Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can't focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can't focus on the directions, they
Young kids love hands-on activities.This is a super fun water pH science experiment activity that shows kids how to use litmus test strips.
Using the scientific method with kids is a great way to introduce how to ask questions, set up an experiment, and test results.
This fun sink or float science experiment explores the density of liquids with a fun twist by using balloons filled with various liquids.
All educators, at one time or another, are likely to work with kids and young adults who struggle with anxiety. Sometimes we know about those challenges, and other times, we don't. As a special educator, I have spent countless hours helping students work through their worries about homework, family
CVC is the acronym for consonant vowel consonant or the three-letter words such as bag, keg, sip, and sun. Before you can teach children to read CVC words; the kids must have memorized the letters.
Introducing Do Re Mi to kids in a visual, fun way to help them understand the notes of the scale and piano. First musical theory lesson for babies and young kids.
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
A blog of an elementary Special Education Teacher
Learn what plants breathe through with this easy leaf & tree science experiment as kids get hands-on with the process of photosynthesis!
Quite often we’ll ask children to “Put your thinking cap on”. Empowering learners with the skills to think creatively and critically is a gift which we can facilitate as teachers.…
Today I am going to be sharing a SUPER SIMPLE coding card game for kids. We use this activity to introduce kids to coding and to teach basic coding concepts and computational thinking skills. This
Relationship building is the single most important way you can impact a child's life. So often, kids actually can't learn from someone they can't connect with. I'm also convinced that building a strong relationship with a kid or young adult diminishes a huge number of behavior challenges. Many times
12 interactive and fun games to teach self-control and build self-regulation skills for kids and teens. Strong skills for self-control are the foundation for success in and outside of the classroom.
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
Being able to de-escalate and defuse situations with kids and young adults is an extremely helpful skill. Kids and young adults who become emotionally overwhelmed or irritated in a situation may begin to express their emotions in challenging ways. Some examples of these behaviors might include aggre
Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) occurs when a baby or young kid fails to build a strong, healthy emotional link with his or her primary caregivers.
Kids will love learning about the components of blood with this fun and memorable activity - make a blood model!
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A lot of times our students do not know how to communicate what they need in the moment. We can get to know our students by giving them a menu of options regarding things they need when they become upset, angry, nervous, worried, overwhelmed, and confused. Social emotional learning and coping strate...
Thaumatropes are a simple craft that kids will enjoy making - and they will be amazed at the visual effects when the spinning pictures merge! The following post contains affiliate links, which means that at no extra cost to you I can make a tiny bit of money to help support this blog. Thank you! Have you ever heard of a Thaumatrope? Here's what Wiki has to say: A thaumatrope is an optical toy that was popular in the 19th century. A disk with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled
This post is an introduction for Montessori inspired music for young children that includes hand bells, guitar, piano, and more.
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.
The A to Z of Coping Skills display poster for you to use to talk about coping strategies and worksheet for children to come up with their own strategies.
Retelling is a crucial skill for young readers as they begin to comprehend what they are reading. With my first graders, we have been focusing on our retellings. We are working on the key elements of a fiction retelling versus a nonfiction retelling. Well...let me introduce you to the retelling glove! For our fiction retellings, we make sure to include the setting, characters, problem, events, and solution. For the nonfiction retellings, we focus on the main idea and supporting details. With the very bottom of the glove, we are always working on making connections! We are still in the beginning stages of retelling. I have done a lot of modeling using the retelling glove during our guided reading time, and then students have begun using the glove as we work to retell stories together through guided practice. The kids love putting that thing on. It is just a gardening glove from Walmart that I wrote on with permanent marker! In addition to our retelling glove, we also have an anchor chart that we reference. The pictures are great visual reminders as we continue to master our retellings. Since retelling fiction and nonfiction are so different, I feel like it is very important to be explicit about what is required of each type of retelling. I think the visual reminders and the concrete retelling glove are really having a positive impact. If you would like a copy of the anchor chart, click here! How do you help your students with their retellings?
Kids and young adults need extensive practice in strengthening their executive functioning skills. Executive functions are the processes in our brains that help us accomplish all tasks from beginning to end. We use them when we plan our day, organize our materials, begin a chore, focus on important
Introduce children to a lifelong love of science, math, and physics with these simple and hands-on physics experiments for kids!
Dual language education provides a unique and powerful opportunity to strengthen children's highest cognitive brain potentials.
Looking to create good study habits? See habits that create an effective daily study routine, make you a better student & life long learner.
"Total Physical Response" or TPR methods are foundational to your ESL or VIPKID students. Find 8 commands to use every day.
Strategies and supports for executive functioning challenges can make all the difference, especially for students who struggle with task initiation. This is such an important skill, since it's like the motor in allowing us to get started on all tasks and assignments. When someone is struggling to in
Executive functioning skills are getting a lot of attention right now in education. Honestly, it's not even the amount of attention that they deserve, though. Executive functions are essentially the building blocks for completing all tasks in life (in school and beyond). If you think of executive
Young readers can build their comprehension skills as they read this passage from a children's classic, "The Story of Dr. Dolittle."
{Download FREEBIE pack here.} Economics is my absolute FAVORITE social studies unit to teach. There are so many hands-on activities to do with students and they are so eager to earn and spend money! One of my favorite activities is to end with our "Madden's Marketplace." This is a chance for students to put into action all of the things they have learned about being producers and consumers. To begin with, I send home a letter asking students to create paper goods. Why paper? It's something all of my students have at home (or I can easily give them). I want my marketplace to be fair for all students. I'm sure I could let them have the freedom to create any product, using any materials and I would get some amazing masterpieces. I would also get some elaborate (and expensive) items. That's not what I want. I encourage parents to spend NO money on this and for it to be STUDENT CREATED. I really want them to take the initiative. Here are some samples of paper products my students created to sell this year - everything from rockets to bookmarks to lanterns to hats. I incorporate the making of goods into my students' homework schedule, encouraging them to create two products per night. Before the due date, we work on creating "shops" in class. We create our "shop" by gluing two file folders together. The picture below is using legal-sized file folders, but that just happens to be what we had available. Shop Parts: Signs: Initially, we create the signs for our shops, color the awnings to make them eye-catching. Open/Closed: Next, we create open/closed signs that sit atop our shop so we can easily flip the sign to show the status of our shops. Slogan: We then come up with a catchy slogan. We talk about slogan's we know from commercials. Why did those stick in our heads? We learn to use a play on words, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc. to make our slogans catchy so consumers will remember them. Product Description: Students each write a product description detailing WHAT their product is and HOW it works or can be used. We talk about the importance of letting consumers know exactly what they are getting. Commercial Script: Finally, students write commercials to "sell" their products to their classmates. We use hooks to get their attention, repetitions of our catchy slogans, and persuasion. Other Components: We also glue on the Consumer Comments, Price, and Interest Inventories, but we leave all of those blank initially. On the day of the marketplace, students set up their shops and lay their products out on display. Then, they have a chance to walk around the classroom and "window shop." They are encouraged to take a good look at all of their options, reading the product descriptions and examining the merchandise. After students have had a good look at all of their choices, I give them stickers (I would recommend 3-4). They walk around and place their stickers on the "Interest Inventory" of the products that interest them the most. The results of the interest inventory are used by the shop owners to determine if they have a high demand or low demand for their products. Knowing the demand helps them determine a price for their product. High demand = higher price. Low demand = lower price. The only rule is that all prices have to be in whole dollars. Once prices are set, then students are ready to go shopping! There are many different ways to let students shop. Some years, if I've done economy-based management system, my students will use "money" they've earned to shop. This year, I just gave them all $12 to shop with. I'm always torn about letting my students split into groups to run their shops (half shop while half work) - it always seems that students don't get to shop at all of the stores in that scenario. To solve that problem, I let all of my students shop at the same time. To do this students create "tokens" to leave at their shop. They create the same number as products they have to sell. For example, if Katie has 10 kites to sell, she creates and leaves 10 tokens with her name or shop name on them. Once each shop has tokens, students are ready to shop. Since there are no workers at the shops to collect money, I give my students "consumer spending logs" with pictures of dollars on them. Since I gave my students 12 dollars to spend, their consumer spending logs had 12 one dollar pictures. As students go around to the shops, they color in the dollars they've spent and pick up tokens (NOT products) that they will trade in for their purchases once the shops close. Once all of the tokens are gone, that shop is "closed." Once a student has colored in all of the dollars on his/her spending log, they are done shopping. It really works out quite well. Once students have traded all of their tokens in for their goods, they are given paper for providing feedback to the shops. They slip these into the "consumer comments" pockets on the storefronts. They love reading the feedback from their customers! <3 After wrapping up our shops, students are often left with some extra products. Instead of having them take their own products back home, I let them put another economics concept into practice - BARTERING! They have a blast working out "fair swaps" for their products and really working to get the other things they may have wanted but didn't have the money to purchase...and of course, they do all of this while proudly wearing some of their favorite purchases. :) All in all, it is a fun day of learning. Students take their roles as both producers and consumers seriously and come away with a real sense of accomplishment! If you would like to download this packet of FREE resources to hold your own Economics shop, you can do so HERE. Enjoy!
Try some of these fun, no-prep games to help your teach English to young or beginner level students.
Kids and young adults need extensive practice in strengthening their executive functioning skills. Executive functions are the processes in our brains that help us accomplish all tasks from beginning to end. We use them when we plan our day, organize our materials, begin a chore, focus on important
I have a new freebie set ready this week! This set has three puzzles all about bunnies! Not quite in time for Easter, but it's generic enough for any time of the year. One puzzle is a maze in which solvers have to help the mommy bunny gather up her baby bunnies from around the garden. Another puzzle teaches students about bunny related words while they find them in a word search. And the last puzzle challenges students to help a bunny across a river to find her pile of veggies! This puzzle is a new puzzle for me, and I'm excited about it! The solvers has to follow a pattern of shapes, hopping along each shape 'stepping stone', to get to the other side. My kids and I enjoyed doing these! (You can find more of these puzzles in my All About Shapes puzzle pack too!) All About Shapes is available in my TpT store for $4.00 and contains 20 puzzles for young solvers. These puzzles are geared towards kindergarteners and first graders, but pre-schoolers should be able to handle many of these puzzles with help from their parents. This pack contains 3 dot-to-dots, 3 river crossings, 3 mazes, 3 word searches, 4 coloring pages, 2 counting riddles, a sudoku, and a crossword! It's packed with fun ways to practice shape recognition and even learn some new shapes! You can download the Cub Corner or purchase All About Shapes at my TpT store! UPDATE: I no longer have the Cub Corner sets in my store. Just click on the picture to download. Also, the All About Shapes set has been retired, so you can download a free copy by clicking on that picture. Enjoy!
Relationship building is the single most important way you can impact a child's life. So often, kids actually can't learn from someone they can't connect with. I'm also convinced that building a strong relationship with a kid or young adult diminishes a huge number of behavior challenges. Many times
Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can't focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can't focus on the directions, they
Discover the baby animal names with our comprehensive guide, featuring farm, wild, and exotic species. Learn and see pictures of the cutest baby animals!
