I actually meant to upload this post awhile back, but then State Testing madness and prep hit... so I didn't get a chance to post this. My...
Finally, a guide for upper elementary teachers that will show you how to teach research reports in a step-by-step format! If you are struggling with teaching the research report process, you are not alone. Seriously, we’ve
What is inertia? Investigate Newton's First Law Of Motion in this amusing egg drop experiment.
These 37 essay topics for 6th graders will help your kids form opinions, explore their ideas on paper, and express their thoughts confidently.
Learn about plants with this 80 page botany lesson for kids! Information, worksheets, experiments, and more for elementary age!
This is the third year that my students have completed my Transformation Summative Assessment Project. See my previous posts Here, yea...
We have recently wrapped up our summative watercolor project, called "identity maps". Students learned to express aspects of themselves usin...
This workbook covers the Grade 6 Flight unit in the NEW 2022 Ontario Science curriculum (Structures and Mechanisms).Students will demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which properties of air can be applied to the principles of flight and flying machines. Topics include the history of flight, ...
Finally, a guide for upper elementary teachers that will show you how to teach research reports in a step-by-step format! If you are struggling with teaching the research report process, you are not alone. Seriously, we’ve
Today I'm talking about using the 6+1 Traits of Writing. Why do I teach with the Traits? It works perfectly with the B.C. Curriculum. Students get it. It breaks the writing process down into steps we can layer up all year. That means writing doesn't seem like such a large task. And that means, kids will usually write more because they feel a whole lot less overwhelmed. Sounds pretty good to me! Here is the writing board in my classroom. A large portion of it is taken up by my 6 Traits checklist. As the year goes on, and we introduce new pieces, it fills up and serves as a giant criteria list. The blank space to the left is where I add pieces specific to a current focus (figurative language, punctuation, etc.) You don't need to have a board dedicated to the Traits if you teach with the Traits. I do for two reasons: 1) I have the space. 2) It serves a giant checklist students can self assess their writing on that builds through the year as we learn new elements. You'll often hear me say "just because we are working on -----, don't forget all the other pieces we already know". A quick scan of the board and students know exactly what I'm looking for in their writing. (Download that awesome "What do Writers Write?" pencil here!) VOICES? Why does it say "Use your writing VOICES?". Well, VOICES is an acronym for the Traits. V- Voice O- Organization I - Ideas C- Conventions E- Excellent Word Choice S- Sentence Fluency They are now promoting 6+1 Traits and the +1 is Presentation. That didn't make it to my board.... but we do discuss it often. When I was starting out with the Traits, I wasn't sure where to go for resources. Here are some of my favourites to help you out: "Using Picture Books to Teach Writing With the Traits" is an excellent resource. Even though I teach grade 4, I still use it. They give you a scripted lesson plan for every trait as well as several other picture books that fit the trait and how you could use them to inspire writing. I use their examples and then extend on it for my bigger kids. Here are my favourite picture book for for each trait: Voice The story of the 3 Little Pigs told through the Wolf's perspective. Gives students a chance to think about the other side of things, and, it's funny. Organization Or any of the "If you Give a..." books. I love how they are cyclic. You really have to think ahead to write one of these stories. Good cause and effect too. Okay, I picked two for organization. Scaredy books are organized in a different way. I love all the charts and diagrams. Ideas This book is a favourite for many reasons. It is so touching. The boy in this story is searching for the answer to what a memory is. So many beautiful answers are given to him. Conventions This book uses two words. Yo! and Yes? You can talk about how the punctuation helps imply more language than is given. I also like to teach inferring with this book. Excellent Word Choice Max collects words. Although some of his words are basic, he collects some powerful ones as well. The author uses descriptive language throughout this book. Sentence Fluency I like to teach sentence fluency with poetry, because Jack's poems have such a good flow. They just roll off your tongue when you read them. And, they are hilarious. Pin this post. Helping to inspire,
Practice multiplication with FUN, free printable Multiplication Worksheets that turn into a handy booklet. Fun math activity for kids!
Rock... paper... scissors! Discover a bit more about the math behind this childhood game with this exercise in probability.
Congratulations you have almost made it to the end of the school year! As you begin wrapping up the end of the year testing season I'm sure you have begun to experience the burn out that is common around this time in the school year. Your kids are experiencing it as well. Why not take some time to
If you've got a student that needs practice using his protractor, print up a couple of free, printable game boards and get ready to have some fun! Each player will draw a card and draw the angle stated on the card. The object of the game is to be the first player to get all around the world. Such an easy and fun way to practice working with a protractor!
When I look back to my first experience teaching five paragraph essays to fifth graders, I can remember how terribly unprepared I felt. I knew that the five paragraph essay format was what my students needed
Circuit activities are a great way for kids to learn about electricity. Check out this intro to simple circuits, fun bots and paper circuit cards.
Is homework stressing you out? Here are my top 6 strategies for simplifying your homework systems.
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Looking for a better way to teach transformations on the coordinate plane? Keep things simple and use patty paper for translations, rotations, and reflections. Three easy activities will have students discovering the rules for themselves.
We just finished up our FOSS Magnet portion of the kit that we need to cover in fourth grade each year. I love the activities and supplies that FOSS offers, but at times the fun of magnets is lost in the FOSS lessons. Our science standards that we are using in our city are based on 1991 standards from our state. This seems a bit outdated even though many of these concepts are seen in the new NGSS standards. Because our state has not adopted these new standards I like to take what we already have to do and integrate the new NGSS standards where ever I can. The great thing about magnets also is that the 3rd grade NGSS science standards of Forces and Interactions fit perfectly within the FOSS Magnet unit. 3-PS2-3 has students: ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other. So for example you could have students take two permanent magnets and see the relationship between steel paperclips with one magnet vs. the relationship between two magnets and those same steel paperclips. FOSS gives you the magnets, but how you use them to cover other standards is the key. You can also use the FOSS lesson of the farther apart magnets are the weaker the force...by testing and using the NGSS standards to prove the cause and effect relationships and how they culd show that the distance between objects affects strength of the force and how they orientation of magnets affects the direction of the magnetic force. Using what they know about magnets can help you figure out how to take the curriculum that you have and how you can add the NGSS standards to existing lessons. Here is what I did... As I focused on creating extensions of our magnet unit, I focused on 3-P S2-4. I created one of the activities that students can create a simple game design that can solve a problem as they apply scientific ideas about magnets. Maybe they could make a game that uses a latch to keep something shut or create a game that can keep two moving objects from touching each other... this then takes once again the FOSS Magnet section and extends it with activities that tie in NGSS standards. There is only one real way to teach them effectively with whatever standards you are working with...hands-on. Loving the magnets of FOSS, but not loving the lack of fun interactive activities...I made my own! When the students were done exploring the different lessons I had to do... such as permanent magnet interactions with a bag of objects to discovering the forces of attraction and repulsion there is so much more you can do with these concepts they could work on stations that were set up around the room. What I loved to see was how they worked hard to make sure that their FOSS sheets were done (requirement before they got to pick a station in the room...) You might also see in some of my activities that we did...we used the idea that FOSS had, but made it more kid friendly and connected it with their lives. This connections help them understand the WHY of why they are learning about magnets! Check out the activities and stations that were set out for my students to choose from! Interested in this Magnet Unit for your kiddos? Find it HERE!
If you are like many, math might not be the easiest subject to teach when it comes to homeschooling. One thing I have learned along the way is you learn as you go, right there with your child. Below are a variety of math websites to use in homeschooling your child. These are free resources ... Read More about Free Math Websites for Homeschooling Grades 6-12
Out of all of the million strategies that we are asked to teach for reading, compare and contrast has got to be one of my favorites. I love reading passages and analyzing how they're alike and different and I think it's fun for the kids too. Whether it's a paired passage narrative or a set of informational texts, there are so many things you can do with this concept, that it's hard to narrow it down to just a few. But, narrow it down I did and here they are...6 tips for teaching Compare and Contrast written by The Teacher Next Door.
As we all know, STAAR 2.0 is upon us, and students will be assessed differently than in the past. Our Boom Cards will prepare your students for success. Do you… feel overwhelmed finding resources that align with STAAR 2.0? have good ideas but no time to create? need help with engagement for practicing new question ... Read more
Bloom's Taxonomy can help move your students through the learning process. Learn how to use it in your courses and classroom with this simple guide.
This summer, after attending a reading workshop, I've made it my goal to amp up and improve my guided reading and shared reading instruction. With this in
7Th Grade Printable Worksheets is an amount of tips and techniques from teachers, doctoral philosophers, and professors, the way to use worksheets in
Here’s a fun STEM challenge, and the materials couldn’t be simpler! Challenge kids to build the longest possible paper chain with just one sheet of paper and tape. That’s it! This math activity will appeal to a wise range of ages. I’d recommend it for kids age 5 to 10. If they can safely cut […]
The idea for this lesson came from an image I saw on Pinterest.. but after doing some investigative work - seems to have originated from the blog Art. Paper. Scissors. Glue and before that from the 1991 book written by Sara Beggs, "The No Nonsense Guide to Teaching Art." For this lesson we began by taking about what symmetry is and the difference between linear symmetry (1 line of symmetry) and radial symmetry (more than 1 line of symmetry). Then we talked about what a sculpture is (a piece of artwork you can see from all sides - it is 3-dimensional) and what a relief "sculpture" is (a piece of artwork that has depth on the surface but is not meant to be seen from all sides). Once students understood the principles behind radial symmetry and sculpture we began creating our very own radial paper relief sculptures! Students started by folding a piece of 12"x12" black construction paper diagonally both ways and vertical and horizontally (to create an 'X' crease and a '+' crease). Making these creases makes creating a radial design SO much easier because it gives you guidelines to work with. Once their papers had been folded and their names written, we sat them aside. Before having students begin folding their colored paper (each piece was cut to 3" x 3") to fill the inside of their design, I demonstrated 4 folds to them to get them started. *Students were allowed to deviate from these folds if they wanted to. To download the handout below, click on the arrow button in the top right corner (this will open it in a new window). You can download from there. My kids absolutely LOVED this project! They are already super into origami, so this project was like heaven to them! :) You might also be interested in checking out my Paper Poinsettia Sculpture lesson which uses the same basic concepts. Also available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!
Geometric Art
It was about this time last year I took my third graders outside for a paper airplane competition. We had spent a half hour working in te...
Types of energy interactive foldable graphic organizer. They were suppose to write the definition and examples that included a pict...
Finally, a guide for upper elementary teachers that will show you how to teach research reports in a step-by-step format! If you are struggling with teaching the research report process, you are not alone. Seriously, we’ve
