In an earlier post, I went over a list of memory review games that I am planning on using this year with my Foundations class. (CLICK HERE if you would like to read that post.) In this post, I am s…

Games make learning fun, so print out and play Superhero Memory to learn contractions. Who knew grammar could be so exciting?

Check out these great ideas for teaching conjunctions including a video lesson with an organizer, posters with rules, and anchor charts.

Use our free printable yahtzee score card so you can have a fun game of yahtzee with friends and or family. Easy and cheap family game night.

Third Grade teacher shares classroom ideas, coupons, couponing tips, redecorating and repurposing things for your home and classroom!

A few weeks ago, I asked teachers on my FB page for topics of interest. I wrote all of the topics down and pinned them on my office's bulletin board. My bulletin board is my "go to" place when I need a topic for a blog post. Today's topic, vocabulary games, is courtesy of my FB readers. Here are a few games I found that you might like to try: This site has elementary and middle school games. Middle School Vocabulary Activities Elementary and middle school vocabulary game. My all around favorite site that had MANY activities including this one: Click to visit the site. It is great! This vocabulary packet is aligned with 1st - 3rd Common Core Standards. Click

This post explains how teachers can use an academic version of the highly engaging Spoons game to review concepts. Free games included!

Wooo Hooo! Did you know that Wal-Mart carries tie dye duct tape??? I love this stuff! This week I used it for our "Swat the Staff" game. Seventh and Eighth Graders played this game to review treble clef pitches. Choosing from a wide array of flyswatters, students paired up to speedily swat the correct note.

Two truths and a lie is a popular game for students, work, or any time. These funny lie ideas trick others and keep them guessing!

This blindfolded maze game teaches obedience to children. My kids loved playing this game, wanting to try completing the maze over and over again. Teaching through games speaks volumes to kids. The concepts resonate with them because kids learn through play. Some people are questioning whether obedience is outdated. They don’t want their children being...Read More

These online tools and poetry collections provide guideposts and inspire children to write and read poems in a broad range of styles.

Another one for composing with Boomwhackers with the colored dice I mentioned in an earlier post (scroll down to see other uses for these!):

This past Wednesday, I shared a wonderful Roll-a-Dice Freebie for writing story starters (Check it the CF2 post here if you missed it!), but there's more where that came from! Check out my blog post from yesterday Roll-a-Dice Literacy Fun which features two new freebies using dice. Additional resources are provided for those interested in incorporating dice games into your classrooms through this post! Visit my blog post or access the freebies directly but clicking the pictures or links below! Roll-an-Emotion Fluency Activity (Google Doc) Here's a great tool for picking reading partners or reading buddies in the classroom! It's "clock partners" with a twist! Roll-a-Reading Partner (TpT) Happy Back-to-School Teaching!

20 family game night ideas. A must-try for every family. Most of these games are Minute To Win it games and require no preparation. Fun to play!

Fiddle Sticks – Undoubtedly the BEST game ever!! I’m not exaggerating. Fiddle Sticks really is the best activity ever, especially for practicing skills such as sight word recognition and math facts. Invented over 30 years ago by my friend, Jill, as a fun way to practice articulation drills, the activity has been adapted by teachers […]

Music education ideas, activities, games, and songs | Technology tips for the music classroom | Resources for the elementary music room.

A time where Bill Nye was the coolest celebrity around and where Tamagotchi's were more coveted than cell phones.

It's a rainy evening and the 1st graders in your children's choir are extra wiggly. You need a quick change-of-pace to keep their attention and get through rehearsal. Been there? I think we all have. There are lots of games you could play, but I like choosing games and activi

Every morning, at the start of our Morning Meeting, we recite our five classroom rules. The rules I use are similar to Whole Brain Teaching's, but with a twist. I use the set from The Polka Dot Patch. You can read all of the specifics on the rules and gestures HERE. Something fun that we do every Friday is reciting the rules in a different voice. It helps keep up the interest and engagement, plus, we all need a laugh Friday morning :) I have seen different fluency practice ideas a lot on Pinterest and I think these would be a wonderful resource for rule-reciting. Sometimes the Meeting Leader has an idea themselves- one girl decided to recite the rules as if we all had a mouth full of food!- but other times, the student may need some inspiration. Find these at I Love 2 Teach! All I am doing is printing these on cardstock, laminating them, and putting a binder ring though a hole in the top corner. I will keep these near our Morning Meeting Bucket and talking ball for our Meeting Leader to use if he/she needs them. Do you have these fluency cards in your class? Try incorporating them into your rule recitation- it's a great way to wrap up the week!

This educational game for kids asks them to follow very specific directions to discover a legend's real name. Use this fun format to create more word games!

Resources, tips, and materials to help you, help children with autism

Visual processing is an important cognitive skill for children to develop, and there are many fun games that help to strengthen this skill. What is Visual Processing and Why is it Important? Visual processing is a visual cognitive skill that allows us to process and interpret meaning from the visual information that we see through our eyes, and it plays an important role in reading, math, and spelling. What Are the Cognitive Skills that Make up Visual Processing Visual processing involves a number of cognitive components: Visual Processing Speed: the ability to process visual information at a rapid pace. Visual Scanning: the ability to look at and absorb all parts of visual information and text. Visual-Spatial Skills: the ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. Visual-Spatial Reasoning: the ability to perceive the spatial relationships between objects. Visual Construction Skills: the ability to organize and manually manipulate spatial information to make a design. Visual Memory: the ability to remember what is seen. Visual Motor Integration: the ability to translate visual perception into motor planning, sequencing, control, coordination, and speed. Visual Synthesis: the ability to unite visual information into a coherent whole. Visual Sequencing: the ability to determine or remember the order of symbols, words, or objects. Visual Closure: the ability to make sense of visual information when some of the image is missing. Visual Reasoning: the ability to find meaning and make sense out of visual information. What Are Some Games that Can Help to Develop These Skills? Set: Set is a card game of recognition and deduction. Each card contains one of three symbols (squiggles, diamonds, ovals) in varying numbers (up to three), colors (purple, green, red), and degrees of shading. A player arranges 12 cards, face up, and all the players quickly discriminate "sets" of three cards linked by combinations of sameness or difference. This game works on visual discrimination, processing speed, reasoning, sequencing, and visual scanning. Spot it: Spot it is played with 55 cards, each decorated with eight symbols varying in size and orientation. The object of the game is to be the first to spot the one symbol in common between two or more cards. This game works on visual processing speed, scanning, motor integration, discrimination, and memory. Logic Links: Each puzzle is comprised of a series of clues that instruct the player where to place colored chips to solve a puzzle. This game works on visual reasoning, sequencing, and visual scanning. Blokus: The goal of this game is for players to fit all of their pieces onto the board. The player who gets rid of all of their tiles first is the winner. This game works on visual-motor integration, reasoning, sequencing, construction skills, spatial skills, and synthesis. Pixy Cubes: Pixy Cubes uses challenge cards for players to match or they can design colorful pictures with 16 colorful cubes. This game works on visual-motor integration, memory, processing speed, spatial reasoning, sequencing, construction skills, spatial skills, and synthesis. Q-Bits: Q-Bitz will challenge your visual agility. Players puzzle over how to quickly recreate the patterns on the game cards using their set of 16 cubes. This game works on visual-motor integration, processing speed, spatial reasoning, sequencing, construction skills, spatial skills, and synthesis. Q-Bits Extreme: This is the same game as Q-Bits, but the cubes are not all the same and the puzzles are more challenging. This game works on visual-motor integration, processing speed, spatial reasoning, sequencing, construction skills, spatial skills, and synthesis. Blink: Blink is a quick game where two players race to be the first to use all their cards. Players quickly match cards by the shape, count, or color on the cards. The first player out of cards wins. This works on visual processing speed, discrimination, and scanning. More Help with Visual Processing: Following Directions Primary: Following Directions Primary, offers a 49-page download that includes coloring activities and process of elimination activities. Cute animals and aliens as well as numbers, letters, shapes, and arrows are used to develop visual processing, listening skills, linguistic abilities and the core cognitive skills needed for reading. If you are interested in learning more about this publication and would like to download free activities click here. Reversing Reversals Primary: Reversing Reversals Primary strengthens the foundational cognitive skills needed for reading and math. It also develops visual processing and perception such as reversals that impacts students with dyslexia. This publication is available as a download, and it offers 72 pages of activities as well as a game. If you would like to learn more about this publication and also get free activities click here. I hope you found this helpful. If you know of other card or board games that you find benefit visual processing, please share them below. Cheers, Dr. Erica Warren Dr. Erica Warren is the author, illustrator, and publisher of multisensory educational materials at Good Sensory Learning. She is also the director of Learning to Learn and Learning Specialist Courses. · Blog: https://learningspecialistmaterials.blogspot.com/ · YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/warrenerica1 · Podcast: https://godyslexia.com/ · Store: http://www.Goodsensorylearning.com/ · Courses: http://www.learningspecialistcourses.com/ · Newsletter Sign-up: https://app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/69400

A fun and simple musical theory and rhythm game to teach the difference between finding the beat and the rhythm of a song to kids.

Basic vocabulary, like knowing prepositions, is necessary for beginning readers. Teach prepositions with this simple game.

Get a collection of fun drama games and exercises. These make for great warm-ups or activities to practice improv. A great way to have fun while developing

I've seen a few variations of using the famous game Battleship in math class. Who among us hasn't used it (or at least the concept) when re...

Art Sub Plans Worksheets

I have a new game to share today: Piano Finger Twister! This game was inspired by a “Finger Twister” Happy Meals toy I found at a thrift store recently. I saw it on the shelf and instantly thought, “I can make a music game out of that!” Here’s a photo of the original game that inspired… Continue reading Just Added: Piano Finger Twister game

Teach your child to recognize and read consonant digraphs /th/, /sh/, and /ch/ with a digraph garden!

Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.

The series board games should be a funny, playful way to practice vocabulary and grammar orally. The instructions for the teachers are included.If you like this game, you can find more board games here:https://en.islcollective.com/mypage/my-creations?search_key=Board+games&type=printables&option=published&id=5163&grammar=&vocabulary=&materials=&levels=&studentTypes=&skills=&languageExams=&dialect=&functions=&page=1&sorting_type=most_newest&filter_type=filter_all&view_type=list&view_length=12 - ESL worksheets

Introducing *drum roll please* NOODLE NOTES! You may remember that I purchased a bunch of pool noodles at the beginning of the school year to make noodle ponies. Well, the noodles are out again! This time I created a way for students to compose with rhythms. In the activity below, first graders were asked to group notes in sets of 4 beats. We introduce the term "bar lines" and used the small yellow noodles to represent them. Today we used only notes that fit in one beat like a quarter note (ta), barred eighth notes (titi) and a quarter rest (sh). Each noodle note has a note on one side and the corresponding rest on the other side. In future lessons we'll use half notes and whole notes. The half notes are twice as long as the blue note pieces because they get two counts instead of one. The whole notes are four times longer than the blue note pieces because they get four counts. Noodle Notes are GREAT for rhythmic dictation. I'm storing mine in a file box, but there are many options for storage that will work depending on how you plan to use them in your classroom. I must confess that I didn't really measure my noodle notes. I just eyeballed them. So I'll give you some guesstimates: whole notes=about 12 inches dotted half notes=about 9 inches half notes=about 6 inches quarter notes, barred eighths=about 3 inches the "bar lines" are about an inch (maybe less) How many noodles should you buy? Well...that depends. Do you want a class set? 4-8 sets for workstations? Will you use the same dimensions that I did? OH! And all noodles are NOT created equal! Some are about six inches longer than others. Some noodles are very thick. When creating your set, be sure to measure. Well...if that kind of thing matters to you. :-) If you can't tell, I've kind of got a thing for pool noodles. You can check out my Pool Noodle Awesomeness Pinterest board HERE.

Writing a narrative. Key words and drawing given. The topic is motivating, isn't it? I used it as a test.I'm also going to upload the tips I gave them to face this kind of writings. - ESL worksheets

Yes, ANOTHER free printable this week. I know, if I could pinch you from here I would; free stuff is so dreamy! This is a quick matching manners worksheet I made tonight as a supplement to a Manner…

I think there are so many ways this could be used in therapy and I am excited to try it out! The basic principle is the kids can shake the bottle around to find the different words hidden in the rice. Once they find a word, they can:

Getting To Know You Ice Breaker Game for Your Family Reunion Family Reunion Bingo A fun, traditional ice breaker game for your family reunion is the “Find Someone Who…” game. The printable ga…