When I was a brand new teacher, I thought the quality of my teaching was ultimately tied to the quality of my resources, so I spent hours searching for great materials. I believed that if I had quality resources, ones that my students enjoyed and were engaged with, then that would make me a good teacher. Well, I still believe that having quality resources is extremely important, but over the years I've also come to realize that being a good teacher is SO much more than the tools in my toolbox. Everyday has a million moving parts that need our constant attention, focus, knowledge and skills of best practice. So even though I now believe that being a good teacher is more than the quality of my teaching materials, knowing that I have a good variety of kid tested and teacher approved resources at my fingertips allows me the time and energy to focus on other aspects of my teaching day. So today, as a follow-up to my original "favorite resources" post, I want to share with you MORE of my "go-to" resources that I consistently use in my classroom with my students! Build a Sentence I love this resource, and so do my students! This resource gets beginning and intermediate ELs speaking and writing! First, a photograph is posted. Then students generate a word bank by telling what they see in the picture. I ask for one word at a time. No matter the level of my ELs, everyone can come up with at least a word or two. I get additional details by asking about colors and quantities of items they see. Once our word bank is sufficient, they use those words to create varying lengths of sentences. They are asked to create a 3 word sentence, then a four word sentence, then a five word sentence, and so on. I'll ask, "Who thinks they can come up with a 4 word sentence?" My students all start thinking and counting on their fingers, then quickly a hand shoots up, then another. They love it! This activity is heavily scaffolded for beginners. Students orally create the word bank and sentences, but I write the words and sentences on the board using correct spelling and grammar. Then they copy. I am a big believer in modeling for beginners, and I model a LOT! This activity is a definite favorite among my students. They practice their oral language skills as well as their writing skills. I do this with my small groups at least once a month. Writing with English Learners I created this resource to prep my students for the writing portion of the annual language proficiency assessment. In Virginia, where I'm from, ESL students take the WIDA ACCESS each winter. Being that writing is the literacy skill that usually takes the longest to develop, I wanted to explicitly teach the skills students needed to be most successful on this assessment. In my lesson plans, I incorporate a listening, reading, speaking and writing focus each week. For the writing focus, I usually pull from these two resources. Whether I am teaching how to stretch out words, write a story, explain a process or analyze information, this resource allows me to choose the skills my particular groups need to work on. For my intermediate and advanced ELs in grades 3-6, I focus on "language formats" found in writing. Whether they are asked to describe, provide an opinion, analyze or compare and contrast, understanding and applying the language with that format is key. 5 Ws and H - A Writing Resource for Adding Details This resource is a new favorite! It teaches students to add meaningful details to their sentences. I often ask students to "tell me more." This writing activity gets them in the habit of giving more information in their sentences by adding thoughtful details. This resource is designed for gradual release. The first set of activities can be done in a whole group setting. A photograph is projected and students are asked to answer the 5W & H questions about the picture. This information is then used to write two thoughtful sentences. As students become more proficient with adding details to their sentences, the next set of activities can be done in either a small group setting or as an independent activity. The last set of activities are writing prompts that students can independently respond to in their notebooks. Posters are included which add a great visual reference for a classroom display. Restate the Question This is a simple, yet effective, activity that teaches students to restate the question or prompt in their answers, both orally and in writing. As a writing activity, either project a prompt on the whiteboard and have students write their responses in their notebooks, or print out the question and have them glue it into their notebook. This takes modeling the first several times, but afterwards should be a quick independent activity. For a speaking activity, pull out a card and ask the question. Students take turns answering several of the questions. This works great in a small group setting. My students often ask if we can keep on "playing." VIDEOS! VIDEOS! VIDEOS! Incorporating videos into my lessons is a MUST! When I plan a new unit, one of the first things I do is to scour the internet looking for fun and meaningful videos. My go to place is YouTube. There are some real gems out there, but it does take some looking. When I find a goody, it goes into my collection and I use it again and again. Here is a blog post that I wrote about using short films to teach reading comprehension skills. I continue to add to the list as I find new films. Click on the image to see the list! Check out my Short Film Bundle here. Monthly Themed Vocabulary This is an great resource to use with primary learners and beginning ELs. Each month contains 20 vocabulary words. I love this because it's relevant to what's happening around students at the given time of year. Along with the terms, which I use as a monthly word wall, matching cards, writing activities, a vocabulary booklet and BINGO games are included. In closing... As I create my weekly lesson plans, these "tried and true" resources are many of the activities that my students use throughout the school year. Having a collection of reliable and engaging materials available frees up the time I'd otherwise spend searching. I'm sure you have your go-to resources too. Happy teaching!! (Affiliate Link)
Research based teaching strategies you can use today with a free printable chart.
Commutative, associative, distributive... the math property terms can be a bit intimidating for elementary students being introduced to the addition and multiplication properties. I know some teachers
A basic crash course in phonics for teachers
Each classroom brings students of multiple learning styles and backgrounds. It is our job to provide opportunities that reach all of the many different learning styles that come to us. For this reason, it is
Frequently asked questions about the k5tech.net elementary technology curriculum. Read this if you're considering subscribing.
Differentiation and scaffolding can help students better understand and learn. Here are teaching ideas and tips to use in class.
The last two components of my math block are the math lesson and lesson assessment. I use the 5-E lesson model to teach new math content. I like the 5-E model because it allows the students to explore and discover the content on their own before I provide additional information and strategies. The 5-E model also allows me to facilitate the lesson through questioning and assess the students' understanding throughout the lesson through my observations. While I regularly plan my lessons using this format, I have found it necessary to adapt the format to fit the needs of my students. With that in mind, I will add that this lesson format may take me more than one day to complete and I sometimes complete several explore and explain cycles before getting to the Elaboration stage. It all depends on the students! I have included the lesson format below along with a description of each of the five Es and activity ideas that can be used to address each component.
It can be alarming to have a non-English speaking student assigned to your classroom. Our guest blogger shares her top 10 tips for handling this situation.
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!
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.
A cheat sheet of education theorists and their research based teaching practices.
Hi Everyone! I hope everyone is having a FANTASTIC summer. If you are anything like me, you spent all of June telling yourself summer would last forever, and all of July eyeing everything at the Target Dollar Spot, wondering just HOW much money is too much money to spend there… Well, my classroom is receiving […]
I love to read in my class. It is just something that brings so much joy to so many, that I feel like it needs a place of honor in my room. And while we do read our fair share of nonfiction, where I find myself (and my students) drawn to is the fiction stories. They are just so full of awesomeness that I can't help myself. With those great reads comes great lessons. Books (in general) have a beginning, middle, and end. They start with introductions, take the reader through many different actions which lead to the climax, that point we have been waiting for, and then solve the problems with a nice, neat ending. (OK, OK...I know not every.single.book does that, but I am talking in general!) So this past week, I wanted to focus on that story structure we call PLOT and bring it to the attention of my students. One thing that I have been doing, and have written a bit about in the past few weeks, is take a large reading topic (character, setting, plot) and teach it to my students over the course of the week. I break the idea into smaller, 20 minute chunks, and teach from there. It is working so very well! This week's chunk lessons all dealt with the idea of plot and how everything we read follows the same basic "formula". We started with an anchor chart describing each part of the plot diagram. What is exposition? Why is rising action the longest part? What does climax do for the story? Falling action and resolution are different? Then, we discussed how There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar follows this plot structure. I asked them to think-pair-share with a partner to see if they could come up with examples that fall into each of the categories. Then, after a group debrief on their T-P-S, I sent them back to their seats, with a plot diagram I had made and asked them to write down their thoughts. You can grab this diagram here. Day Two and Three had us looking at a story (written by my husband!) and trying to dissect it for plot elements. We read the story aloud, and then color coded the story using our crayons to represent different elements of plot. Deciphering between the exposition and rising action, and then falling action and resolution proved to be quite challenging! Our discussion kept us moving along though and the students were able to do this quite well. On these days, I wanted them to create a little drawing/writing project that would keep them interested in the story and also serve to get their ideas from the oral discussion to a more written, concrete form. So I asked the students to take the color-coded writing and draw a picture for each of the five elements. What picture would represent the exposition? What about the climax? How would the resolution be drawn? For Day Three I asked them to do the same thing, but instead of drawing it, I wanted written EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXT (ahhh....getting some of that testing jargon in there!!) Everything seems to go back to that test, doesn't it? That then lead us into the writing portion of this for the week. I wanted the students to be able to write a clear, coherent paragraph on the subject of plot so for Day Four and Five, I had them choose a picture book that they were familiar with. I guided them towards books that I knew had a clear beginning, middle, and end (ie: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans or Stellaluna by Janel Cannon ) and gave them an organizer to fill in outlining the plot details of the story. Then, using a paragraph organizer, I asked them to construct a complete paragraph plot summary. This was to tell what happened in the story, from exposition to resolution, without giving everything way. It was to be barebones and focus on the main ideas in the text. Using the organizer really helped the kids to do this. They were forced to only pick a few of the details, and really helped them to be sure they had parts from each plot element. I wish I had a completed one, but I forgot to take pictures of it! So sorry about that!! So that is what we did for our study of Plot in 5 Days. If you would like to have the full lesson plans, standards addressed, organizers, and all, I have complied them for you in my TpT store. I really, really love how these lessons turned out and kept my kids focused. It was great hearing them talk about Plot even out of context of language arts (ie: in theatre or when discussing a movie they had seen.) I also love that I was able to do this, and produce some bulletin board worthy products, in 5 days! Win-win for all! What are some things you do to teach your students about plot?
The objective of this worksheet is to train the forms of irregular verbs. It is a fun activity. It's a board game. There isn't a solution. It's a good way to relax and at the same time to train the irragular verbs. - ESL worksheets
Teaching students about modal auxiliary verbs can be so tricky! Check out this blog post that contains an anchor chart and four free posters!
This FREE handout is a great activity for warm-ups or even early finishers. This handout was inspired by the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. Here is the BLANK version. This is a good opti…
Engage your math students right from the start! In this post, I share five engaging lesson hooks for math, including resource links to get started.
Twelve topics with prompting words to speak on. Thank you!!! - ESL worksheets
A fun and engaing, problem solving spelling word game. No prep - simply print and play to learn. Use with any spelling word list.
Learn three simple things you need to teach your ESL beginners right away. These include variations of introductions, classroom surroundings and basic needs
Doodlr is a spin on Tumblr. Students make connections with words and symbols through doodling. This activity includes a parabola graphic organizer for students to label in relation to real-world scenarios. Available in printable form and digital for Google Slides.Add more iMath activities to the pho...
An Upper Elementary Collaborative blog written by 13 teachers. Includes teaching ideas and resources for grades 3, 4, and 5.
Music class is an active, engaging, and joyful experience! This is especially true when our musical activities are grounded in creative and intentional teaching strategies. One of the most important teaching strategies has to do with teaching the difference between steady beat and the rhythm of
All students want to feel part of their classroom community. Here are four activities to help them feel welcomed and comfortable.
This past week, we learned about synonyms. The kids really grasped the concept by mid-week! I am excited to see them start using synonyms...
Help your students understand division vocabulary with these simple tricks that are sure to help them understand the parts and grab a freebie!
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Here are some great grammar games, ideas, and activities that will help early/middle elementary aged kids enjoy grammar just a bit.
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
Teacher Burnout Explained in Two Pie Graphs This is a non-scientific (but probably pretty accurate) graphic I have created using my experience as a teacher. Another title for this chart could be "Teacher Burnout Explained
A daily discussion question is a great way to build relationships with students and foster classroom community. Instead of wasting time coming up with questions, check out this list of 50+ discussion
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.
First grade anchor charts are great tools for reminding kids about concepts in math, writing, spelling, science, and more! Check out these great ideas.
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...
The 5E Model of Science Instruction was exactly what I needed to streamline the process of planning and implementing a student-led inquiry-based learning
Are you looking for some activities for teaching suffixes? Check out these free materials including activities for Google Slides, videos, anchor charts,
