Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many "work refusals". These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about
Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many "work refusals". These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about
Check out these effective ways of teaching kids conflict resolution skills at home & school with these easy-to-implement ideas & strategies.
Teamwork in the classroom is essential in order to have a high functioning and welcoming environment for students. Check out three easy ways to build teamwork with your students.
Teaching children about coping with anger? Check out these 15 effective anger management strategies for kids.
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
Help your students manage stress better by teaching kids about the stress response & their brains. Includes fun stress response lessons ideas.
Use your bricks to teach kids LEGO coding. Fun and easy ideas for LEGO coding activities include binary code and algorithms.
The Good Egg Activities - use these activities to help students understand what is and is not their responsibility & practice self care for managing stress!
Strategies and supports for executive functioning challenges can make all the difference, especially for students who struggle with task initiation. This is such an important skill, since it's like the motor in allowing us to get started on all tasks and assignments. When someone is struggling to in
How to help your child find the right learning styles to enhance their potential in school and to prep the brain for higher learning. Learning is unique and different for each child.
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
Printable worksheet to help in your teaching your kids the life skill of filling out forms. Guidelines for teaching are included.
This blog post explores innovative and engaging lesson plans for any novel unit... ranging from task cards to book instagram pages to a novel podcast project. Student choice is key here, and students can find something they would like to complete in order to convey their reading, comprehension, and
It is very important to review the contents taught at school to test if we know them right or we should deal with them. Click over the pictures and comment your answers. The two first images are fo…
Kids and young adults need extensive practice in strengthening their executive functioning skills. Executive functions are the processes in our brains that help us accomplish all tasks from beginning to end. We use them when we plan our day, organize our materials, begin a chore, focus on important
Are looking for a great way to help your students understand and remember key math vocabulary? Check out these 3rd Grade Fractions math vocabulary posters- perfect for your math word wall! These math posters are written using student-friendly language and are great to use when introducing new vocabu...
Check out these effective ways of teaching kids conflict resolution skills at home & school with these easy-to-implement ideas & strategies.
Your kids will have fun learning fractions with these FREE Fraction Worksheets from Worksheet Fun! Stop by and download your copies today! The post *FREE* Fraction Worksheets appeared first on Mama
Anyone who knows me, reads this blog, or uses my resources knows that I am passionate about differentiation. I think that is because I grew ...
Si buscas actividades GRATIS y DIVERTIDAS en inglés para niños de 2 a 7 años, ¡no te piedas nuestra selección!
Feeling-o-meter: A visual feeling thermometer for children to properly identify and describe their feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment.
Are you a homeschooling mom? Tricia Goyer shares 6 activities you can do with your writers' club
Free printable social scripts for kids about being a good sport
Teachers like starting the school year feeling well-prepared and confident. Read about 5 Strategies for a Solid Start to Your School Year
If you struggle with classroom management no matter how many different strategies you try, there's a chance you're doing something to get in your own way.
Wish you could type without looking at the keyboard? Just follow this guide and you'll be touch typing in no time!
This is a fun worksheet about adjectives and their antonyms. Students match each word in Twin Tom with its opposite in Twin Tyrone.
We are a Leader In Me School and talk a lot about using the 7 Habits of Happy Kids in our everyday lives. I love the idea of encouraging kids to act as leaders in the classroom and beyond. What I have noticed, however, is that sometimes "leadership" comes off as "bossypants" and that is not the route we want to take! I know you've probably heard of Sheryl Sandberg (of Facebook fame) and her campaign to end the word "bossy" (read or listen to an NPR story HERE), but I was hesitant to come straight out and use that word in our class. Instead, I wanted them to think on terms of "boss" and "leader" to recognize the differences between the two and to think about their own language choices in the classroom, in small groups, on their sports teams, and more. We first looked at this picture and talked about what we noticed: (source) This led to some discussion about leadership versus boss behavior. While the kids were discussing, I was passing out example cards to their table spots. Before I dismissed them, I shared this leadership quote from John Quincy Adams: They were then given instructions about our activity. I had printed example cards on two colors: blue for boss and green for leader (although they didn't know that yet) and they needed to read their card and find someone with an opposite color card and opposite example (good time to incorporate the word antonym, too!). I dismissed them to their tables and first had them converse with students in their table group to ensure they understood the word or phrase on their card. When they gave me the thumbs up, I told them to find their match and them meet to discuss why they went together and be able to give examples. We then began assembling our Anchor Chart. Each pair would come to the front of the class and would explain which card was descriptive of a "boss" and which was descriptive of a "leader" and why. They gave examples and I elicited a lot of help from the classroom for additional examples and language that both a boss and leader may use during that example. I would tape the cards to the Anchor Chart and we continued through each pair. There were two groups of three (with two leaders to one boss) and that worked out perfectly with my class (definitely feel free to adjust if you have lower numbers). Our completed anchor chart looked like: It was so powerful to see how often kids may think they are helping, but instead find themselves on the "boss" side of the chart instead of the "leader." I know several of the examples are repetitive, but we really talked through these and used examples from our own lives to recount when using "leader" words and language set us up for success. I also explained the "me vs. you" mentality of bosses versus the "we and us" mentality of leaders. Overall, it was a very powerful lesson and I look forward to referring back to this Anchor Chart this year, especially when "bossypants" behavior leads to conflict. I think these concrete examples can help guide the naturally strong leaders in my class to make better language decisions that can help grow them as leaders and really inspire others, just like the Adams quote! If you'd like a copy of these cards and quote, you can download this as a *freebie* HERE. How do you address bossy vs. leader behavior in your class? Share in the comments, I would love to build on this lesson!
¿Quién tiene la razón? ¿Cómo es posible que los dos tengan razón? One of the most important tasks outside of language learning that world language teachers face is to make our students aware of the…
Writing your name in binary code on a bracelet or necklace makes great STEM fun for kids! Plus more fun STEM learning activities for kids.
Expect Unexpected Engagement When You Try Hexagonal Thinking in ELA Start with the Free Kit WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? SEARCH FOR THE STRATEGY OF YOUR DREAMS, OR DIVE INTO ONE OF THESEPOPULAR CREATIVE RABBIT HOLES. FRESH FROM THE BLOG Find
Financially savvy kids are future leaders!
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!!!
Your new favorite teaching strategy: This pared-down version of learning stations keeps the movement, interactivity and variety while minimizing the prep work.
