:30 I am at Rotary 11:45 POPS Assembly 2:30 PLC 3:30 (Focus will be on the Badger Exam for 3rd-6th grade teachers and special ed. 4K-2nd, please use this time for your guided reading lesson planning or Lucy Calkins work. If these groups don't include you, and you have your data gathered for your SLO, you may use this time to work on TPES.) Please let me know if you have any questions. Thursday, January 29 ELA Committee Meeting 7:30 Friday, January 30 Have a great week!!
(sentence transformation FCE)
One of the greatest changes to assessments is the shift from what to why and how. A student that knows that an author uses figurative language or literary devices does not always understand how these writing tools contribute to meaning. Not only will students be expected to interpret the meaning of reading passages on Common Core assessments, they will sometimes be asked how an author achieves characterization, the tone of the text, persuasion, etc. This level of analysis requires an even deeper level of understanding of the tools authors use to convey meaning. Don't worry, this blog post is here to help. At the lower grade levels, students are not expected to know the words syntax or diction. A general understanding about how authors convey ideas is what students need to know. Diction Diction means the words an author uses to convey ideas to a reader. Similes, metaphors, imagery, personification, etc., all fall under this category. When students closely read text, they should look for these literary devices and explain how they contribute to meaning. Some possible student responses could include: "The author uses personification to help the reader imagine what it was like in the forest." "The metaphor 'as slow as a turtle' in line three helps the reader understand why Devin was so upset with his brother. It was because he was moving to slow." Syntax Syntax is the way that words are arranged in a sentence. In early grade levels, students learn about the different types of sentences which includes: declarative(a sentence that makes a statement) interrogative (a sentence that asks a question) imperative (a sentence that gives a command) exclamatory (a sentence that expresses strong feeling) Writers of speeches or persuasive articles often use imperative sentences to call listeners or readers to action. When students analyze diction and syntax, they are able to deepen their understanding of what they read.
Hexagons. Who knew that bees had the secret to understanding the connections between ideas, concepts and facts? I have been using hexagons with groups of children and teachers over the past year bu…
