This Candy and Simple Machine Science Project is such a fun way for kids to explore simple machines and mechanical energy.
This sixth grade teacher discussed the use of a clipboard system to help manage classroom behavior...
What are the best 6th grade books to read for summer that will keep your 6th grader (age 11-12) reading all summer long? The best way...
Kids will have fun learning about physics with this fun Zipline Engineering Lesson. This Spring STEM Activity is perfect for kids of all ages!
Engage your students with fun and educational CSI activities that spark curiosity and foster a love for learning! This comprehensive bundle includes a wide variety of resources designed to teach essential skills such as making inferences, applying logic, conducting analysis, and enhancing critical thinking. By purchasing this bundle today, you'll save 30% off the price of individual activities, making it a smart choice for educators. These engaging resources are perfect for back-to-school preparations or as a captivating supplement to your lesson plans, ensuring that your students remain interested and actively involved in their learning journey. Students love CSI Activities and Hands-on Investigations! Looking to go DIGITAL in the CLASSROOM? Check out the C.S.I BUNDLE below which includes this Printable Resource as well as a Digital Format Link for each activity... C.S.I. for Kids Bundle - digital and printable Go 100% paperless with these C.S.I. Activities C.S.I. Activities for Google Classroom By purchasing this BUNDLE you are saving 30% off individual activities. Resources Included are: Sherlock Holmes Reading Passage Crime Scene Basics Hoagie Hoax Jinxed Jersey Detectives are Punny - Digital or Print and GO Candy Conundrum Fingerprint Writing Activity - Fun Icebreaker! BONUS Activity - Hoagie Reading Passage If you enjoy this CSI for Kids Bundle... Save 30% on other bundles by clicking the links below... Crime Scene Investigation Activities | Bundle of 7 Crime Scene Investigation Seasonal Bundle of 4 Take a look at these engaging C.S.I. Activities that are perfect during the different seasons! Fall Stolen Scream Winter Elf Enigma Spring Bunny Brainteaser Summer The Slippery Case of the Sabotaged Slide Check out Criminal Justice Basics to show students what happens after the crime. Criminal Justice Basics (Check out the PREVIEWS, older or slightly younger students may enjoy this activity as well!) Looking for specific GIFTED and TALENTED ACTIVITIES? Click the link below Gifted and Talented Activities for the Classroom Looking for ESCAPE ROOM Activities? Click the link below Escape Rooms Love FUN FRIDAYS? Check out these themey activities for each month! SEPTEMBER Activities: Back to School, Hispanic Heritage Month, Lunchbox PBL, Back to School STEM Challenges, writing prompts, and more! OCTOBER Activities: Halloween C.S.I, Design a MONSTER Mansion PBL, SCARY STEM Challenges, Halloween Logic Puzzles, Monster Mash Music fun and much more! NOVEMBER Activities: Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), COCO Movie Guide, King Tut Day, Tongue Twister Day, Got GRATITUDE? Growth Mindset Activity, November Writing Prompts, and Logic Puzzles DECEMBER Activities: Gingerbread Reading, Ugly Sweater Math and Reading, The Elf Enigma (CSI for Kids), Design a Holiday Hideaway PBL, December Logic Puzzles, and so much more! JANUARY Activities: New Year, New Selfie, Chinese New Year Reading and Art, MLK Jr., Jinxed Jersey (CSI for Kids) Braille Literacy Month, and Logic Puzzles FEBRUARY Activities: Chinese New Year, Black History Month, Hidden Figures, Jackie Robinson, Ben Carson etc...Biographies, Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, Groundhog Day, February writing prompts and more! MARCH Activities: Super Mario Day, St. Patrick's Day, Irish-American Heritage Month, Pi Day, Shepherds Pie Math and Reading, logic puzzles and more! APRIL Activities: Bunny Brainteaser CSI for Kids, April Fools Day Classroom Prank, Financial Literacy Month BUNDLE, Easter, Earth Day, Paying Taxes, April Logic Puzzles and writing prompts... MAY Activities: Star Wars Day, The Sixth Revenge Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, and much more! Don't forget that leaving feedback earns you points toward FREE TPT purchases. I love feedback! TPT teacher authors appreciate you taking time out to provide some detail about how you like or how you used their products. Need HELP with a file? •Visit the FAQs section, submit a help ticket, or ask a question on the Q&A tab before leaving feedback. **Making sure your expectations are met is important to me!** Also, follow me and be notified when new products are uploaded. New products are always 50% off for the first 24 hours they are posted. It pays to follow me! As always, please contact me with any questions! Thank you so much, Kris Prince Follow me at: My TpT Store: GATER Educator Instagram: GATER Educator Facebook: GATER Educator GATER EDUCATOR: BLOG ©GATER Educator. All rights reserved
5th grade classroom tour with lots of great decor, organization ideas, and colorful classroom pictures!
Best books for 6th-grade students, classrooms and libraries. These are excellent 6th-grade novels to add to your classroom library or book club collections.
Recommended books for summer reading for 6th grade (ages 11-12), including different genres and set in countries around the world.
The Good and the Beautiful Songbirds Study Book. Learn about the habitats and behaviors of 20 different songbirds. Full-color hardback book.
This is the second week of the Reading in the Wild book study! Several amazing bloggers are sharing how they arrange their Reading workshop. Here is an outline of what my Reading & Language Arts weekly schedule looks like. We have a large block of time in the morning, where we do mini-lessons, vocabulary, grammar, and Daily 5, […]
How has your summer vacation been going? Mine has been both relaxing and busy at the same time. I have been working like a busy bee planning for my mid-August nuptials! If you follow me on Instagram, then you’re definitely up to date on all things wedding! I’ve also been making more of an effort...
50+ Favorite Books for 6th Grade from 6th Graders including my daughter and her friends. They are reading everything from adult to fantasy.
Try these Awesome Science Experiments at Home with Your Kids
Enjoy teaching sound energy activities! Your third, fourth, or fifth grade students will love the hands-on stations.
Try these easy sound experiments -- Elementary & Middle School kids will LOVE testing the science of sound with this fun wave experiment to create a 'gong' and explore how sound waves travel!
This is an amazing art and math lesson that I got from a teacher at a conference who did teach a district over from me, but is now getting her PhD. She always had amazing stuff to present at conference. (You're amazing, Mary Franco!) Anyway, this lesson involves Paul Klee and multiplication. I made a little three page Smart Notebook lesson about Klee's work "Once Emerged From the Gray of Night" (where I used to show a poster of it) and have the students talk about what's more important--the words of the poem or the colors and composition? Then we talk about putting two things (like writing and art, or math and art together). It's SUCH an amazing lesson, here's a sneak peek: So, students get a little background knowledge of Klee, then we talk about tessellations and multiplication (and practice on the Smart Board). Then, students get a page of one-inch graph paper and write out a one digit by one digit multiplication problem with a two digit answer. I tell them to choose one that's hard for them to remember, or their favorite one. They then repeat that problem seven times, dropping down and over one square for 4 times, then down and back a square for three times, making them into interlocking tessellation shapes: After they've drawn it all out in pencil and I've checked it, they choose ONE color of fine-tip marker to trace it with, then use colored pencil or watercolor pencil to color. The coloring is a bit of a challenge for them, because they need to forget that they're numbers and only look at the space. They then color it in patterns/designs to make it visually interesting and play with people's minds ('math? I dont' see any math!') It's an awesome lesson that really challenges their thinking. This one really shows the patterns and designs. Oh, it's also important that their numbers COMPLETELY fill the one inch box of the graph paper. I always try to do this lesson at a time of the year when classroom teachers are complaining about students not remembering their math facts. I usually do it with fifth grade, but I did it with sixth one year at the teachers' request.
I LOVE teaching about California history because I grew up in Illinois, so when I started teaching 4th grade, I learned all kinds of new things about California that I didn’t know before! And no one knows how to teach CA history better than my good friend LeAnn! She has been teaching 4th grade for […]
We're All Wonders is an amazing story to celebrate the differences we all have. Grab the mini-book FREEBIE to extend the book!
Need some fresh ideas on how to teach summarizing so your students actually understand it? Come & grab my best tips and tricks that you can use right away!
Light - Reflection, Refraction and Lenses Escape Room for Middle School This is a comprehensive teaching resource designed to engage middle school students in the complex physics topics of reflection, refraction, and lenses. It incorporates an immersive scenario where students are required to solve problems related to these topics in order to free a trapped dog from a storeroom. This encourages collaborative problem-solving while also offering the thrill of escape room games. Key Topics Covered: Understanding transparent, translucent, and opaque materials Identification of luminous and non-luminous objects Mastery over ray diagrams including those showing how eyes perceive images Fitting lenses for correcting short- or long-sight into magnifying glasses or spectacles The functioning of the pinhole camera. Educational Resources Included: The package includes multiple resources such as: PowerPoint presentations: These come with built-in timers and sound effects to provide scenario setting instructions. Crossword puzzles & Word search games: To further enhance interest in learning through fun activities. In addition, there are worksheets with challenging clues that enliven the student's problem-solving abilities. You may opt to select all exercises or choose ones that best suit your specific classroom needs. The resource is scalable for different skill levels ranging from 5th-9th graders. You can easily obtain real-life look combination locks online at reasonable prices & set up mock telephone call scenarios with your school staff involved adding authenticity thus making your classroom more engaging. This teaching aid provides great utility whether used for whole class instruction small group tasks or individual homework assignments. It's suitable for both public and homeschooling teachers thus answering the need for engaging teaching material on complex yet vital physics topics, in a creative and interactive manner. Light - Reflection, Refraction and Lenses Escape Room for Middle School
Today, I did a lesson on theme. It was so much fun! My friends and I had a great time with it. Last week, I posted a few anchor charts th...
Real World Folding Geometric Shapes by Learning Resources Real World Folding Geometric Shapes from Learning Resources are a fun addition to classrooms exploring shapes and geometry. Created for K+ le
Teach your kids about the wonders of the periodic table with this easy and fun version of Battleship
A site with tips for moms (& dads) - lesson plans, birthday parties, holiday ideas, crafts, organization tips, room mom ideas and more!
"Today, we're going to write an autobiography in class. Okay, I want you to take ten minutes and brainstorm as much as you can about your life then write a one page paper. You will start with an introduction, and the body of your paper will be in chronological order, beginning with your earlier childhood and evolving into who you are, and who you want to become. You must have a catchy ending as well. Got it? Good! You may begin." (As I stare upon overwhelmed, confused, and stressed fifth graders...) Hmm... What did I do wrong? What I said made COMPLETE sense to me! Let's take a step back and evaluate my approach. Do you think that this approach will produce amazing autobiographies? Or will it be a jumbled mess? I'm opting for the second. Why? BECAUSE I saw it happen! I have been teaching since 2007...not including my subbing time, and time spent in college. I have come to find, like many of us do, that the success in a lesson can single-handedly depend upon our approach and introduction to a topic. No, I didn't start my lesson on writing autobiographies like this. :) I may have done these things in bits and pieces, but they were spread out and with explanations and examples. I start with reading an autobiography. We started with our basal reader, and the story of William Joyce Scrapbook. This story is all about this author/illustrator and how his life evolved into one that celebrates creativity, as well as how he gets inspired for new projects. To do something well, it helps for our students to SEE and/or LISTEN to a finished product. I always provide a visual aid and classroom discussion on how to approach the task. I LOVE anchor charts! Here's the one that I created for this project: I love to make my anchor charts bright and fun to look at. I believe that it engages my students, and almost lures them into reading them top to bottom. I also provide a structure. I like something tangible that they can write on. I gave my students this print out to engage their thoughts. The size of the blocks allowed them to focus on the most important details. You can grab a copy of this worksheet HERE. Don't get me wrong, we love to do messy brainstorming sessions, where we spend a great deal of time making notes, organizing our thoughts, and creating webs that guide our work. They are a wonderfully messy, yet organized way of pulling details out of us. Oxymoron?...maybe...but that works, too! This works really well for introductions and conclusions. If your students are anything like mine, this is where they struggle. I get the same, "Hi! My name is John Doe. I am writing about myself, so sit back, relax, and learn all about me!" BORING. I have a bulletin board that is dedicated to "Bold Beginnings," "Mighty Middles," and "Exciting Endings." I'm sure you've seen them...they look like this: I put these babies to work! They really ARE great conversation starters. I think it's SO important to SHARE what we have created with one another. We provide constructive criticism on what we liked, or ways that we could improve something that we hear. It's a form of friendly competition in my classroom. Who can create the boldest beginning, or the most exciting ending? I'm also the type of teacher that says..."Eh...not exactly what I'm looking for here. Let's try this!" I tell my kiddos that it takes great practice and care in creating a perfect paper. The first copy, the second copy, and possibly even the third, fourth, and fifth copy may need to be tweaked a bit. I stress that we... And that it's okay! ************************************************************ I want to take a minute to talk about the actual assignment I gave to my students. I LOVE a good at-home project to get our parents to sit down with their kiddos to work on something together. This works for the most part. I know...I know...there are students who just don't have a great home life. I'm blessed with students this year, who even in a broken home, have someone that is willing to pitch in and make the most of what it is that they are to do. You use common sense and assign these assignments based on the needs of your students. So, I started with a letter describing that we were reading an autobiography in class and that the students were working on writing their very own. I sent that home, along with a skin-colored piece of construction paper and directions for making a crafty student model to accompany their writings. I'm never quite sure how these assignments will turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results! I loved seeing how students viewed themselves. Have a look! These are just a couple that came back. Have a look at our hallway... So cute! Overall, this lesson was a great success! I would be lying if I said that our grammar was 100% perfect, but that's certainly something that we're working on...and that's OKAY! The point is that we are writing. We are working through the writing process and becoming more alert of our mistakes, as well as recognizing when we should celebrate our creativity! What about you?? What have you done lately in your classroom to help promote the writing process? I'd love to hear how you make your students better writers! Let's talk in the comments below! Take a peek at what else I'm up to... Bloglovin' Facebook Pinterest TpT My Blog
As adults, we often walk into a bookstore with a certain genre we are ready to peruse the aisles for in order to find our next read. Would your students be able to do the
Anchor chart inspiration for elementary teachers. Use my Not-So-Pinteresty Anchor Charts for Reading, Math, Grammar, and Writing.
Teaching plot elements to upper elementary students? Use a picture book to engage your students! Read it aloud, and then create a plot diagram!
Help students learn how to find the theme of a story by focusing your discussion around...
Struggling readers often have difficulty making meaning while reading. Teaching students to use think marks to code their thinking helps. Read more and grab some freebies on this post.
first second third person
• ENHANCE HAND & EYE COORDINATION – Coloring involves a variety of actions including holding crayons or markers, choosing colors and sharpening colored pencils. All of these tasks help children build their hand and eye coordination.• IMPROVE FOCUS & CONCENTRATION – How many times did your parents tell you to stay within the lines? Coloring encourages spatial awareness and helps kids focus on boundaries and lines. This color your own geography project will also improve their concentration and science skills.• LEARN & DEVELOP LANGUAGE – Coloring is more than just a fun activity for kids! Letting your child color, scribble and doodle is also the perfect time to practice naming primary colors and to teach them about other hues of colors. Discuss landforms as they color, and help them learn and recognize more in the world around them!Product Description:Use your own markers to have students color and identify different landforms. This activity is perfect for your geography lessons and helps build map skills and provides teachers with a formative assessment on a student's understanding of landforms. Size: 22 x 17Quantity: 30Material: Paper© OTC
Do you use card sorts in your science classroom? I like using them with my middle school students. Card sorts can be used in a variety of ways. They are a great way to see what students know going into a new unit. They can be used to practice new concepts. Or they can be used to review material your students haven't worked with for awhile. My seventh grade science students always enjoyed card sorts, and we especially used card sorts during our physical science unit. We brought out card sorting activities for elements, compounds, and mixtures; homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures; the changes in states of matter; and physical and chemical changes. My students liked card sorts because they could work together with classmates while they classified the cards. It felt like a game. I liked the card sorts because they allowed me to meet the needs of all the students in my class. The card sort was great for my many ELL students because each card had both words and pictures. The kinesthetic learners benefited as well because they could move and arrange the cards. The advanced students could provide rationale for each of their classifications or create their own examples to add to the card sort. Students who needed more practice with the content could work with partners who could explain the material while sorting the cards. Another thing I liked about using card sorts in my classroom was the versatility. The activity could take as little as five minutes by having students quickly sort the cards and checking their answers. Or the activity could last up to forty-five minutes, which allowed for students to record their answers, explain and defend their classification choices, and answer reflection questions. It was also flexible because it could be used as a unit introduction, a way to practice new material, a quick check of understanding, or a review. The activity could easily turn into a fun class competition by seeing which group correctly sorted the cards the quickest. Take a look at the many different card sorts I have used with my seventh grade science students. Physical and Chemical Changes Card Sorting Activity Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Mixtures Card Sorting Activity Elements,Compounds, and Mixtures Card Sorting Activity Changes in States of Matter Card Sorting Activity Measurement in Science Card Sorting Activity Steps of the Scientific Method Card Sorting Activities Genetics Vocabulary Card Sorting Activity Thank you ELA Buffet and Desktop Learning Adventures for arranging and including me in this Smorgasbord! An InLinkz Link-up An InLinkz Link-up
A blog full of tips, lessons, and ideas to use in the upper elementary classroom.
Plenty of interactive ideas and activities to teach landforms for kids. Find videos, worksheets and even experiments to help.
