Launching Writing Workshop! Launch a thriving Writing Workshop in just two weeks! Lessons, posters, fold ups, tools, and tips for a great year of writing. Introduce the Writing Process, teach the routines, and inspire your writers! Who is This For? 1st - 5th Grade Students Teachers wanting to lay the foundation for an awesome Writing Workshop! What is Included? * Writing Workshop Overview * 5 Detailed Lesson Plans for the launch * Fold Ups for student reference * Writing Workshop Printable Posters * Writing Process Printable Posters * Writing Conferences Guide, Planner, and Samplers * Writing Rubrics (basic and process) * Anchor Chart Ideas * Revising and Editing Foldups This pack is all about giving you the framework for an effective Writing Workshop. The posters, rubrics, and conference tools will help you all year long! The lessons and materials are designed to be used with elementary aged students and can easily be adapted to various abilities. The 5 lessons are written to take 1 -3 days each depending on time available and student age. Why Buy? A thriving Writing Workshop is the best way to grow motivated and effective young writers. This pack provides all the resources you need to get started! For more about this product and to view sample pages, click the PREVIEW button above! Thanks so much! I hope you found just what you needed!:) Kady from The Teacher TrapDon’t forget to CLICK THE STAR by my store name to FOLLOW! You’ll receive only one message a month and I’ll share special offers, new products, and updates! Popular Products: *Positive Parent Communication Tools and Tips *Lesson Planning Pack *Editable Classroom Handbook *Welcome Back Book *Classroom Team Jobs Popular Reading: *READ Rotations *Book Clubs Made Easy *Author Study Made Easy *Task Cards for Inferring Word Meaning with Character Traits and Feelings *Reading Test Prep 101 *One Week to More Detailed Visualizing *Dictionary Scavenger Hunts

Take this quiz to find out if your a good student or not. You probably already know if you are so therefore this quiz is pointless.

Check out this list of over 85 Apps that Integrate with Google Classroom! Did you know that Google Classroom plays well with others? Yep! Google is known for making their applications open to working with third-party applications, and Google Classroom is no exception.

⭐️ I know we all struggle with teaching adults how to foster independence in our students with autism and special ed. This blog post and infographic can help get everyone get on the same page.

Over the past two-three weeks, I have been working on classroom posters and diagrams for my room. I teach first grade and took the opportunity of moving into a new room to redecorate my room a litt…

Designers do not rely on norms and forms rather they like to switch to the latest techniques and popular genres from old & rusty genres. Typography is one of those profound arts that look amazingly

I needed a new approach with my hallway bulletin board this year, due to my new teaching position. I'm usually cutting out owls or Minions or popcorn at this time of year, but instead of welcoming a new crop of third grade students, I needed something more general and inspirational for all students.

We are sharing tips on how parents can best help their kids with school projects. See how we helped ours with the Kids Cloud Science Project.

Do U undRstNd wot I'm writing? I cn garNT yor students do. OMG - how kewl wud dey tink U R f U rOt a writiN prompt UzN thR language? wot f U lt dem wrte bak 2 U n txt lingo? Put a whol nu spin on a pln old writiN assignment. I took part in a technology webinar tonight (more on that in tomorrow's post), but I just HAD to visit one of the sites I learned about the minute the webinar was over. Transl8it is a trendy, FREE site that translates English messages into text lingo, or vice versa. I'm definitely going to use this next year in my writing classes. I will translate one of my writing prompts into text lingo and display it over the projector for the kids. I think I will even let them write me back in text lingo at least once ... but it might take this 'old' teacher weeks to figure out what they are writing ... rotfl. ;)

I have tried a variety of classroom management ideas over the years...names on the board with checkmarks, (okay, that was 30 years ago), moving clips up and down, bean jars, prizes, etc. For the past 5 years, since I moved up from 2nd to 4th grade, I have used an idea given to me by a fellow 4th grade teacher...(thanks Stephanie!) Teacher Points/Student Points! What I love about this system is that it takes absolutely no preparation or money, and I can use it as much or as little as I want, (or remember!) Here's the basic idea...I have a little scoreboard at the front of the room, (I actually just draw mine on the chalkboard.) When students are on-task, I just walk over and put a tally mark in the student column. If they are loud, off-task, or not following directions, I get a point. When they travel quietly in the halls they get a point. If another adult compliments the class, they get a point. When they transition quickly, they get a point, etc. Once I explain it at the beginning of the year, from that point on, all I have to do is walk towards the scoreboard if they are being too loud and they immediately quiet down ... without me saying anything ... gotta love that! At the end of the day, whoever has more points gets 5 minutes. If they win, they get to put the 5 minutes towards Friday afternoon's Choice Time. If I win, I keep the 5 minutes for learning, because the fact that I have more points means we must have lost learning time that day being off-task. Occasionally they skunk me, meaning I didn't get any points that day. When that happens, they get 10 minutes towards Choice Time. Believe me, that is very motivating! They will remind each other to follow the rules and I don't have to say a word..."Guys! We're skunking her...get in a quiet line!" (said in an intense whisper as we were lining up to go to a special, and they know I need a quiet line to travel in the hall.) At the beginning of the year, I award points more frequently during the day as we are building routines. Later on, I honestly forget sometimes! That's the beauty of this system, though...the number of points doesn't matter. It's just whoever has more at the end of the day. It usually works out that students earn between 20-30 minutes for Choice Time. We have a rule that if they don't earn at least 15 minutes, we roll the minutes over into another week, because less than that just isn't worth it. One other thing that I do occasionally is to allow one student to earn a student point for the entire class. As an example, we do a yoga-type program first thing in the morning called Get Ready to Learn. I have a student with ADHD who has a very hard time sitting in his chair, let alone participating in the yoga. He regularly disrupted the other students during this time. One day I noticed that he was really trying to do the movements, so after yoga I told the class that he had earned a point for the whole class because he did something that was really hard for him. The class was excited and thanked him, and he felt great! I do still have to deal with individual students being off-task or disruptive. I don't take a teacher point for this. I use positive time-out as recommended by Responsive Classroom. Sometimes students may need to stay in a recess and complete a behavior reflection. It varies with the situation. So, if you're looking for a simple whole-class management system, maybe give this a try!

Creative ideas for who you can build collaboration in the classroom - YOUR classroom! Ideas and videos included!

All the kids went Back to School this week, and I barely managed to pull my room together in time. Honestly, I don't know where the time goes. Pinterest is where I found the idea for the signs the girlies are holding. That ding dang website is giving me more ideas than I can ever hope to implement. It would be frustrating if it weren't so blinking inspiring. Now I have Inspiration Induced Frustration. Just what I needed. Another condition to suffer from. I found this idea on Pinterest too. It's my sort of hideous, but super fun Back to School manicure. Some people couldn't tell what my nails are actually supposed to be, although I'm sure you know. I've received a lot of pained smiles with the question "Are those your school colors or something?" Humph. In the tone of voice which implies "I'm so sorry." Okay, fine. They are supposed to be pencils. Get it? The tips of my fingers are the erasers. The silver is the clampy part that joins the eraser to the pencil. I think my manicurist really outdid herself. I took my Pinterest picture in to her, and she very graciously humored me. I've had quite a few requests to do a classroom tour post, and since I've been working on my classroom for the past two weeks, I figured it's only going to look worse as the year goes on, so I'd better take some pictures now. Ready or not. These are the built-in cubbies as you walk into my room. The cubbies are great because the student desks don't have enough room for all their books and their stuff. These cupboards and drawers are right next to the cubbies. I love all the storage I have in this classroom. Peanut Head loves it too, because that means the stuff isn't stored in our garage anymore. More room for Christmas decorations, whoo hoo! I'm sorry this picture is so dark. We can thank the windows for that. This is my classroom library. I've posted about this magnetic board before. It's where my students make their lunch choice every day by putting their number magnet in the box for their choice. Any numbers that are left on the grid represent absent students. This gives me the lunch count and the attendance all in one tool. I also post the students who have Hall Monitor duty and Peer Tutoring, and it serves as my behavior management tool as well. If a student receives a warning, they move their magnet into the yellow zone. If they get in trouble again, they move their magnet into the Red Zone of Consequences and then have to fill out a Pink Slip and take it home to be signed by a parent. I've been using this board for the past two years, and it is my absolute favorite classroom management tool. The red rectangles sticking out of my bookcases are my new library guides. I love them now, but it was one of those projects that involved some trial and error. Okay, a lot of trial and a lot of error. If you want to make some library guides like these, you can find the instructions and digi graphics here. I know a lot of teachers group their books by level and/or subject, but I group mine by author, so this works great for me. I also have number images in the same style that I used for numbering my cupboards, and you can find those in the same post. This is my desk area, and I have to say it's not at its tidiest here. I literally ran out of time and ended up taking some considerably large piles and shoving them under my desk. I have impressive problem solving skillz. Oh looky. I see a pile oozing out of that corner on the floor too. Perhaps I'll tend to it over the Thanksgiving break. Or not. It's good to have goals even if they are unrealistic. Janae, the Vinyl Magician did all my white board vinyl for me. It's a huge time saver to have that stuff on the board. I love it. I have plenty of bulletin boards too. I'm not a big fan of changing my bulletin boards. I like them to be functional, and I don't like the time involved in changing them. Therefore, I tend to put them up and keep them up. I did make some changes this year though, because they were starting to make me twitchy. That, and change is fun, isn't it? I love monsters, so I had to add some new monster borders that I bought a year ago and never had the time to put up. Since I was changing the borders anyway, I decided to put up some Cookie Monster blue butcher paper too. Cookie is my favorite monster. I've been wanting to do a math bulletin board for a long time. I'm always harping on the kids about their units, as Harrison so eloquently illustrated in his cartoon. I even put pictures above the bulletin board of the Mars Climate Orbiter and its intended trajectory as compared to its "Oops, my bad because my disagreeing units made me crash the gazillion dollar satellite" picture. I just love beating dead horses like that. The only reason the calendar ended up where it is, is because I didn't want to go to the trouble of moving the Six Traits of Good Writing board over a few feet. You can't even tell that I cheated on that one, can you? If you can, please just lie. I choose denial. The yellow bulletin board says "Fancy Words," and it was lifted right off of Pinterest. I mean it was inspired by Pinterest. Janae has been cutting a lot of vinyl for me lately, and this one is my favorite. I'll do another post to show you the rest, but I haven't gotten it all put up yet. If you want this one, Janae can hook you up with it for $21.50 here. By the way, this idea came from Pinterest too. My name is Jill and I'm a Pintaholic. Do you remember these hall passes I made last year? Well duh, I didn't think to make a general hall pass for the times when a student needs to go to the office. Or another classroom, or whatever. So I had to make another little bonus hall pass. This one is a little sign that the kids get to wear around their necks. It was inspired by this cartoon. Believe or not, it is the most popular hall pass. Students choose to wear it instead of take one of the other cutesy passes, because they like the attention they get when they wear it. It's not the Potty Prancers, but we like it just fine. UPDATE: I have posted an updated version in an obnoxious size here, complete with a link where you can order one for yourself. I also have my 2012 Classroom tour up here. I'm now teaching 7th and 8th grade math in a middle school. 2013 tour is up here.

This is the 3-part lesson we observed during our co-teaching session with Shari and Paula at Lord Roberts on Thursday. Materials from the co-teaching session can be found through these links: Three-Part lesson plan KWC Chart Assessment for Learning template Prior to the lesson: Students in Shari's class just began their Geometry unit. They had one lesson around the properties of triangles. This was the second lesson in their unit so it's more a diagnostic task. The class had a lot of prior experiences with the problem solving process and the KWC chart: The KWC chart and how it fits into the problem solving process. The steps in the problem solving process. Success criteria for the problem solving and communicating process. Part 1: Activation of Prior KnowledgeThe goal of this part of the lesson was to make sure students understood:- what a relay race look like - the difference between a rectangular and square relay course - what a triangular course might look like After students demonstrated what a relay course might look like, Paula asked students to share what they knew about triangles. She recorded their ideas on chart paper so they could refer to it while solving the problem, which they did! Part 2: Working on It Shari introduced the problem to the class. After the class read over the problem together, she recorded their ideas on the KWC chart. When this was done, she asked: What do you need to do to be successful in this task? She recorded their ideas on chart paper, with little editing. Shari and the class have co-constructed success criteria for the problem solving process prior to this lesson. This was their first attempt at co-constructing the success criteria for a specific problem. Part 3: Reflecting and Connecting Many groups struggled with this problem. Shari saw this as a positive since it illuminated a lot of student misconceptions, which she can address during the unit. The groups that were chosen to share their work during the math congress all brought out a key point Shari wanted to make to the group. This group generated a lot of possible triangles that met the conditions for the lengths but ignored the necessary angles. Once they realized that the triangles needed to meet all the conditions, they confessed that the problem became harder. This group had an accurate solution. However, they began with the side lengths as well. They could not articulate the process they went through to make sure the angles were correct as well. This group's work was incomplete but contributed to the big idea that constructing the angles of the triangle first, then the side length is a preferred process. Explicit Teaching This group did not share during the math congress but was reflective of the process many groups went through. Shari used it as example to illustrate how starting with the side lengths was easy but finding the right angles was more difficult. Teacher Reflection The entire class demonstrated perseverance throughout this problem. This was something Shari appreciated about her class and she referred to this during her debriefing with the group.

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Sometimes you need an activity outside of the norm. Something students won't expect...something that maintains interest and intrigue. I saw this game called Goat Yoga and thought it would be fun to incorporate the idea into my classroom. https://www.amazon.com/Kikkerland-Goat-Yoga-Party-Game/dp/B07X3XMLSR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=goat+yoga&qid=1580778791&sr=8-1 I had been wanted to revisit correct position to help students fix minor issues and help them learn to play without squeezing their thumbs. I did this little 'Instrument Yoga' activity with all grades I teach (7-12) and they all LOVED it. It was a great way to mix up the regular routine and review position without it seeming too basic. For the mini-lesson on position review and release of tension, I showed a minute of so of this video: I pointed out to students that the people doing yoga had to maintain position and balance even when baby goats where jumping all over them. I then turned out this video for some background yoga music and told students we were going to do some instrument yoga: Next I used my more soothing, velvety voice to instruct students through the following routine: Place bows on your music stands. Go to rest position. Curl your back forward like you're rolling into a ball. Plant your feet. Grow your body upwards like a tree. Your feet are the roots. Sit tall on the edge of your seat with your back straight. Go to play position. Violin/viola - place the instrument on your shoulder. Place your left hand on your right shoulder and maintain that position while keeping instrument still. Cello/Bass - bring your instrument to your body while maintaining your position with back straight, feet planted. Hug your instrument. Violin/Viola, place left hand on fingerboard. Become aware of your thumb and check thumb placement. Feel your thumb completely relax. Cello/Bass, place left hand on fingerboard. Place fingers in the grooves between the middle 2 strings. Slide your forward and fingers up and down the fingerboard with a relaxed smooth motion. Violin/Viola, tap your fingers one at a time on the tapes. Watch for the placement of the fingers. Aim for the thumb-side corner of each finger. Check to make sure fingers hover directly above each tape. Cello/Bass, place left hand in 1st position and tap each finger on the tapes. Watch to be sure fingers hover above tapes. Be aware of the thumb to keep it relaxed and soft. Also students could do bow exercises with the yoga music to work on release bow hand tension. As I went through this exercise with students with the peaceful yoga music, I was able to walk around the classroom and make minor adjustments or help students when needed. Super easy! For a fun friday activity, I let my students pose and play the game I bought on Amazon - Goat Yoga. We talked about how it's important to be able to hold and maintain posture when playing an instrument. It's a crazy game, but my students liked it. I had to work with my 2nds and violas for 10 mins at the high school and I let the other sections play that game while I drilled the music with the students who needed it. I'd like to have students create their own poses and draw them on a paper to create our own version of the game. I have a styrofoam violin and it would be fun to use that as the object students have to balance.

I've done a lot of experimenting with desk arrangements over the years. I've definitely found my favorite. Keep reading, I'll tell you about it. I've also discovered that it's smart to pick a few

9 Clock - Music & Culture for People Who Love Charts

Are you not good at People-ing? Yeah me either.