After over 16 years of education, do well-ingrained habits support our work niche?
Engagement Strategies Last Saturday as I was perusing Twitter, I saw this awesome post on engagement strategies. When I clicked on the...
What is the difference between Allegory and Symbolism? Allegory is created by using symbolism. Symbolism adds an allegorical meaning to the text.
I can’t help it…I’m a writing nerd, and I’m a little excited.I see the finish line…it’s there. I’m nearing completion of novel #2.
Using these animated shorts, students will practice four different summarizing using different methods.
English teachers, help your high school students write brilliant rhetorical analysis essays with these rhetorical analysis sentence starters.
For Art today, we mixed in a little Math. The students created name art with their first names, then found the fractions of the colors they used. We practiced writing in block letters to take the curves out of our first names. The students were given 10x10 grids in which to write each letter. After they had planned out each letter in pencil, we added a little color! The students colored in their letters block by block. They chose one color for their letters and one color for the background. We cut out the letters and mounted them. Then the students counted the squares of each color and labeled the fractions. Because it is a 10x10 grid, the denominator for each fractions is 100, making the subtractions a bit easier :) Teacher Version:
The past few months my students have been making feathers for a group mural. This idea was inspired by my friend and celebrity in the art community, Cassie Stephens! Head on over to her blog and check
This week was a short week but we were able to get a lot of activities done. The first thing we worked on this week was homophones! My kids ...
Beautiful and creative inspiring art rooms. These art teachers have gone all out decorating their art rooms. Super-creative!
*THIS IS A LEGACY POST FROM 2014* This image hs been used by thousands of teachers from across the world, and is currently the Number 1 hit on google. If you use it, please give me credit, especia…
Learn About the 7 Continents! Exploring the 7 Continents has never been more exciting! It’s a Small World Continent Study is filled with over 35 activities to help your students gain a greater understanding of the seven continents. This 130+ page unit is filled with great resources, posters, printables, activities, and projects that will open […]
The Georgia Department of Education English Language Arts division has its very own Twitter account and has been hosting a weekly series this academic school year of “Twitter takeovers”…
So the other day, I was looking at bathing suits for my kids at Target online. I put a few in my virtual cart, but then decided on buying from Lands End instead. Well, since
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
To take quality notes, students need to be taught how. This fantastic station-rotation lesson gets the job done, and it can be used with all kinds of other content as well.
Continuing our epic journey towards Shakespeare's 400th death anniversary on Saturday, here is a handy-dandy board game that allows you to relive all the exciting ups and downs of this master playwright's eventful life!
Research based teaching strategies you can use today with a free printable chart.
Include this I spy Ramadan activity as part of your Muslim Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr observance this year. Great for kids or adults.
I received a handout at a workshop I recently attended on different factors coaches can look for in classroom observations. Collecting quality evidence during observations and presenting it in a clear manner to teachers is such an important piece of improving teacher practice and student achievement…so this handout really got me thinking about what I look […]
Whether your lesson plans are detailed multi-page documents submitted to your administration each week, or they’re mostly post-it notes with concise bullet points, effective lesson planning requires strategy and intent. Great lessons need clear direction, purpose, pacing, and solid pedagogy. (Side note: If you are looking for engaging step-by-step lesson plans for the ELA classroom – especially for sub plans – check out my ELA Lessons Bundle with over 60 individual plans). While planning such successful, well-balanced, dynamic lessons takes time (think of all those observation lessons), if you get into a strong habit of working through a few key steps, it simplifies the whole process. And, as with all habits: the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Soon you internalise the steps and find yourself doing them without even realising it. Below are the four simple steps - G.A.D.E - I go through in my mind every time I plan a lesson. Do I always write them out in detail? Nope, but I still always work through them as I plan. What do you want students to be able to do, know, or understand by the end of the lesson? The most effective way to plan a route for a journey, is to start with knowing where you are trying to get to, right? Instruction is most effective when you, and your students, have a firm idea of the goal. When they know what they are working towards, the lesson is far more purposeful. Your goal should be able to be expressed in a single sentence or two: the more focused it is, the easier it is for students to digest and understand. I even suggest writing this on the board at the start of the lesson, for students to be able to see and reference. Examples of Goals: - Students will understand the impact of varying sentence patterns, in term of creating tone. - Having read chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby, students will be able to explain how an author develops a character in a narrative through the use of indirect characterization. - Students will be able to effectively back up their thoughts and ideas with appropriate textual evidence. [Grab a free lesson plan template here] How are you going to break down the substance of the lesson, to help students reach the goal? This is the nuts and bolts of the lesson: the lecture, activities, exercises, etc. Ask yourself: What are the most effective methods to help guide students to the goal: A lecture? A group discussion? A reading exercise? Worksheet practice? A video? A writing exercise? Station work? The key here is breaking the lesson down into varied, manageable chunks: rarely should you plan a 60 minute lesson with just one single activity. You want to think about dividing the class up into 10-20 minute segments with varied activities and modes of learning: all geared towards the overall goal. [Check out Room213's helpful blog post on how to build in time for productive struggle when lesson planning.] Examples of Segments for a 60 minute lesson: 5 min: Provocation - some sort of hook for the lesson to pre-test knowledge, or incite intrigue and interest. 10 min: Paired work 15 min: Teacher-led lecture and discussion 20 min: Individual work to practice a skill 10 min: Reflection and assessment of learning How will you, and your students, know if they have achieved the goal? This does not always have to be a large assessment task: that would perhaps be a unit goal. However, you should be able to place small milestones in every lesson to assess whether or not students are gaining knowledge, or developing their skills, and this need to be intentional. It may be a summative assessment task, but in the daily lesson it would likely be formative assessment. This should be a conscious decision when planning the lesson. Examples of Opportunities for Demonstrations of Learning: - Ask strategic questions: “How do you know that? Why did you write that?” - Use exit slips - Have students produce something which requires them to use what they have learned - Anonymous class polls or quizzes (or Kahoots!) - Self-reflections or evaluations - Written work / Projects What do you physically need to do, to facilitate the learning? Once you know the purpose of the lesson, and have a firm understanding of the activities and elements of the lesson, think about what you need to do to prepare. While this might be gathering resources, photocopying, finding passages, etc., it also should be about the space of the classroom: how best to facilitate the most effective lesson for your purpose. Think about desk layout, visual displays, seating arrangements, etc. Example of Environmental Elements - Move the desks into groups / pairs / individual etc. - Print, layout and organize materials - Have a specific song playing which relates to the lesson, for when students enter. - Create spaces around the room for station work or gallery walks etc. FREE TEMPLATES: If you are looking for a template for lesson planning: Click here to access a FREE editable Google Docs template (just go to “File” and “Make a Copy” to save the document to your own drive for editing). Want a printable copy? Click here to access a printable lesson plan template. Do also check out: If you are looking at planning a whole unit of study, read this great post by The Daring English Teacher.
I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a few simple stocking stuffers and today an idea hit me. I saw these cute little finger twister boards but was not about to actually pay money for them... I figured It wouldn't be to hard to make something similar on my own. So if your interested in making your own go ahead and save these images to your computer and print them out on a regular size paper, they will end up being 5X5-6X6in' squares. All you'll need is the images of the twister board and spinner that you print out, some sort of cardboard/chipboard(you could even use a cereal box), glue, a spinner, and a thumbtack. You can make your spinner from cardboard or any stiff object you can think of...I got lucky and found these plastic arrows in our gogurt box(a free gift to help you roll your gogurt). ha ha Bet gogurt didn't know how perfect they would be for my finger twister board!! First cut out your boards and glue them onto your chipboard. If by chance you are using spray glue like I did, make sure you spray the chipboard and not the paper(sometimes it soaks through the paper so I always spray the thicker material I'm using). Trim up the edges and tack on your spinner. Make sure your thumbtack isn't pressed all the way in, so the spinner has room to spin of course. And to avoid being pricked by the tack, take some pliers and bend the bottom of the tack under. And there you go, your ready to battle it out finger style! (By the way my printer was running out of ink, Your colors will be way more vibrant) Simple,fast and fun... perfect stocking stuffer for those game lovers!
Take a trip Around the World with Activity Village and explore continents and countries in far away places! We bring you a little geography, a little history and lots of interesting facts about many of the countries of the world. We haven't covered all of them yet, but we are nearly there! As you explore you will find an enormous, and still growing, collection of useful flag printables (including colouring pages, bookmarks, notebooking pages and jigsaws) for all the countries we cover, as well as outline maps and location maps for many. You can also jump right in and explore the country's location on Google maps and enjoy photos too.
