When Junior High and Middle School was introduced in 1909, the children sat at desks, were lectured, and encouraged to study in preparation for a career as the primary focus. Over the past century, the curriculum has been updated by legislators, and new textbooks have been issued, but not

This week I'm sharing a packet of materials on using and making dichotomous keys. You'll find a page of informational text, directions for using a key, directions for making a key, and two different student worksheets. Here's a sneak peak at the contents. Download Dichotomous Keys. I hope you get a chance to use these in your home or classroom. Please let me know if you try these and how you like them! **Updated January 2019. Please note that in the updated version the Blue-footed Booby has been replaced with another animal.

Harmful and Beneficial Microorganisms Sort - digital and printable This engaging activity allows students to examine multiple microorganisms (microbes) and decide if it is harmful or beneficial. The printable version is a cut, sort, and glue activity with the answer key provided. Now included for Digital Learning and 1:1 schools - A Digital Google Slides version of the sort. Students drag and drop pictures into the correct columns. This is easy to assign and grade digitally. It also works well in Google Classroom. Customer Tips: Earn TPT Credits for future purchases • Go to your “My Purchases” page and click on the “Provide Feedback” button. To learn about future sales, new products, and FLASH FREEBIES: • Click the green star next to my store logo. If you need to contact me, please send me an email at [email protected] If you love this product, take a look at my other Science resources: • Plant and Animal Cells Bundle • Plant and Animal Cell Comparison • Microorganisms Word Wall Vocabulary Cards • Water Cycle Bundle

Included in this long ago unit are anchor charts, sorts, student worksheets and an interactive social studies flap book. Get a freebie in this blog post!

Are you working on parts of speech this school year? This printable pack includes a game for finding the difference between a noun and a verb, nouns vs. proper nouns, multiple parts of speech, and a create your own option. Even better, this is a free printable pack! Each game includes its own set of rules and printable word cards to go with it. There are even two game boards to offer some variety in game play.

Helpful posts and sites with lots of information and inspiration for Montessori elementary homeschools.

Learn the real homeschooling pros and cons, like what you should know know and why. Important things to know for your homeschool!

• SPARK IMAGINATION & PROMOTE SELF-EXPRESSION – Let kids choose their colors and watch their creativity take flight as they create their own geography study aids.• IMPROVE FOCUS & CONCENTRATION – Coloring encourages spatial awareness and helps kids focus on boundaries and lines.• BOOST CONFIDENCE – Completing a coloring page, big or small, will give kids a great sense of accomplishment and improve their self-esteem. • ENHANCE HAND & EYE COORDINATION – Coloring involves a variety of actions including holding crayons or markers, choosing colors and sharpening colored pencils. All of these tasks help children build their hand and eye coordination.Product Description:Our Color Your Own All About My State Posters are perfect classroom supplies for your geography study! Students can show off everything they know about their state as they use their own markers to make these paper posters bright. Perfect study aids, brightly colored posters help youngsters retain information long after the course is over. The finished posters are wonderful classroom decorations!Size: 22 x 17Quantity: 30Material: Paper© OTC”These posters are wonderful for researching information about a state. Provide each student with a poster and then each can be researching a different state. The information is appropriate and can be used as an assessment in a classroom.”Amy, Educational Product Development Specialist, Nebraska

October is here and we are gearing up for some fun, hands-on and engaging learning! We have you covered with NO PREP packets for: Preschool,

I've been tossing and turning about HOW to implement this little beauty into our school day. A great idea, but how to fit it in with all the other great ideas that we already have? Additionally - what WORDS should I use? I did find a neat list online. Got any ideas?? ps. If you click the worksheet you can download it for FREE. This week I'll be linking up with: I hope you will join us. :o) Thanks for visiting.

This study guide and infographic for Richard Adams's Watership Down offer summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text. Explore Course Hero's library of literature materials, including documents and Q&A pairs.

I just discovered Todd Wilson's homeschooling cartoons. I may just be the last mom to do so. I'm so out of the loop. Sigh. I did have a great laugh this morning, however!

This hub provides information about the tutoring company Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes. Lindamood-Bell's programs include Seeing Stars (word attack), Visualizing and Verbalizing (comprehension), and On Cloud Nine (math). Lindamood-Bell is an expensive yet effective program that often helps students increase many grade levels in reading or math comprehension in a short time.

This tutorial shows your students the universal proofreading marks and how to use them. Plus, you'll get examples and an exercise to reinforce the information.

This week we started to learn about informational writing. My class LOVES nonfiction so I knew they would be excited about this unit of study. Finally, they get to write about animals, plants or weather!! We are learning about Ladybugs. Our class project was to write about Ladybugs. We created the RAN chart above (Tony Stead/Linda Hoyt). We shared our thinking on a Voice Thread about Ladybugs. We went on a great Ladybug site that gave us lots of information. I actually learned many things I didn't know about ladybugs. We read some great books about Ladybugs. Anchor Chart I love how this anchor chart came out! All of the illustrations are made by the kids. Whenever possible I always want to see something made by kids rather than store bought! For the last week, we have been learning all of the things above. In the past, I have always made it optionally for kids to write ALL About books (Lucy Calkins). This year I kept the model from Explorations and had all the kids work on a Group Write. Quick Thought I decided to provide more scaffolding for students for the class write. You will see below that I created a template that made it easier for kindergartner. It made it MUCH easier for the group!! Ladybugs eat aphids. Can kindergartner's write a table of contents on their own? YES YES!! I put a blank page after the cover. The kids did great with this task of adding the Table of Contents after the book was put together. I LOVE the kid writing! labeling your ladybug Ladybugs can be different colors. Ladybugs get together in the winter. Ladybugs can be fun and when you be quiet they come. Ladybugs can bite it can be painful. Ladybugs are poisonous. When ladybugs are young they are larva. Next steps, students are working on their own informational book. We will use some Thinking maps to gather information. I can't wait to share next week. click here for Ladybug report Fonts by KG (pg 1-6) Frame from My Cute Graphics

Teach Up! How to improve your teaching with Bloom's Taxonomy. Use this powerful model to expand your homeschool teaching.

Are you interested in teaching your child in a way that creates energy and excitement for learning? The unschooling method encourages your child to learn.

Hi guys. How are you? Can I have your attention for a couple of minutes? Can you have a look at this information? Can you do the exercises?

Get your students outside this school year! We have some tried and true ideas and teacher tips to help you teach your students outside!

Attracts wild birds to your backyard year-round Made from a mixture including rendered beef suet, peanuts, corn, suet, oats and soy oil Non-melting beef based suet is ideal for a year-round feeding Great for birdwatching from home Designed for use with suet cake feeders Made in the USA

When I can’t find things I need I tend to make them myself. Worksheets are not the greatest way to learn, but sometimes they really do help kids practice essential information and lock it into their repertoire of knowledge. Here are some dipthong worksheets that I created and I am offering them as free printables […]

An in-depth introductory guide to spiral dynamics stages: How to apply it for self-development and leadership practices within an organization.

Get the year off to an awesome start with these Back to School Writing Prompts. Perfect for writing walls, journals, and writing folders.

Planting lifelong foundations in early childhood

How to write a letter. Formal, and Informal letters included. Planning tools, video tutorials, writing prompts, and teaching ideas for English teachers, students, and parents.

As the arts lose more and more of a hold in education, it becomes increasingly important for teachers to find ways to integrate the arts in their classes.

"Cheat sheets" always helped me in school. Being a visual learner, they were a quick and easy way to memorize a lot of information in a short amount of time. Here are a list of my favorite

Awesome Spring Writing Prompts for First Grade. Narrative, Informative, and Opinion Writing organizers and draft pages included in fun spring themes.

I LOVE saving figurative language until June - it's such a fun language unit ... and perfect for our "dreaming of summer brains". We finished up our EQAO testing mid week, and this onomatopoeia activity was the perfect break from testing. How fun is that??? Students chose two contrasting colours - one for the background and one for the word and border "bursting out of the page". They also needed newspaper (cut just a fraction smaller that the "bursting out of the page border" and glued the newspaper on top. They glued their word on top of that (we had brainstormed a lot of onomatopoeia words, but for some reason most of them chose SPLAT for their word). I also had them do a little shading under their letters for that little extra POP (see, I know some onomatopoeia words, too). ;) I had seen this awesome idea on Pinterest and followed it back to Artisan des Arts. Her examples are FANTASTIC!! We also wrote simile poems this week. I found a little template HERE for the students to use for their rough copies. When students were finished their templates, I had them write out their good copies, and illustrate a few lines with a small image. I hung these up, too ... LOVING our bulletin board switch up ... even this late in the school year!!! (I have two of these "smART class" bulletin boards side by side in the classroom. 15 more school days left ... I think I can ... I think I can ... Happy Friday!!!

Noun phrases, like "the dog" or "the tall, handsome man with the red hat," provide essential information about the subjects and objects of sentences. In this

Look inside this tutoring binder to see what one elementary teacher brings to tutor struggling students in literacy and math. Lots of resource and freebies!

More logical fallacies My sci-fi thriller, LAZARUS, is now out on both Smashwords and Amazon! Follow The Upturned Microscope on Twitter and Facebook!

Here’s a fun way to learn How to do Research produced by the Kentucky Virtual Library.