Many approaches to encouraging better thinking are abilities-centric, but Visible Thinking is about fostering dispositions of thought, creating a Culture of Thinking, and bringing students to the c…
I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about how important it is for children to be able to articulate their thoughts when it comes to reasoning and
Let's talk about teaching catechism in the household. The What, Why, and How of using catechism for the whole family to get closer to God. First you must choose a catechism to use. After that, it's just a matter of making the time each day/week to practice the questions with your kids.
Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.
Need poems for middle school students? Here are 12 that are funny, quirky, interesting, and poignant. Perfect for teens and teaching poetry.
Cognitive distortions are unhealthy ways of thinking that makes depression worse. To fight them, we first have to know what they are and how to spot them.
In this post I will talk about the 3-2-1 Bridge thinking routine. The word Bridge is used to indicate the routine has two related stages. I have found it an interesting and effective activity in pr…
Do you need to get kids involved in math lessons? Get These FREE Thinking & Talking About Math talk posters & prompts! Happy Kids Guaranteed!
Our Would You Rather Scripture Game is not only a lot of fun, but it will also help you teach your family about the importance of Agency. This free Family Night printable is guaranteed to get your family talking and laughing. Get all the info on the blog!
What is STEM? STEM stands for: Science Technology Engineering Mathetics STEM refers to a set of interlinked subjects that are important foundational concepts for kids and adults in today's world. STEM is an educational curriculum
Positive thinking strategies help kids reframe negative thoughts so they can determine the size of their problem.
Archive : content area literacy
In this episode on rubrics for elementary teachers, learn about- How to establish goals and success criteria- Determine the performance levels - How to mark
Educational Classroom Posters From Forde Ferrier Introduce Students To Common Tools That Are Critical To Their Educational Development.
Fun and engaging ESL activities, games and worksheets in printable PDF format with full teacher's notes and answers for English teachers to use in class.
People are suffering from anxiety and compassion fatigue and one way to help combat these is to work through your thinking traps.
Kids need to talk to learn. These structured discussion techniques are fun and mix things up from the usual think-pair-share tactic.
In this post, I'll talk about why teaching schema is important, give some ideas and tips for teaching about schema to your young readers, and discuss when we
These last few weeks have been a blur. I don't know where they've gone... honestly. A quick recap: 1) Thanksgiving 2) Smart Conference. What a treat this was, and I will blog about it sometime, but it was a week of planning and a week of conference-ing. (That's a word, right?) 3) Meetings. IEP, Book Studies, Harassment Seminar, Staff Meeting. Just lots of meetings. 4) Sickness. Why do I always get a cold at this time of year? 5) Report Cards. Currently procrastinating on those by writing this blog post. You're welcome. :) In the midst of this craziness, Crystal and I decided to whip out another bulletin board. 'Cause, you know? Why not? First stop, Dollar Store plastic table cloth section. You can never have too many plastic table cloths on hand. Our inspiration for this board was our Growth Mindset lessons we've been doing. The lessons are inspired by these two books: We created the brain on this board with above mentioned plastic table cloths. They are twisted together and bunched up. Some are full length and some are trimmed down. Just twist, fluff and staple every few inches. The white side has black tissue paper inside, just to give it a bit of dimension in the colour. I am not sure why we took this photo. I think someone texted "What are you doing" and I sent this back. It's hilarious anyhow. Here's the final product. The "STOP" piece up top is just layered paper plates. I had to sort a lot of letters to spell all those words. Some how I had all the pieces. I still can't really believe it, actually. Our kids provided the self talk pieces for growth and fixed. It was really interesting to see this process. The task was to write one thought, whether growth or fixed. For fixed, they had so many thoughts on their cards! I read somewhere that the average human thinks 5 times more negative things than positive ones. I believe it after seeing this task. And some positive self talk.... my favourite growth mindset piece: "It's not over until the fat lady sings". Too funny. If you're after more ideas for teaching growth mindset, follow my Pinterest board. Are you interested in even more bulletin board ideas? Do you want to save time by finding them all in one place? Follow the image or button below to grab your copy of my free bulletin board inspiration guide. Take Me to the Free Download Pin this post.
Help a child challenge negative thinking by teaching them to identify negative thoughts, challenge them, reframe them, and replace them.
Honesty time. I was terrible at parent communication when I first started teaching. Like, I avoided it at all cost. I was terrified of parents and did not want to talk to them. I think that isn’t really a strange response as a first year teacher, but it did not work well for me. The […]
Today I thought I’d share a strategy I use to help my students communicate their thinking during the inquiry process. See, Think, Wonder is a thinking routine I use with my students to help t…
Don't have computers or bee-bots available? Still want to teach about logical order and programming? These Algorithm practice sheets will enable you to do just that in a colourful and fun way. Simply print the worksheets, laminate and use them in class to talk about algorithms and computational thinking in relation to object moving from point A to B. If you already have a bee-bot in class, your can use these for an independent maths/computing station where the students have to try and solve the path from bee to hive. This pack includes 20 different tasks (5 for each orientation; North, East, West, South). + 10 BONUS Sheets with Two-step Algorithms (Example in the thumbnails) Gather nectar before flying home to your hive. Great to challenge your more able learners! Have a look at my complete Bee-bot Guide to get more ideas on how to use Bee-bots in class:Bee-bot Guide for Teachers Also, check out my FREE Bee-bot Rulers Printable:Bee-bot Rulers I've got more Bee-bot Maps you can start making today: Bee-bot Numbers 1-20 Mat Bee-bot Space Mat - Vocabulary and Mat Pirates Mat - Vocabulary and Mat Additionally, you can visit my website EduFlip.net for more EdTech related tips, tricks and resources. If you have used this or any of my other resources in class I would love to hear your feedback.
Students learn to discuss mathematical concepts by using questions/prompts & sentence frames with these mathematical practice discussion cards.
I really love to teach guided reading groups. It is always interesting and you really get to see how every student is unique in how they learn and process all the information. I like to see them make progress and move up reading levels and also REALLY comprehend what they are reading on another level. Amazing. I know many teachers may have struggled with this question before like I have...What do I do with those high readers? In second grade they are just not quite ready to start literature circles, but the daily small group guided reading is too slow and boring for them. I try to do something in between. I still want to meet with them to make sure we aren't missing an important piece of their reading instruction, but I also want them to become independent and really connect with their reading. Here are a few ideas that I have used for those readers that are really ready to move beyond the small group guided reading. I create a reading passport for these students. We put their picture on the front. Every time they finish a book, they add the title to their passport. In the passport, they can keep track of how many fiction and nonfiction books they read. This passport can be used for all levels! Reading Passport I meet with the group to introduce their book and have the discussions about predictions, unusual vocabulary, and any connections we might have. Then they go on their own to read as a group to the assigned chapter and complete a portion of their Book Club Notes. We always discuss ahead of time what the expectation is and what portion of the notes I will be looking for at our next meeting. They love the independence and take this very seriously! Book Club Notes I also like to provide something more for some of my other groups that are working above level, but not ready for this much independence. I just continue with our regular guided reading groups, but have them use a small bookmark to add their thinking and summarizing. I have a fiction or nonficiton bookmark. I add this to their book bag and they complete a portion at a time and bring it back to group for our discussions. Reading Groups Book Mark (Fiction) Reading Groups Bookmark (nonfiction) Sometimes I need a few reminders about asking those higher order thinking questions...for all my groups! I like to keep this list of question starters in my guided reading binder to help me remember to push them to think about their thinking! Higher Order Thinking Questions I can't wait to really get to work in my guided reading groups!
Showing students that math is a flexible subject can be powerful. So many kids (and adults) believe that math is all about getting right answers. But it's not! When we can show students that there
If you do fewer teacher-directed activities, that means the kids will naturally do more talking, doesn’t it? Not necessarily.
Use this art discussion lesson for children, featuring work by Henri Matisse, to get children thinking and talking about art. If you haven’t tried art discussion activities before it’s easy to get started, and you’ll soon discover how they open up conversations and ideas, boosting children’s language, reasoning and confidence. Art discussion lesson for children […]
Kira is working hard on her spelling test, pressing down hard with her pencil as she's writing. Suddenly, the pencil breaks and she bursts into tears. "My pencil broke!!!" she yells to no one in particular.
Writing about math helps kids to organize their thinking, use key vocabulary, and communicate mathematically—which leads to deep and meaningful understanding. Over the past few years, math teachers are incorporating more writing activities into their lesson plans—a trend that is being driven by the
Using open ended challenges challenges in the classroom is such a meaningful way to get quality math talk and thinking going! Check out this post for more!
There are many thought-provoking Ted talks out there just waiting to inspire our students. Click through to read about nine thought-provoking TED talks that you can use to inspire your students today, along with ways you might use them in your classroom.
Here are some useful websites that you can share with your students to teach about web literacy and critical thinking. Can they work out which websites are true, and which are fake?
