Slope is an important topic for pre-algebra, 8th grade math, and algebra. I was trying to come up with a new idea for practicing slope and I came up with the following: I made 32 cards with ordere…
This month we worked on measurement! The FDK expectation that we focused on was: M2.1 compare and order two or more objects according to an appropriate measure (e.g., length, mass, area, temperature, capacity) and use measurement terms (e.g., hot/cold for temperature, small/medium/large for capacity, longer/shorter or thicker/thinner for length). Here is our math wall at the end of our unit: We started by learning about capacity. One activity we did was writing about what the kids are bigger than after reading the book "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry. "I am bigger than a baby." "I am bigger than a worm." "I am bigger than my baby brother." "I am bigger than a butterfly." "I am bigger than my Dora snacks." Next we talked about length. We talked about and compared lengths whole group and then we practiced ordering items from shortest to longest and longest to shortest in small groups. Then we moved on to temperature. You can read about our temperature activities in depth here. Finally we talked about mass. First we read this book "Heavy or Light". Then the students came up with their own heavy or light items. The next day we started to compare using the terms heavier/lighter. We held a water bottle in our hands and then came up with items that were heavier or lighter than a water bottle. (Please excuse the yogurt stains all over the bottom of the chart.. one of my friends had a little yogurt explosion accident at snack time one day!) One activity that was available during centres was this light and heavy t-chart. Since we have done this activity with many other measurement concepts (cold/hot, small/big) they were familiar with what to do and could complete it independently or with each other's help :) Here is a student example. Light = a lollipop Heavy = tree We also used scales to figure out which items were lighter/heavier but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that :( That's a snapshot of all of the measurement activities that we have done so far! How do you teach measurement? ___________________________________________________________________ Added 08.11.21: I now have a full non-standard measurement unit with lesson plans and printables! Click here or on the image below if you are interested in taking a look: I also now have a digital non-standard measurement unit! Click here or on the images below if you are interested in checking that one out:
Resources and organization for math centers.
Educative and powerful workshop today by Maria Cieslak on how to leverage students’ translanguaging practices (as assets) in classrooms.
I LOVE teaching left and right! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! . . . deep breath. . . sigh. . . . Above is a pic of one of the activities we worked on. The small cards are numbers and tell the kids how many counters to put on the hand. We've also been singing Harry Kindergarten's Left and Right Robot song. Over and over and over and over. . . . We've been twisting away with Patty Shukla! We've also been jammin' out to the Hokey Pokey and rocking out to Mother Gooney Bird by Dr. Jean. Of course we had our Smelly sticks out too! I need a machine that has 2 buttons: When I push button one it will say, "You have fabulous behavior, show me your right hand for a Smelly Reward!" Button two will say "You have fabulous behavior, show me your left hand for a Smelly Reward!" Anyone have that for sale in their TPT store?? Seriously though, whoever thought up Smelly Rewards is a GENIUS! Thank you from the bottom of my <3 !
Students in first and second grade are learning about Rondo Form. A song is in rondo form if it has an A section that is repeated several times, with new sections in between each A section. An ex…
I gathered a huge list of amazing preschool worksheets. Printable preschool and kindergarten worksheets for children. Print at home and tech your children.
What Is A Scientist? Mini Unit Make sure you establish a positive feeling about being a scientist. Make your students feel like scientist and think of themselves as scientists by spending a week learning about scientists, what they do and how they use tools. The lessons in this unit introduce different kinds of scientists, the different kinds of jobs they have, what kind of tools they use, how they use their 5 senses and how they ask and answer questions. There is engaging literature connected to each lesson in this unit. Children are natural scientists. They are inquisitive and energetic. The goal of this unit is to encourage children to explore the world around them and help them become enthusiastic about being scientist all year long. What is included… booklet cover pictures of scientists at work lessons about using scientist’s tools lessons about using your 5 senses question for remembering to ask questions Here is what teachers like you are saying about this Super Scientist Unit… ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Janelle G. says, “This unit was so much fun! It really helped my students start to see themselves as scientist.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Kinder Sparks says, “Love this! It was perfect to use with my kinders!” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ana H. says, “This is a great resource! My kids enjoyed it.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Donna G, says, “Super graphics to use as I introduced Science this year to my class!” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amy B. “The pictures are a great way to introduce different types of scientists. Makes it real for the students. I will connect these to units of study to introduce scientists throughout the year.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Teresa U. says, “Love the pictures. They printed beautifully on my school color printer using heavy weight paper. Looking forward to using these lessons at the beginning of the year with my K/1 class. I purchased the books from Amazon. All ready to go…" I love listening to students talk about themselves as scientist during this unit! Check out my other KINDERGARTEN activities: Math Workshop Writing Workshop Reading Workshop Created by: Jonelle Bell Click HERE to follow A Place Called Kindergarten Permission to copy for single classroom use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.
Teaching Habitats to your primary students will be a breeze with my collection of resources to help make your life easier. There's even a freebie!
When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult
The ability to separate the sounds of a word is called “phoneme segmentation”. It’s a critical skill in both learning to read and write. By six and a half/seven years of age students should be able to tell you the sounds in a word. So, for example, if given the word “cat”, the student should […]
I use this performance based rubric to assess students’ language skills in my class. (Thanks to Thomas Sauer for putting pretty documents together for us at JCPS! Click here to download the r…
As we approach Matariki, there are some wonderful Matariki crafts you can do with your children to celebrate.
Volume can be a difficult concept for students. Fifth-grade students are expected to understand the concept of volume, calculate volu...
Hi everyone, My little learners have been working SO hard on their reading these past few months and I am VERY excited to show what what they have been up to!
Make the walls of your classroom work for you and your students! Ideas for planning a Writing Wall that will truly support your little writers.
What a CRAZY week and weekend!!! We are finished with our state testing and school fair. Yahoo!!! This past week consisted of finishing up state testing, teaching students a dance for the fair performance, painting a picture for the fair silent auction, (see picture below), making over 50 candy apples for the sweets booth, and practicing for the teacher fair performance! Yes, I am one of 11 teachers who actually dances in front of the parents and students at the fair!!! I think the best part of dancing would be attending all practices after school!!! enjoying the fair candy apples for the sweet booth silent auction: each student painted a different picture on the canvas End-of-the-Year Linky Party With state testing & the fair behind me, I can start preparing for the end of the year. I am linking up with Clutter-Free Classroom and sharing my end-of-the-year ideas. I can't believe May is right around the corner!! Where did the school year go? I still need to put together portfolios and make a power point presentation. I love making a power point from all of the pictures I take during the school year. I must admit that it takes over a week to construct because I always find a way to mess up something! It never fails that every year I make some kind of mistake!!! For the portfolios, I save the students' work all year and use sheet protectors in binders. I like to put the work in order from the first to last day for the parents. I put all work in sheet protectors. The parents appreciate the organization of the work so much because it saves them the time of doing it over the summer. Also, students complete a summer writing activity. This writing activity is my favorite one of the year. The creativity that flows from the students' brains is amazing! Students are asked to write about a summer trip they have taken already or plan on taking. After editing the rough draft, students write the final copy of the essay on sunglasses. Students glue glasses on large white construction paper and draw a picture around the glasses. I was amazed the first time I did this with my class. I did not instruct them to draw a person. The end results were more than I imagined! summer writing summer writing end-of-the-year presentation set up Click (HERE) to grab your sunglasses template. What a post! Please check out Clutter-Free Classroom Project and join the End-of-the-Year Linky Party! With much appreciation,
Check out these private teaching activities and games for your ESL lessons. Keep things fresh and interesting in your 1-1 English classes.
Check out these private teaching activities and games for your ESL lessons. Keep things fresh and interesting in your 1-1 English classes.
Need help with CC Essentials? Learn how to set up your student notebook as well as what to do at home every day as you work on your Essentials work at home!
Practice identifying the tallest items in this printable worksheet.
sped curriculum, sped scope and sequence, special education scope, special education curriculum map,
The blog adventures of homeschooling active boys, preschool at home, and other educational activities.
Rambly Friday thoughts… I’ve been pondering a bit about the last post on non-profit boards and the artists that do (or don’t) love them. Many of the response people have posted back on the old Face…
Kids sometimes don't distinguish between a shape that's open and one that's closed. Here, kids can see the difference as they classify shapes as open or closed.
Have you started school yet this year? We haven't - I mean, we've been counting things that are "school" type things to our school year cale...
At our April meeting, we discussed the importance of assessment in the world or art education. This has always been true, but especially in hard times like we face today, assessment can be your best friend in helping you advocate the importance of the arts in schools. A lot of people who have not had the opportunity to visit your classroom and see what you do, have no clue what goes on in your learning space. Using art assessments can help you validate the importance of your art program to your administrators, form solid evidence for you to use in parent interactions, and provide you with the appropriate information you need to decide what is working in your lessons and what is not. We had some really great ideas shared at the BAEA meeting. Jill and Olsen both talked about how integral sketchbook assignments are in their classroom. Depending on the level that you teach, you could do anything from a guided daily or weekly prompt to a more open-ended sketchbook assigment where the students are in charge of what goes into it. Stacia shared with us that her children have a sketchbook that they are really proud of and their art teacher (Miss Mary Jane) has her students illustrate quotes in their sketchbooks. Another great way to encourage higher quality work is by posting a "Craftsmanship Visual Rubric" in your classroom (like the one Lindsay uses in her classroom shown below). This is a wonderful way to hold your students accountable for your expectatations of them. This one is tailored to the grading system Lindsay uses in her elementary classroom, but you can alter it to fit your needs. I think it really helps students to have a constant visual reminder hanging up in the classroom. Another good one is this worksheet that students can fill out called "My Art Portfolio." You can use it as a cover sheet for student portfolios and/or have students fill them out at the end of the semester/year as you pass back art for them to take home. Click here for a printable version of the form! Another assessment I like to use with my students is the "Word Bubble Critique." Since I teach elementary students, the criticism that can come with a critique can be a bit daunting for students and teacher alike! So, I got some dry-erase word bubbles (like these from crayola) and during our critique I give each student two word bubbles and a dry erase marker. They swap art with a partner and are instructed to write a "glow" on one bubble and a "grow" on another. A "glow" would be something that the artist was very succesful with in their artwork...the"grow" would come in the form of a question or suggestion. For example, "have you thought about using more lines and detail?" or "Maybe you should try using more of a variety of shapes to make the composition more interesting." My students love this activity and it is a great chance for them to use the proper art vocabulary in evaluating art! If you don't want to buy the word bubbles, you could even cut some out of posterboard and laminate them... Casey, Stacia, and Lindsay also had some great assessment ideas that included everything from interactive worksheets for visitors of your art show to fill out to rubrics, exit slips, student self-checklists, and more! I put some of them into a word document so that you can print them out and use them in your classroom too! Click here to get to the google document. Some of the pictures/formatting wouldn't translate to google documments so if you would like me to email you the file I would be happy too...just let me know! Also, here are a few links to online resources that include articles, pinterest boards, assessments, and more: http://rubistar.4teachers.org (Rubrics generator **free) http://princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/toolbox/assessment.html (has many links to articles about various assessment tools) www.prometheanplanet.com (use search feature to find many flipcharts for your promethean smart board...for example search "graphic organizers) http://artjunction.org/blog/?p=2865 (The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet blog...) http://www.aep-arts.org/files/evaluation/EnvArtsAssess.pdf (great article on art assessments...good ideas on cross-content connections) http://www.theartofed.com/2012/01/12/introducing-aoe-ebooks-free-download/ (free downloadable eBook The Complete Guide to Simple Art Assessments) http://www.kinderart.com/artspeak/artart3.shtml (How to look art art...Feldman's Model) http://pinterest.com/artlindsay/art-education (my Pinterest Art Education board) http://pinterest.com/search/boards/?q=art+assessment (Pinterest boards themed on art assessments)
This week I tried something new with the vocabulary in the story. I got the idea at a First Grade Conference in December. The student writes the vocabulary word in the middle of the sheet and then there are four things to do with the word. We completed two of the boxes together as a class and they finished the last two boxes independently. The kiddos sure had a great grasp of the vocabulary after this. When we read the story they had fantastic comprehension.
Autism & Hearing Impaired Autistic children tend to process information visually and have difficulty when skills are verbally communicated to them. Visual skill cards and tips for teaching children with disabilities can be downloaded and printed out below. These resources are also useful for children who normally wear hearing aids or have other […]
If you're looking for a way to keep your creative lesson-planning ideas organized, you won't want to miss this quick post. You'll learn about how to use the Ed Deck to inspire you when you're lesson planning. Having all of your ideas easily organized and ready to inspire will be a game-changer.
A teaching blog focusing on Kindergarten, First and Second grade teaching ideas, free resources, craft ideas, and picture book recommendations.
Fishbowl Interpersonal Speaking in Spanish class. An interpersonal speaking activity or assessment for Spanish class.
Check out the best ESL Activities for one on one tutoring. They'll get your 1-1 student having fun while learning English.
