Learn what plants breathe through with this easy leaf & tree science experiment as kids get hands-on with the process of photosynthesis!

Make a string and bead puzzle to challenge kids' thinking and problem solving skills. Part of STEAM summer camp.

Learn about fingerprinting for kids & play detective! Fun ideas for a CSI or spy party or science activity for preschool & elementary ages!

This simple buoyancy kids' science activity requires just a few common household supplies. Kids will love learning why things sink and float!

Teaching empathy is important. In the simplest of terms, empathy is the ability to notice, understand, and share the emotions of others. It is a critical social skill for all people to have. In many ways, empathy is the social skill that paves the way for all other social skills. It helps us to take

Stuck with ideas to engage your kids in gym class? Why not run these super fun, easy to set up stations for your class to rotate around through, challenge themselves, set personal records and recor…

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I share about five things that are easy to do with almost every folk song that help to extend your teaching, expand student knowledge, and make life fun!

Need some refreshing and inspiring ideas for sport skills to teach? Try these simple to set up, self-running PE stations for your class to rotate around. Students work in groups of 2, and in some o…

An exciting collection of experiments for learning about forces and motion. Make rockets, cars and drop paint-filled balloons

Steal these for your writing unit!

Parenting styles can look very different—and affect kids in very different ways. Brush up on Baumrind’s parenting styles and what they mean for your kids.

Kids love these engaging biography research projects with ready-to-go writing templates and hands-on biography activities!

Here are some great grammar games, ideas, and activities that will help early/middle elementary aged kids enjoy grammar just a bit.

People who recognize their own strengths tend to be happier and have greater self-esteem. However, when a person uses their strengths every day, they can...

Get your students excited to learn about forces causing movement with these fun and engaging activities they will love.

Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can't focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can't focus on the directions, they

Learn more about the science of sound with these sound experiments and musical crafts.

Use this list of free resources to use as social emotional learning activities to help you work with kids and young adults. As a special educator for 10 years, I can say without a doubt that we need more social emotional learning supports for kids and young adults. Some of my best days in the classr

Telling time past the hour can be challenging for primary kids but it doesn’t have to be a struggle for you or your students. Learn simple ways and effective strategies to make telling time easier for primary kids.

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)

Classroom management is a critical piece of any successful school year. Start the school year off right with these classroom management hacks!

Learn how to make Musical Instrument Crafts with Kids. Your DIY Band put together with drums, guitars, DIY maracas, to horns and more! Easy fun

Build a Simple Circuit From a Pizza Box (No Soldering): I learn best through tactile teaching methods. Teaching and learning basic circuits, electronics, and electricity from books is good, but why not build a simple circuit from scratch and learn from doing. This is a great way to get hands on and teach…

Want to know what your kids are really thinking? These Conversation Starters for Kids will help you find out.

Download 3 free Shakespeare Study Guides in addition to other free Shakespeare resources.

This article explores the most common rhythm syllable systems used in elementary music classrooms today and works through pros and cons for each method.

A simple car themed music activity for kids! Learning about the grand staff with this car themed music theory game for kids.

Kids and young adults with ADHD can be extremely bright, creative, and helpful. These are often the learners coming up with new invention ideas, filling up a journal with intricate comic book drawings, and eager to answer all of your questions in class. With that said, learners with ADHD can struggl

It seems like every day there is an endless stream of students reporting behaviors or incidents that happen in the classroom. On one hand, we want to help our students feel heard and validated so they know we are a safe person for them to talk to. On the other hand, we certainly don't want to feed into the tattle machine. It's a fine line to walk. So how do we handle tattling in our classrooms?

These noun activities for first grade kids will get your students engaged and learning with games, anchor charts, pocket chart sorts and worksheets.

28 days of hands-on STEM activities for kids - coding, STEM challenges, STEM on a budget, and more! It's science, tech, engineering & math made fun.

I received a sample of this product in exchange for my review. However, I only recommend products or services I love, that I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. The links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase using them. […]

Vocabulary instruction is so critical in today’s classroom! A vast vocabulary will help students to become better readers and writers. Vocabulary is also essential to their performance on standardized tests. Helping kids to develop their vocabulary is time that is well spent in a busy classroom. I have developed a routine to teach new vocabulary

This craft stick harmonica is fun to play, and you can adjust the pitch by moving the straws! It’s a neat project, and a good one to make with a group because the materials are very inexpensive. You can fit in a little science learning too – see the bottom of the post for ways […]

Read through our favorite classroom management hacks and then hop over and become a Plato Pack member for even more teaching tools, strategies and support.

Planning, organization, time management, and self-control. These are just a few of the extremely critical executive functioning skills that we use every day to accomplish tasks and be successful. We use them so regularly that we may forget their importance. But to kids and teens (and yes, even adult

Build your own atomic models with a few simple supplies. YOu can even turn them into mobiles! This is a great way to teach chemistry in a hands-on way!

5 times for grading essays faster while providing better feedback! These tips will help ELA teachers work smarter, not harder!

Learn about force and motion with these free little readers. What happens when you push or pull? Just print, cut one slit and fold into small 8-page books. They're in both colour and black and white with links to many more free readers in the post.

A teaching resource that includes dozens of free printables and helpful website links to use in the classroom for elementary and middle school students.

Your new favorite teaching strategy: This pared-down version of learning stations keeps the movement, interactivity and variety while minimizing the prep work.

I wanted to share this No Screentime Until Printable Sheet again today because it has been wonderful for our family over the years. It teaches our children that there are more important things in life & screentime is the last resort. It gives them other screen-free ideas to helps them get lost in those activities