Check out these fun teaching materials for teaching comma rules to upper elementary including an anchor chart, videos, and graphic organizer.
Teaching grammar and language art skills can be a challenge for anyone. How do you hit all of the skills...effectively? How do you know your students are
It's time for a little vocabulary lesson! Do you ever struggle with teaching synonyms? Well, then this set of printable synonym puzzles is for you! This printable set includes 20 different synonyms including the following words:
Can you provide meaningful instruction without a grammar worksheet? You can, and here are ten alternatives to the grammar worksheet.
ELL, ESOL, LEP, ELD. We all have experienced English Language Learners at some point during our teaching careers. Learn some strategies to help both you and them be successful!
Looking for an easy and fun teaching idea for your students to practice their vocabulary words? My students loved it and never realized they were learning! This strategy can work for any grade, from kindergarten to high school!
Teaching grammar and language art skills can be a challenge for anyone. How do you hit all of the skills...effectively? How do you know your students are
I am back with a freebie! There are so many different instances in which a comma should be used. I have just released a handy student reference chart that students can attach inside of their student notebooks or place inside of a folder.Click Here To Access It.
Are you looking for some activities for teaching suffixes? Check out these free materials including activities for Google Slides, videos, anchor charts,
I LOVE saving figurative language until June - it's such a fun language unit ... and perfect for our "dreaming of summer brains". We finished up our EQAO testing mid week, and this onomatopoeia activity was the perfect break from testing. How fun is that??? Students chose two contrasting colours - one for the background and one for the word and border "bursting out of the page". They also needed newspaper (cut just a fraction smaller that the "bursting out of the page border" and glued the newspaper on top. They glued their word on top of that (we had brainstormed a lot of onomatopoeia words, but for some reason most of them chose SPLAT for their word). I also had them do a little shading under their letters for that little extra POP (see, I know some onomatopoeia words, too). ;) I had seen this awesome idea on Pinterest and followed it back to Artisan des Arts. Her examples are FANTASTIC!! We also wrote simile poems this week. I found a little template HERE for the students to use for their rough copies. When students were finished their templates, I had them write out their good copies, and illustrate a few lines with a small image. I hung these up, too ... LOVING our bulletin board switch up ... even this late in the school year!!! (I have two of these "smART class" bulletin boards side by side in the classroom. 15 more school days left ... I think I can ... I think I can ... Happy Friday!!!
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!
Basic vocabulary, like knowing prepositions, is necessary for beginning readers. Teach prepositions with this simple game.
Learn Creative ESL Teaching Notes and Ideas.
This week in my classroom it’s been all about SUFFIXES!! We started out with an anchor chart and some fun puzzles! Pinterest My students worked with partners to solve a set of puzzles… Pinterest I used the second set of puzzles as a center/literacy station. I printed on colored paper and laminated. I’m not going […]
Over the years, my students have come to sessions seeking help with literary devices. They have expressed confusion over the terms: literary devices, literary terms, literary elements and figurative language, and they also struggle with the many definitions. What are Literary Devices, Literary Terms, Literary Elements and Figurative Language? Literary Devices are creative writing strategies used by an author to convey his or her message(s). When used well, literary devices help readers to visualize, interpret and analyze literary texts. There are two kinds: literary techniques (which includes figurative language) and literary elements. Literary Techniques are words or phrases in texts of literature that writers use to achieve artistic or creative expression. Literary techniques also help readers to visualize, understand and appreciate literature. Literary Elements are components or pieces that make up a story or literary work. Figurative Language is the creative use of words and phrases that offers a hidden meaning beyond any literal interpretation. How Can Students Understand The Global Concept? I created an image to help students “see” the big picture as well as understand the individual components. Although I have not included all possible literary devices, I have included what I believe to be the most common ones. I hope you agree. Click Here to download a free copy of this image. Additional Resources: If you are also interested in a comprehensive publication that also offers students additional printables, a multisensory activity and a game, Click Here Cheers, Erica 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 GSL Blog: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news Stores: www.GoodSensoryLearning.com/ Courses: http://www.learningspecialistcourses.com/ Newsletter Sign-up: https://app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/694000
I have no idea where to start with writing tonight. I took one day off and now I'm thinking, "Oh, my goodness! Why do these people all want to follow me?" I keep trying to think of a funny story and honestly, I can't think past the football game in the background. I'm a Georgia fan at heart (sorry Dad - it's not my fault), but ultimately I'm an SEC fan! I like the guy from Hawaii on Notre Dame, but I have to say, I hope Alabama slaughters them. Now, changing directions, this week we are working on types of sentences, so I threw together a quick sheet. If you guys are anything like me, we have the new common core standards, but our old resources don't align. At the beginning of the summer, I took apart every resource I had and realigned all of my notebooks. It took 4 days to do, but they are a work of art and MUCH better than a filing cabinet. However, many times there are only 5 problems on a page or the page is too easy or too complex. So, now I'm obsessed with creating my own sheets. Anyway, I'm saying all of that to say I have three new freebies for you. The first one is a rounding sheet. Honestly, I'm not sure it's a first grade standard anymore. I thought it was when I created it, but I've looked through all of the standards and our first grade teacher's guide and I can't find it, so I'm not sure. I do know the other two sheets are in our standards. One of them covers true/false addition problems and the other one covers declarative and interrogative sentences plus punctuation marks. If you like them, CLICK HERE to get them. Oh, and for all of my cat lovers out there (See Saturday's post), my hubby has changed my picture on his phone to that picture. Now, every time I call him, the picture of the cat pops up. That's okay... I'm sure I deserve it. I did sneak a boiled egg into his work boot a few years ago ;) Hope you guys are off to a good week!
Last week, I blogged about Bloom's Taxonomy and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). (See April 2, 2012.) My friend, Andrea, over at One Teacher's Take...is Another's Treasure commented that she also uses Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Levels and Marzano's Dimensions of Thinking, both of which are new to me. So, I immediately googled them. Here's what I found. . . Webb's DOK Levels look like this: What I like about Webb's model is the 4 levels versus Bloom's 6. It's always nice to condense things, isn't it? At least in my realm of preparing dozens of lesson plans each day, less is more! The 4 level descriptors (the inner circle) boast newer and somewhat clearer concepts. Then my eye wanders over the outer circle. Ouch! Another sea of verbs to swim through. The 4th level, presumably the quarter in which we strive to spend most of our time, is curiously short on verbs compared to the other 75%. Are those 8 verbs/phrases just more succinct? Or, do they reflect the limitations foisted upon teachers by the Common Core of Teaching Standards, standardized testing, and uniform time lines? Surely that triad has bearing on it. Perhaps there is more to be considered, however. Is the 4th level truly where teachers strive to be? I hope, in my heart of hearts, that the answer is YES. However, it is possible that some, if not many, teachers find little motivation to work on level 4. Their efforts are not evaluated by standardized tests, depriving them of extrinsic approval. Paychecks remain static whether teachers push their students toward extended learning or not. Indeed, rewards are esoteric. Certainly the dedicated, professional teacher experiences intrinsic satisfaction. S/he may even be fortunate enough to receive accolades from students, parents, colleagues, and/or administrators. Is that enough? In a future blog, I'll discuss Marzano's Depth of Knowledge Levels. Until then, I'd love to hear your thoughts about teaching HOTS.
Learn Creative ESL Teaching Notes and Ideas.
It amazes me how much class size affects my teaching and my students. I started the year with 31 students. I just lost my second one at the beginning of this week, so I'm down to 29. I've had 2 kids out all week on long vacations and 2 more out sick. So I've had a class of 25 ALL week!! It's been a big difference. Even though the ones gone are little angels and I still have all the hard ones, it really makes a BIG difference!! Our district and researchers keep telling us that class size doesn't make a difference but I have to beg to differ with them. It makes a HUGE difference in first grade. With a smaller class I can spread myself out more- work with more kids, more often, for longer periods of time. We can get more done- 25 kids take less time to finish an assignment than 31. With all the activities we do in first grade through out the day it can really add up. With less kids, fighting for my attention, I can give more attention to those that really need it. During class discussions, there is more participation by more kids. The shyer kids start to open up. It just feels more like a close knit community rather than a big city. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to teach less than 20. What a dream!! Back to reality. Our school has been doing training in SIOP this year. It stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. You can find out more HERE. It actually is training in teaching English Language Learner but our school does not have a very high percentage of ELLs. We actually have only 3 out of 180 in our grade level. But the SIOP model is really best practices and a great review in how to teach better. With the new common core our principal thought is would be a great help. We've had to do lesson studies and just finished one yesterday. Our team did ours on Synonyms. It's great to collaborate and work together as a team developing and analyzing a lesson. Here's a practice page we used and a cute song we found. I don't know who to give credit for the song but our kiddos really liked it. Click HERE if you'd like to grab a copy. Hey, believe it or not but it's FRIDAY tomorrow- again! Gotta love FRIDAY! I hope you all have a GREAT one.
First- I caved and bought labels for ALL of my students to put in their notebooks. Not only because I'm controlling, but because it's helpful for them to be organized. In fact, they recognized that this will help them become more organized, and make it easier to find sections in their notebooks. Am I the only one who gets super excited when I see organized tabs? Oh, and notice their "Master AAAWWUBBIS Hunter" stickers? Went over really well, and every student received one when they showed me their completed, and correct, Express Lane Edit for AAAWWUBBIS. It cost $20 for the labels, but I can get four different sets of labels done for my classes. Coming up this week is "Ultimate FANBOYS" :) Ahhh...organization So I have two other sections in my Writer's Notebook, "Author's Word and Phrase Palette", and "Gems". We utilized these sections last week in my Language Arts 1 (Reading) class, by having them out while they silent read! We started off by labeling the sections in their Table of Contents, and I gave them silly names so that they would be memorable. I told students that they absolutely did not have to write things down as they read, but if they saw a cool word or phrase, they should write it down so they can remember it later! I did the same as I silent read to model. Here's our section for "Quotes" The gems section is not only great for remembering quotes, but giving them extra practice with citations. They are already pointing out that I'm missing a citation if I write a quote on the board and don't put the author and page number. This is this weeks board. I am moving to a two-week process, where we work on WWTW on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Invitations on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I know that eventually this process will go faster, and we won't need an entire class period. For now I am thankful that I have time in the curriculum to go over it in depth. I also made a binder to hold all my anchor charts as the year goes on, and students can refer back to it as well. I've done "anchor charts" for our Invitation to Write days... and our Express Lane Edits I'm trying to focus on visual cues with students this year. On a typical day, I have agendas posted/written on the backboard, and projected in the front as well. I'm really trying to have them focus on their surroundings, and taking the initiative to look around the room to answer their questions of, "What are we doing today?" and "Is there going to be homework?" I apologize for my lack of posts last week. Of course, I set a schedule for myself and then completely break it. It's been non-stop working and grading when I get home every night already, and I'm worried I'm going to burn out very rapidly this year. Going from teaching 6 classes to 7 with four different preps and one plan period has been a bigger hurdle than I think any of us anticipated. However, I will continue to be committed to giving 100%+ to my students, despite my own stresses.
Ideas and materials for assessing English Language Learners. Help get an idea throughout the year of your students language level.
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
Hello and welcome. Thank you for visiting my post on second grade teaching materials and ideas.
Once a popular way to teach grammar, the practice of diagramming sentences has fallen out of favor.
Keep this study aid handy during homework time, or keep a copy in the back of your binder for classroom reference.
October is here and we are gearing up for some fun, hands-on and engaging learning! We have you covered with NO PREP packets for: Preschool,
Teaching morphology can be a great way to help students with understanding unknown words, decoding multisyllabic words, and spelling.
Your students are bright, but they don't always sound like it. Help improve student vocabulary with these 600 ways to say common things.
This fabulous Blooms Gardners Writing Matrix contains 42 ideas for writing! Here's 10 FREE ideas, verb posters and displays for HOTS. Love number 3!
