Whimsical poster perfect for a classroom. Check out all the "see ya later" sayings (see photo). This poster has an additional line at the end - "Our school day now ends. So goodbye, my dear friends." It is designed for a classroom. Note that the margins are slimmer. If framing, take care to buy a frame with narrow edges. It can easily be pinned to a board or wall or hand from a magnetic bar hanger. Dimensions: 18" x 24" Professionally printed on heavy, fuji poster paper with eco-friendly ink that is 90% waterbased. UV protected. Shipped in a tube, packed to protect the edges. This poster is available without the goodbye message at the bottom - https://www.etsy.com/listing/231798854/see-ya-later-alligator-childs-room?ref=shop_home_active_1
Learn more about what is the reading rope and the impact for kindergarten teachers Focused on the Science of Reading.
Almost ready to read? Boost your early reader's skills with these stories and sounds.
For the last two weeks we have been reading fictional farm stories. We have been using this anchor chart created by Abby Mullins fro...
Hurray! You're here. Let me help you with fun resources for your primary students to keep them excited about learning!
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Howdy! Jen Bradshaw here from Teacher Karma. Thinking strategies to improve reading comprehension Reading without meaning is like eating pizza without cheese....and NOBODY wants that! So how do we get our students to make connections to the text, think while they are reading, and focus on what is most important......MEANING?? When I was in the classroom, I had great success with using the following anchor chart, Reading is Thinking. It is a great way to kick off a mini-lesson by presenting the thinking strategies that they will be learning about and USING EVERY DAY...really for the rest of their lives. Reading strategies to improve comprehension In my opinion, the 6 most important reading strategies are: asking questions predicting summarizing visualizing inferencing making connections Never try and do all of these strategies in one day! Depending on the grade level you teach, you may want to spend a whole week on each thinking strategy before moving on to the next one. If you would like to pick up your freebie and learn more about strategies to improve your student's comprehension, click here please. :) Best wishes!
This post shares tips and strategies for teaching different learning styles to meet the needs of all learners.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
I created this reading worksheet to give to learners who finish activities before others in class,as homework or for a diagnostic test for new learners. Very flexible and can be used as the teacher wishes. - ESL worksheets
Happy 2017! It’s out with the old and in with the new. While I don’t make resolutions, I do look at ways to improve. We can always be better {well, at least I know I can}. I came up with some new ways to celebrate the New Year in your classroom. These goal setting banners ... Read More about Celebrating the New Year in Your Classroom
Check out how easy it is to use old iPhones as Listening Centers!
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
A collection of downloadable and printable worksheets about articles are available below. Help your kids to test their skill and knowledge about indefinite articles (a/an) with these A and An worksheets free printable. You can also teach your child the difference between "a" and "an", two of the three main determiners in the English language using these article worksheets.
We share the following free worksheet. am is are Grammar - Free Printables. and in PDF format. Don't forget to join our facebook group.
Check out these cute, 1st Grade worksheets for January. Practice math, reading, and writing with these fun winter themes.
This introduction to poetry gives teachers ideas on teaching poetry minlessons that make a difference in how your students think about poems.
Every great reader has their beginnings in sounding out words!
My class is becoming covered in first grade anchor charts. A couple weeks ago, I shared this picture on my FB page: This is only about 1/4th of the anchor charts in my room. I have used anchor charts in previous years, but only about 1 per subject and I would switch them out each […]
Having parents and a family doesn't seem safe and loving, rather it feels dark, lonely, and scary.
When I set out to discover what people think the most unattractive qualities in a partner are, I first made sure to stress that this wasn't about physical appearances, as there’s no need for that kind of negativity here, or anywhere for that matter.…
CVCe anchor chart inspiration is here! I've gathered up all of my favorite free anchor charts for teaching CVCe as silent e, magic e, bossy e, and more!
Get information about family vacation, entertainment, games, birthdays, parties, arts and crafts, toys, sports, and more from the editors of Parents magazine.
This Vowels are Glue! CVC Word Song will quickly be a favorite in your classroom and it'll help your kids recognize the importance of vowels!
All the pieces that make up a story.
Okay, I have a new favorite reading lesson-- my asking questions lesson! When I got a chance to work with Scholastic last spring, they gave us a bag of swag that any teacher would love, and it included the book This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, which is perfect for teaching a reading lesson about asking questions! (I’ve linked it to Amazon here, but I also highly recommend finding it through Scholastic Reading Club :) On my CRAFT board, we list "Ask questions before, during, and after reading" as a reading comprehension skill (although some of my kids think it belongs under Response to Text, so we concluded that it could go as either!). This is a really important skill for some of my struggling readers, because some of them never question what they read. They are just reading to get it over with! (oops- took this picture before we added it!) Asking questions before reading gives them a purpose for reading and gets them engaged. When they are looking for the answer, students read more intently. Asking questions during reading makes sure they are thinking about what they read. Asking questions after reading causes them to be reflective about the author's choices and sometimes helps them draw a personal opinion about the text. Asking questions is a great place to start students’ thinking while reading! I love teaching questioning towards the beginning of the year, because this is a gateway skill to deeper comprehension. Asking questions about the text isn't too hard to do (especially with a well-chosen text!), so it helps to build the habit of thinking as they read. It's also a great way to get students started in their reading response journals because it's a pretty clear-cut type of response that most of my students feel confident trying. I used this book with my 2nd grade group and all the way up to my 5th grade group. It's great for teaching this skill because the title and cover instantly intrigue them. Kids wonder, "Whose hat is it?" and "Why is a fish wearing a hat?" I tell them we are going to look for the answers to our questions as we read, and we start the read-aloud. As we read, I stop every few pages and ask the students to whisper to their partner something they are wondering about the story. Then, I choose a few students to tell their questions out loud. (I get 100% participation this way, and more confident kids who are willing to share!) We keep track of our questions on a chart like this- both adding new questions, and putting check marks next to our questions that get answered. (My markers are dying—ugh!) Of course, the chart I made for my partner turned out even better. (Isn't that always how it works?) She actually laminated it so she can use it again sometime (which is such a great idea, especially for us as reading specialists who might teach a version of this lesson to each grade level!). This book also makes a great review for "the three ways to read a book," or using the pictures as readers to help us understand. (Actually, you could use this book to teach that lesson, too, but I just used it as a review.) The book is being told from the little fish's point of view, and so the text only tells us so much. If students don't read the pictures, they won't know the entire plot- and they won't enjoy the book nearly as much! (Here, the text tells us that little fish doesn't think the crab will tell anyone where he went... but the illustration tells us that the crab does tell!) The younger kids, especially, love "catching" the discrepancies between the text and the pictures. At the end of the book, the text stops and we just see illustrations. Some kids are always shocked by this! And, immediately, they all have opinions about what happened to the little fish. Some think he was eaten, some think he just gave the hat back, and some think he ran away. The ending of the book is left open and never actually tells us what happens, and so my students are always left with questions about the book after we finish it! (See why I think This Is Not My Hat is such a perfect picture book to teach questioning?) With the older students, we went a little deeper and discussed the author's choice to leave the story open-ended, and debated whether or not we liked it as readers. (Reviews were very polar in my group-- most kids either loved it or hated it!) The next day during another mini-lesson, I read aloud a different book (usually tailored more towards the group's grade level) and let students practice asking their own questions along the way in their reader's response journals. Eve Bunting's books tend to work really well for Asking Questions lessons (like The Wednesday Surprise), but I also love The Lotus Seed and Chicken Sunday for teaching asking questions. And don't forget to throw in a non-fiction book-- sometimes these are the most important ones in which students need to use the comprehension strategy of "ask questions!" Once we've practiced as a whole group and shared with our reading partners, I'm able to look through their notebooks and make sure they seem like they're getting it. (Glancing through their reading notebooks- even if you don't take a grade yet- is so important, because this is the perfect time to lead a strategy group for those students who need some extra support). From here, I like to let students use Post-It notes to practice this strategy in whatever they're reading independently. I also try to fit in a little time at the computer lab (or at a computer center) using the amazing site Into The Book. If you haven't used this free site, you are missing out! For each reading comprehension skill, there are videos, a song, and an in practice activity. Usually, there are at least two, so you can do one together (especially if you have a SmartBoard or something similar) and have students complete the other independently. Their questioning lesson is a great way to guide student practice of using this strategy to actually help them comprehend. A good list of mentor text suggestions: http://www.mauryk12.org/literacy/reading%20mentor%20texts.htm A great list of resources, including some sample lesson plans for teachers: http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/comprehension_strategies.html#questioning Share your tips in the comments below or on my Facebook page here! I would love to know your favorite books for teaching kids to ask questions and what other strategies you use.
Steal these for your writing unit!
This is a sheet for younger students to practice the basic prepositions. Have them put the right preposition in the gap and then color the sheet in.
A few years ago (maybe five or six) our state standards changed for reading, pretty dramatically. I know all of you who have been through...
This worksheet contains 3 witches, each with an exercise attached. When the activities have been completed, the students can cut up the boxes, jumble them and then match the passage to the correct witch.
A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You by Donna Cameron is a book with the wisdom that enables readers to transform their lives with positive energy. In this book, readers learn what happens when they choose kindness over a sense of revenge and bitterness. With the stress that comes with the routine of contemporary life, it is easy to focus on what's in it for the individual, but the author of this book teaches readers that our fast-paced, somewhat stressful life offers myriad opportunities to choose kindness and explains how it can be a tool for a healthy, productive, and meaningful life. Our modern culture focuses on individuality, one that compels people to mind their own business, but this author demonstrates with unusual skill and eloquence that life has meaning only when it intersects with the lives of others. In this inspirational book, readers understand the importance of choosing, how to give and receive kindness, and how to deal with acts of unkindness. This is a much-needed guide for contemporary society. Donna Cameron writes with grace and the prose flows easily, adopting a popular conversational style that drives the message home to readers. The writing is filled with insights that help readers understand the gift of kindness and how to claim it. This book contains the wisdom most of us need to bring love and light into our lives. A highly recommended read.
Thanks to Test-English Test-English for the pic above Learn about this Future Form and use here or in this chart Revise in this previou...
Freebie! One of the keys to teaching reading comprehension is showing kids how proficient readers think about text. Teachers have to find a way to make their thinking visible. One way is with graphic organizers.
Reading Fluency. Your kids will love these task cards that allow them to read with their silly voices. The phrases on the cards come from Dr. Edward Fry's Instant Word List (high frequency words). According to Fry, the first 300 words in the list represent about 67% of all the words students encounter in their reading. There are 3 sets here: Set #1 - Fry's first 100 words Set #2 - Fry's second 100 words Set #3 - Fry's third 100 words There are 408 cards in all. (It includes a set of blanks for each level so that you can make your own sentences.) The cards are numbered and color-coded for differentiation. All you have to do is print and laminate. Thanks for looking!! **This set is newly updated with better graphics, more silly reading options, and borders and sentences that require less ink** Thanks for looking! Annie ***************************************************************************** Customer Tips: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases: • Please go to your My Purchases page (you may need to login). Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button. Simply click it and you will be taken to a page where you can give a quick rating and leave a short comment for the product. Each time you give feedback, TPT gives you feedback credits that you use to lower the cost of your future purchases. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for your classroom so I can create more for you. ☺ Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies and product launches: • Look for the green star next to my store logo and click it to become a follower. Voila! You will now receive email updates about this store. ☺ *****************************************************************************
'What Am I?' quizzes are a lot of fun! 'What am I?' quizzes, aka 'Who am I?' quizzes, are riddles in which the clues are in the first person. For example, "I am a bird, but I can't fly. I am black and white. What am I?" (Ans: Penguin). In this post, you'll find 4 fun 'What Am I?' quizzes with a total of 40 'What Am I? quiz questions. Each of these 'What am I?' quizzes can also be downloaded as a printable PDF. You can also easily adapt these questions to make 'Who am I?' quiz questions by simply replacing 'what' with 'who' in the questions.
Folktales, Fables, Fairytales, and Tall Tales come up at some point throughout the year with all grade levels from Kinder to 5th grade. Over the years, I’ve found some absolutely WONDERFUL anchor charts that helped me create a visual reminder for my students. Here are some of my favorites! These... Read more
It’s MARCH!!! WOOHOOO! But… it’s also been SNOWING all day. I’m ready for SPRING. I’m SO OVER indoor recess! My kids need to go outside to play! Heck… I need to go outside to play! On another note… I just uploaded one of my favorite units. So, I’m celebrating with some fancy, fizzy water. I’ve […]
Place the missing letter in this beginning sound AT Word Family printable worksheet.
