Can you crack the code? Put the letters in order and find a secret message from PBS KIDS' Martha Speaks.
Poetry haiku ideas to get students reading and writing poetry. Use this template to teach learners how to write a haiku.
These Reading Journal PDF printables help you track your reading and easily crush your book goals, even if you lack time or inspiration.
Haven't tried a book tasting with your students yet? This fun reading activity is an awesome way to introduce genres in your elementary classroom or library!
Ok so…I know I haven’t posted much of anything lately. That’s because I’ve been working on a Pacing Guide to use this school year. I wanted to make it editable…
Blondie recipe that is perfectly chewy, ready in less than 30 minutes, and topped with crackly cinnamon and sugar!
Independent reading is a great way to help students build a love of reading! These 5 strategies help hold students accountable!
Today, I want to share my lessons and goals for the first few days in reading workshop with you. It is going to be the first day of school real soon {maybe some of you are already back in the swing of things!} and you are going to be busy! You will surely have a list a mile long of the thi
Okay--I think I have admitted this before but here I go again, I dislike teaching writing. {Gasp!} I know, shame on me. Such an important part of a day in the life of a first grader. I'm contributing my dislike of writing to not be such a great writer myself growing up. One of my .unstated. resolution's was to become a better writing teacher. Well, let me tell you...this week I have jumped right in! Seems like I just hadn't found a way(in the past) that fit me or my students. While I was going through my writing folder desperately searching for ideas, I found a sheet that gave me inspiration and my writing lessons were brought to fruition! We started off this week talking about "story starters" and how important it was to catch your readers attention in the first sentence or two of your story. The anchor chart *fanatic* that I am made this: Here are the books I used that had great beginnings to show examples of interesting ways to start a story. The next day we picked a character to write our story about and described it using my 'Describe a Snowman' bubble map. I told them I wanted them to use their imagination and be creative. I showed them a few different type of snowmen (from clipart I found) to get their little wheels spinning. Their creativity came to life and describing is what they did! Our next step was to talk about the parts of a story: beginning, middle, end. We discussed these concepts: Beginning=story starter, character and setting introduction. Middle=give your character a problem. Ending=solve the problem and end the story. They caught onto this SOOOOO much better than I ever imagined! I created a worksheet for them to record their thoughts. After completion, we talked about the AND Disease! They thought this was HILARIOUS!!! I wrote and example of something like this on the board: When I read it they {laughed and laughed and laughed}! They thought I was crazy for using the word AND so many times. They were surprised when I told them that --they-- were actually the ones who were consumed by this disease! I had them go back and edit their papers for the "and disease", capitalization and puncuation. Our final day of writing consisted of completing our final draft. I had them transfer their edited writing and complete it by drawing a picture. I was in ~AWE~ after reading most of their stories....had I really taught them step by step with my own ideas!? Heck yes, I felt like I had hit the jackpot!! We will be at it again this week creating a penguin story to go along with our penguin unit! I'm hoping the process will be a little bit more independent (fingers-crossed)! This teacher is all smiles : ) P.S. If you made it this far, you can click on all the above templates and pick them up in my TpT store for FREE!
So, are you itching for winter break to get here or what?!? I am drowning here, people! Between report cards, conferences (for my students and my own kids!), shopping, baking, parties, wrapping... DROWNING!Don't get me
Independent reading is a great way to help students build a love of reading! These 5 strategies help hold students accountable!
Find out about an engaging story elements game that easily works with any fiction text that your students will beg you to play!
Are you looking for engaging grammar centers? These parts of speech activities are perfect. Here are 7 noun centers for teaching grammar.
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.
I can't believe this school year is almost over! I have only 5 days of school left, Friday is our last day. I will miss my kiddos dearly but am super excited to start my summer vacation. Next school year will bring so many changes for me~~new partner teacher (SUPER excited!!), best friend coming back to teach at my school (YAHOO!!), my baby girl is starting 8th grade at another school (BOO HOO!), and 3rd grade will switch classes next year (SCARED!!)!! I will need the summer to get ready for my 27+ new students next year. I love planning over the summer and will need this summer to prepare for switching classes. Switching won't be so bad, I will teach religion to 2 classes. I am really happy about not teaching science and social studies too!! I always have a hard time fitting these 2 subjects in on a daily basis. My students have been really busy these last 2 weeks doing my favorite all-time writing assignment~~~My Favorite Summer Vacation! I just love this writing and really LOVE how the finished essays turn out. Check them out below. You can click (HERE) to download the sunglasses template. You need to make 2 copies and tape them together. See below!! This year I decided to give out Candy Awards. I literally ran all over town looking for each type of candy. I even had my honey helping me (He was so cute going from store to store!)! I had the hardest time finding Lifesavers (Who would believe that?!). You can download your own set of Candy Awards from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. I found these awards during the summer and have been saving them all year. Check them out below! I can't wait to share them with my students tomorrow!!! Here is just a taste of what the awards look like! They are precious!!!! Here is a fun project I did with my class last week. I found this idea on Pinterest and just HAD to try it with my class! Look at the pictures below and try to see the shape! I am in LOVE with this!!
Students are never too big or too old to be read to. Middle school and high school English Language Arts teachers discussed the purposes and structures of read alouds in their classrooms. Teachers also shared favorite read aloud titles, ways to use read alouds with writing instruction, and where to find great read aloud recommendations. Read through the chat for ideas to implement in your own classroom.
I kind of love to share tricks for improving handwriting. There are so many “parts” to written work. There’s fine motor dexterity, pencil grasp, strength, endurance, visual perceptual skills, cognitive skills among other parts to handwriting. You can see more about these topics on our Handwriting page. One big way to develop the skills needed ... Read more
Need to get your ADHD reading? See how this mom of 2 ADHD boys turned things around and got her kids to be prolific, successful readers. Lots of tips and tricks from a mom who has been there!
Making connections is a strategy that readers use to better understand the text they are reading. It's one of the most powerful strategies your readers have in their tool belts. Readers use their prior knowledge to make a text to self, text to text, or text to world connection to what they are reading. I have put together some lessons and activities for the elementary classroom that can be helpful in teaching this valuable reading strategy. The first thing you want to do is make sure students have a basic understanding of the word connection. You can start with this simple opening activity. Put four of the provided cards into a bag. Pull them out and show them to students. Ask them what the connection is between the objects in the bag. Have a conversation about how they are connected. Then talk about any connections they have to those objects. It's a very basic way of discussing what connections are. You can then relate that to making connections in a book. I included five sets of cards that you could use each day of the week or you could split the students into groups and have them discuss connections with their groups. I would model describing the connection on the card above, because students will have to describe their connections in writing during the unit. You could laminate this to use again. The posters I included cover the three different types of connections that readers can make. For the anchor chart, I also included sentence frames for students to refer to throughout the unit when describing their connections. Text to Self Connection Craft I would explicitly teach one type of connection each day at first. You can uses these crafts for students to record their connections each day. Lots of modeling will probably be needed. Text to Text Connection Craft Text to World Connection Craft Once students have learned the different types of connections, you can go into making them understand that you can make different types of connections within one text. Give each student the 3 strips for the different types of connections they can make to a text. You can then make them into a chain connecting these cards to the name of the text you read. Close your lesson by summarizing the connections made on the cards above. This is a great visual for students to understand how making connections works. I always like for my students to have these little hats to wear while practicing the strategy. They also can get these bookmarks and badges. Always use some sort of exit ticket to close your lesson. This is where you will get an additional assessment to guide your instruction for the next day, as well as your small strategy groups. I like to always include additional graphic organizers for additional lessons on making connections, as well as for small groups and centers. I made them for the three different types of connections. You can use these case files for your whole group lessons or during small group teacher table. After you have taught how these work, these are great for a literacy center! Finally, a fun Friday activity we love to do are Brown Bag Book Clubs! You fill the bag with popcorn and have students fill out the graphic organizer over a read aloud. They then get into groups to discuss their connections with their book club, as well as to review other strategies previously learned. I hope these making connections activities are helpful for your readers! You can find it HERE or by clicking any of the images in this post. If you own the Reading Comprehension Bundle, it has been added there, too, so be sure to download it in your My Purchases tab. Happy reading!
2nd Grade English Worksheets are such a fantastic way for kids to learn their grammar. Worksheets are fun and your kids can have fun while learning better communication. Adjectives, antonyms, compound words, verbs, nouns and pronouns can all be more fun with worksheets. When they’re done, they’ll make sentences like nobody’s business. Print them all […]
I am all done with parent conferences and it feels great! I had the most terrific year and I’m so happy to share my students’ progress with their parents. During parent conference time, I always love to have lots of student work to display. I absolutely love to incorporate student pictures into student work. This ... Read More about Silhouette Autobiographies and Read Across America
Are you looking for early finisher activities to keep your students engaged and productive when they complete their work early? Look no further! Here are 20 early finisher activities that your students will love. From creative projects to physical activities, there’s something here for everyone! These early finisher activities will help keep your students motivated and on task while also having a little fun. So grab the supplies, turn up the music, and let's get started with these awesome early finisher activities today! (Some links below are Amazon affiliate links. . .no extra charge for you, but it helps support
Memory wheels are a great end of school year activity for upper elementary and middle school students. Learn about memory wheel templates.
Need to get kids focused and ready for the day? Set-up a DIY Question of the Day board with a drip pan and a few simple materials. Kids love reading the different questions posted each school day!
I have always assigned nightly reading. Why? I don't assign nightly reading because I want to give students "reading homework." I don't assign nightly reading
I’ve been using a Word Wall with my high school students for 9 years now, and the results have been incredible. How: I have 90-minute classes, so I’m able to give my students 8-10 minutes of free reading time each day. I put this time at the BEGINNING of the class for several reasons. 1. ... Read More about How and Why to Use Word Walls with Older Students
Learn about about 24 greek god and goddesses in this fun, Greek Mythology for Kids printable pdf book filled with Greek myths.
(classroomdoodles.com) Enjoy some Name Template Coloring Pages. These are great for your students to have their own coloring page. Just print out the pages below and write in your students names. You can find more...
Wish teaching children about God's love could be easy but fun? With this Sunday School lesson on love, it is! Get the "God is Love" Bible lesson plan now...
The panemic in italy is all over the news. Help kids learn more about this amazing country with this FREE Italy for Kids Printable Book.
The first week of school generally consists of getting to know one another, in addition to discussion and practice of classroom procedures and routines. We also got our creative juices flowing by creating summer reflection writing pieces, squiggle stories, and "All About Me" mini-posters. Students are getting to know one another and me, and we are learning to work together to build a successful and positive classroom environment. On Wednesday, I wrote out six questions, all having to do with how to make our classroom and ourselves function to the highest level, on six pieces of chart paper. Students, in groups of three, spent two minutes at each chart, collaborating and responding to each question on a sticky note. After all groups visited each chart paper station, I hung all of the charts up and we discussed each answer and noticed some very interesting trends. Here's the finished product, which you can click on to enlarge: Inspired by Life in 4B To tie into the previous activity, I was inspired by my wonderful teammates, Mrs. Fadden and Ms. Mattox, to develop at class pledge with my students. We reviewed our responses to the above questions, and then we put all of the ideas together to form a cohesive paragraph that we have all agreed will help us to remember why we are here at school and what our common goal is. Below is the rough draft of our class pledge (which I will type up, make pretty, and have all of my students sign): Since we were able to develop a class goal (to achieve success in third grade), I also had each student determine an individual goal after reading the story Matthew's Dream by Leo Lionni. I displayed our "Hopes and Dreams" for third grade near the classroom door, so that we can refer to, and revisit, them throughout the year. Lots of students are interested in learning how to sharpen their cursive skills, multiplication and division skills. I was very impressed by the number of students ready to take on our 40 book challenge! More on that later! Here's our class display of our hopes and dreams for third grade: Lastly, I read a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? The premise is that everyone carries an invisible bucket everywhere they go. When your bucket is "filled" you feel happy.When your bucket is "empty" you feel sad or upset. People can fill buckets by lending a helping hand, smiling, being kind, including others in games, and more. People can empty buckets by teasing, being ungrateful, acting disrespectfully, and more. I encourage my students to recognize the actions of bucket-fillers by writing them quick note and sticking it in their bucket display. This helps make everyone feel good. When we feel good, we want others to feel good. Therefore, kindess is passed from person to person. This is our bucket-filling display, complete with ways we can fill buckets and ways we can empty buckets: I look forward to more of these types of meaningful activities that promote teamwork, kindness, and achievement with your child!
I talk quite a bit about classroom management on my blog. I have to be honest here. I have tried so many different things. I have tried the clip chart, I have tried check marks, I have tried the “flip the card”. NONE of them work for me. The book Dream Class really changed my thoughts on...
Kindergarten is a most delightful ages for read alouds–kids are full of wonder and silliness, and the selection of excellent picture books is enormous. Here are 50 of the best books for kindergarten.
No David by David Shannon is a classic book to read in kindergarten. Here are free No David activities, videos and book ideas listed all in one place.
Brown Bear Printable Activities {Free Printable Kindergarten Worksheets}If you love reading the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Eric Carle to your little one, than you want to check out these fun free printable activities for your kids. There is a matching game with all of the characters from the story, a coloring book, alphabet flip cards, a sequencing activity, and more.View This Tutorial
Learn all about Australian landmarks, culture, and food through crafts, activities, and recipes with these fun Australia activities for kids.
Learn about Mexico for Kids with these free printable Mexico Worksheets and printable books with cute clipart and information to read, color, and learn!