Which Back to School Activities Elementary can I use for Building Community in my Classroom? Which All About Me Activities are most engaging for my students?
These three icebreakers for teens will make the first class, youth group, or club fun for everyone, even the introverts.
If there is one I have learned in my years of working with paraprofessionals, it is that paras are teachers too. My paraprofessional is my right hand and my left hand. She is the glue that keeps us together. I realize that sometimes it is our first instinct to give them passive work because their
I have always assigned nightly reading. Why? I don't assign nightly reading because I want to give students "reading homework." I don't assign nightly reading
Classroom callbacks are a technique that teachers use to get the students’ attention in a quick and fun way. Free resource available.
I don’t know about you, but I can always use more classroom management tools! This was my first year back teaching after 2 years off. In some ways, I felt like I was starting over, and in some ways, I felt like a veteran teacher! Anyways, after the year was over, I knew there were […]
Setting up an IEP work bin system can feel overwhelming! Here are some easy ways to do it so that your students can quickly work on goals!
Brain breaks are a great classroom management tool to use regularly in your classroom. Brain breaks are short, 1 to 2 minute, activities that can…
Welcome to my K-2 Classroom Tour! I am a k-2 self contained autism teacher. Come inside and see what a day in my classroom looks like!
Classroom Management: Using a WOW Board No comments Classroom Management, student recognition, WOW board Have you heard of the WOW board? This tool is not a brand new idea, but I only started using it last year. And, I intend to keep using it! Using a WOW board is a great (and super easy) way to recognize individual students and reward their choices, achievements, and efforts. It is also a great way to boost self-esteem too. What is it? The board is simply a table that is printed onto poster sized paper. The table is labeled with letters along the bottom, and numbers along the side, creating cells. It is laminated so it can be used again and again. I printed my board using the standard poster size setting on our poster maker. I know that some schools may not have a poster maker, but there is no rule that says your WOW board has to be poster sized! How do you use it? When you see a student making a smart choice, setting a good example, making gains, or whatever you feel should be recognized, they add their name to the board. They can choose any space they want and write their name in the selected space. Many WOW boards have 100 spaces, but I like for it to fill up quickly, so my board has only 25 spaces. Since I use other means of recognizing students, like reward tags, I didn't want a board with 100 spaces. Since the board is laminated, students can use an Expo Vis-a-Vis marker to add their name. This makes it easy to erase and start over when we're ready to do so. What do you do when the board is full? When the board is full of students' names, I choose 5 students to receive a "prize." Really, they get to choose a classroom reward coupon. Prize buckets and I don't get along (#clutter). The classroom rewards cost me nothing and the kids love them. You can find all sorts of classroom reward options on TPT. Then, I erase the board and we start filling it up again and the cycle repeats. How do you choose the winners? I usually just pick five random cells and write them on a sticky note, without looking to see whose names are in those cells. For example, I might write down A3, C4, B5, D2, E1. I call out the cell number and identify the name of the student written in that cell. They're a winner! You could write all your cells (i.e. A1, A2, A3, etc.) on color tiles, small slips of paper, or anything else you can fit into a small bucket. Then, when it is time to choose your winners, you just pull a tile, slip of paper, etc. out of the bucket and match it to the name in that space on your board. Using a Wow board is just another way to recognize your students and motivate them to do their best. If you'd like to give it a try, you can download my free template. If your school doesn't have a poster maker, don't dismiss the idea of using a WOW board. You could easily print this on regular paper and just use a smaller sized version. The kids will still love it! DON'T FORGET IT, PIN IT! Share It:
When I took this second grade position, I had many things on my to-do list. However, the first item on my list was classroom management ideas. Any teacher would agree that the most important skill in running a class is classroom management. There are so many strategies, but my go-to is Class Dojo! The Benefits
Roy Lichtenstein name art, featuring Ben-Day dots
Pierwszy dzień w szkole spędza sen z powiek nie tylko uczniom. Nauczyciele po pierwsze opłakują ;) powrót do pracy, a po drugie bardzo często zastanawiają się, czym wypełnić pierwsze zajęcia. Przyg…
Working collaboratively can be engaging and easy. Create together and celebrate that friends and classmates are better together with this collaborative coloring activity. This oversized collaborative coloring poster with a positive message is ready for students to work together while while showing their appreciation for each other! These interlocked hands and happy doodles are sure to get the message across. This poster will be a fun and unique addition to your school hallways or classroom! This collaborative poster is ready for: A counseling or SEL lesson Open House Early Finishers During a Unit of Study Indoor Recess Practicing Communication and Cooperation Skills. Includes: 24 coloring pages to make one large poster Size: Approximately 3.5 x 4 ft Letter size coloring sheet with the main image for individual completion. Looking for other collaborative coloring posters? Collaborative Coloring Posters
Tutorial on how to effectively use Classdojo in your elementary classroom
This last week we began our geography unit in second grade. We began by learning the mapping essential vocabulary of map, globe, key, scale, grid, birds eye view. We practiced making our own maps and creating symbols for our map keys. The students love making their own maps of our neighborhood where the school is...
This is - hands down - my most favorite writing project that I've ever done with my firsties. They did such an amazing job and I am so proud of how far they have come this year. We read "The Best Part of Me" by Wendy Ewald and then created our own bubble maps to organize our thoughts. I
Hello les profs!Voici un petit puzzle pour se présenter en ce début d'année.Il est inspiré du travail de Laclassedemallory que vous pouvez retrouver ici:Je l'ai réadapté à des plus petits.Si le document te plait, n'hésite pas à laisser un petit coeur. Ça motive à encore plus partager.
Set a friendly tone in your classroom with these 30 "Get to Know You" games perfect for back to school or when welcoming a new student.
Put together a week’s worth of apple learning activities with these fun ideas for toddlers and preschoolers. Free printables included!
onamonapia art,Pop Art,high school art,Art Education,DJ Blalock,Art Education Blog,middle school art,2 Soul Sisters Art Ed
FREE Templates from Shake Up Learning! Get choice boards, magnetic poetry, fake Instagram, and more!
Spending the first week of school teaching classroom expectations and procedures is essential for a successful year. Glue is a tricky school supply for many little learners and there definitely needs to be instruction dedicated to teaching learners how to use this tool.Glue BottlesWhen learners are not taught how to use their glue correctly things
Lucky Duck {A Classroom Community Routine} No comments Classroom Community, Classroom Management, Classroom Routine, Daily News, Lucky Duck, Teaching Ideas Teachers spend a great deal of time building classroom community at the beginning of the school year, but really, this is something that should go on throughout the year. I'm so excited to share with you a tried and true favorite community building activity of mine: Lucky Duck. I have used this routine in my classroom for many, many years. It dates all the way back to my student teaching days (almost two decades ago). I'm going to break down how "Lucky Duck" works in my room, but please know that it can be modified and used in a million different ways. So, feel free to tweak and customize these ideas to meet your needs and teaching style. What is Lucky Duck? Lucky Duck is basically the student of the day. Each day a new student gets to identify as the Lucky Duck. When you're 7, it's a pretty big deal. How does it work? Each day, after school, I select a new Lucky Duck. I have a small tray with my students' names printed on them. I rotate through the stack of names and place the daily name up on the board using the sign pictured below. Doing this right after school means that it's all set up for the morning (when there are always a million and one distractions). These are the names in their little container. You can easily cut up index cards or cardstock to write students' names. You can grab my sign here for FREE (you'll need to handwrite your students' names). Rotating through the stack of names means that each student gets the chance to be Lucky Duck several times throughout the school year. Tip: Don't want to mess with a sign and name cards? Then, just write it all on your whiteboard. Same effect and the kids will still love it! Once I identify the Lucky Duck, I place a rubber ducky on the student's desk. When the kids walk into the room in the morning, they can see who the Lucky Duck is by either reading the board or looking for the rubber duck. What does the Lucky Duck get to do? What I'm about to share is what makes this such a big deal to my students. Daily News First, they get to share some Daily News. Usually, I ask the students a question and they have to answer by restating the question. You can grab a similar set of questions here (freebie). I write their statement on a piece of 12x18 construction paper using the this format: ______ said, "_________." I don't rely on the question cards 100% of the time. I often times invite the students share any random thought they'd like. This love this. Daily News is so great for learning how to write the date (long and short) and how quotation marks work. It's also great for talking about parts of speech, capitalization, phonics, or whatever your teacher heart is drawn to in the moment. I frequently ask students to identify compound words, words with a specific number of syllables, words that rhyme with ___, to identify nouns or verbs or adjectives, we discuss capitalization and commas in a series, and so on. Daily Cheer Second, the Lucky Duck gets to pick the cheer of the day. I have a collection of Dr. Jean chant/cheer cards. They choose one from the designated box and we use it throughout the day. Sorry, no pic but if you search Dr. Jean chants on TPT you can find some great freebies! Calendar Third, they help lead calendar. Again, no pic. I really have got to get better about snapping pics in my room! Anyhoo, we use a digital calendar which can be manipulated using a special pen for the whiteboard (I do not have a smartboard, it's just some pen that connects to my projector/computer and has some sort of magical powers I do not fully understand). The Lucky Duck leads us through the calendar slides and calls on people to share answers. They also get to prompt them to show their whiteboards. In my classroom, we use the signal, "3-2-1 show!" when using whiteboards. I never thought that being able to say those words would be such a hit, but they are. Haha! Daily News Part 2 Fourth, the Lucky Duck gets to decorate/illustrate their Daily News. They can do so in their free time, or during reading group time that day (if their group isn't meeting with me). At the end of the month, I put all the Daily News pages together into a special book and add the books to our classroom library. They absolutely love reading the Daily News books over and over again. They enjoy seeing their own pages, and delight in reading about their classmates. This allows them to learn more about each other and find commonalities. As you can see, the book doesn't look special, but I'm telling you, they are always the most popular books in the classroom library. The cover is simply two pieces of colored 12x18 construction paper with the simple title written in Sharpie. I have started laminating the covers due to the popularity of the books. Line Leader Finally, the Lucky Duck gets to be the line leader for the day. Enough said, we all know that's like the BEST classroom job/privilege in the whole wide world. This routine is a beloved one. The students absolutely love being Lucky Duck. They all get their moment to shine (several times throughout the year), and they get to know more about one another through Daily News. When we sit on the carpet to hear what the Lucky Duck has to report, the students are at full attention. It's an easy way to help students feel special while fostering community in the classroom. The only cost involved with this routine is the one time cost of a rubber duck. Mine cost like $3 on Amazon. Can't beat that! I hope you enjoyed reading about this special routine. Please share your favorite ways to build community throughout the school year in the comments below. DON'T FORGET IT, PIN IT! Share It:
The Kindergarten artists and PreKinders also created some artwork inspired by Mondrian. The PreKinders glued down black lines creating squares and rectangles they then colored some of their shapes …
Boost your child's confidence and improve their mindset with these free affirmation station printables!
When I start the new school year, I pick a book of the day for the first two weeks. I create a variety of activities to go with each book. I use a lot of books that focus on social and emotional learning, including kindness, friendship, and respect. But, I also add in some fun ... Read More about 8 Books for Back to School
Unwanted talking is near the top of the list of teacher frustrations. In this article, learn the actual strategies to finally get rid of it for good.
Looking for fun All About Me Preschool Activities for kids? Check out these 9 Hands-On All About Me activities for Preschool or Kindergarten.
These name worksheets are perfect for your all about me theme because they give kids a chance to share all about their name.
I used to spend so much time looking for the perfect read aloud books each month to read to my students. I have finally compiled a list on this blog post to save you so much time searching for books your students will love. I have even created FREE book companion activities you can pr
If you have an extra-chatty class, check out this post with tips for how to get your students to stop talking in just one week!
Attention Getters will cut out your classroom chaos and work for all grade levels. Attention getters in the classroom are the perfect solution if you are...
Find out why teachers should be using icebreaker activities for small groups all year long and not just at the beginning of the school year.
Our Mondrian Art Project for Kids is perfect to teach art in the classroom. It's easy and free! Kids will love their Mondrian masterpiece & will proudly display their beautiful artwork on glass.
This Jitter Juice recipe is perfect for the first day of school! Pair it with the fun back to school book, "First Day Jitters."
Classroom management strategies for middle school are not the same as elementary strategies. Learn how to manage a middle school classroom.
Birthdays in the classroom can be tricky due to cost and food restrictions. Here are bonafide tips for how to celebrate student birthdays in a special way.
We have another fun project for your kids (or you) to do during the hot summer months, this time we are sharing a fun summer agamograph template with you. Making an agamograph is really, really
