The first year of teaching can be a challenge! These 15 Teaching Tips for New Teachers are proven strategies to help new teachers survie their first year!
Teach letter sounds and phonics using these letter sounds videos and lessons. Lots of ideas to teach letter sounds in kindergarten or first grade.
Big question. One flow chart.
Cooperative Learning is a great strategy to use in every classroom. It doesn’t matter the age or ability of the students, cooperative learning can be…
Student teaching: Here are 6 ways to make the most of your student teaching experience and four things you'll want to avoid.
Have you ever had a class with so many difficult, disruptive students that you felt that you could barely even teach? What can you do to get past it? In this post, I am going to address this problem with my best advice, and some advice from others as well.
Siblings who don't get along can make your home feel chaotic. Check out some simple tips to help with sibling rivalry.
Standing apart from other applicants at an interview hinges on making a good first impression. Employment coaches have these seven mental tactics that help.
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.
Those days of forgetting their math facts? Staring blankly at a multiplication problem? Adding or subtracting when they should be multiplying? Done. Gone. Over. Those days are in the past! Today we’re going to learn how to teach multiplication facts to our students with disabilities so that they build conceptual knowledge and retention.
Teaching theme will be engaging for your students with videos! Find the 5 Best Videos for Teaching Theme in your ELA classroom.
This week was Truth and Reconciliation Week in Canada. Although officially recognized over one week, these are conversations and teachings that should happen throughout the school year, not just one week, or one day. Reconciliation is about building relationships and respect, and that just cannot be reduced to a week. I wanted to share some of the activities, readings, and discussions I had with my Grade 5/6 class this year, mainly inspired by this resource, Every Child Matters. After reading the book Trudy's Rock Story, and discussing how Trudy uses rocks to relieve her anger and release her feelings, we decided that making our own Resilience Rocks could help us process some of our feelings about Canada's history, mainly anger and confusion, and by placing them back on the Earth, we could release some of the feelings and remember to act. Tuesday we started painting our rocks orange while I read the story, I am Not a Number. (We used acrylic paint - I would suggest spray paint - we had to do many many coats of acrylic paint, and them still seal them). We also watch a video from residential school survivor, Lillian Elias, and then used orange sticky notes to send her a message. Wednesday we sealed the rocks with an outdoor mod podge. We did this BEFORE they wrote on them, otherwise the sharpie marker would pull the paint off when we wrote. We read the story, When I was Eight, and wrote some more reflections on sticky notes. Thursday was Truth and Reconciliation Day and Orange Shirt Day. For art in the morning, we looked at beautiful examples of Indigenous Art and Artists - current and past. We worked on Canada Goose Drawings, inspired by Benjamin Chee Chee. We chose the Canada Goose because we liked how they inspired flight - and they may have to move or leave for a bit, but they always come back, stronger. I let the students use their laptops to look at different images while they drew their own. These turned out stunningly. Even mine - and I usually struggle with a stick figure. We had been talking about what message we wanted to share on Orange Shirt Day on our Resilience Rocks, and had brainstormed a long list over the week. Some students wanted to apologize, others wanted to send a word of support or strength, and some just wanted to share their beliefs that every child really does matter. We knew we would placing the rocks around our school yard and school community and we wanted to choose something that would inspire continuing to spread this message - that every child matters and why we need to understand why. In the afternoon we took a 2.15 km walk (for the 215 children found in Kamloops) and placed our Resilience Rocks around the school community. As we walked in our orange shirts, we were careful to spread them out around our route so we could share our messages with our small community. I told my students that if they were able, it would be nice to bring their grown-ups to where they placed their rocks earlier, and tell them about our learning and their reflections from the week. Our last day was spent working on the writing reflection, "If I was given a $1000 budget to plan an Orange Shirt Day event at my school, this is what I would do." Again, this was our week of Truth and Reconciliation activities in the classroom, but our conversations won't end at the end of the week. This acknowledgement and promise to learn the truth will continue throughout our whole year of curriculum. If you are looking to add more indigenous-themed books and authors to your classroom, HERE is a good place to get started. How were some ways you observed Truth and Reconciliation week at your school?
These 5 ways to teach geometry proofs are interactive and great for a variety of learning types! Click to see my top 5 ways to teach geometry proofs.
If you want to know how to calm down when angry, these anger management tips are perfect for women, men, children, teens, and especially for parents!
Today I'm talking about using the 6+1 Traits of Writing. Why do I teach with the Traits? It works perfectly with the B.C. Curriculum. Students get it. It breaks the writing process down into steps we can layer up all year. That means writing doesn't seem like such a large task. And that means, kids will usually write more because they feel a whole lot less overwhelmed. Sounds pretty good to me! Here is the writing board in my classroom. A large portion of it is taken up by my 6 Traits checklist. As the year goes on, and we introduce new pieces, it fills up and serves as a giant criteria list. The blank space to the left is where I add pieces specific to a current focus (figurative language, punctuation, etc.) You don't need to have a board dedicated to the Traits if you teach with the Traits. I do for two reasons: 1) I have the space. 2) It serves a giant checklist students can self assess their writing on that builds through the year as we learn new elements. You'll often hear me say "just because we are working on -----, don't forget all the other pieces we already know". A quick scan of the board and students know exactly what I'm looking for in their writing. (Download that awesome "What do Writers Write?" pencil here!) VOICES? Why does it say "Use your writing VOICES?". Well, VOICES is an acronym for the Traits. V- Voice O- Organization I - Ideas C- Conventions E- Excellent Word Choice S- Sentence Fluency They are now promoting 6+1 Traits and the +1 is Presentation. That didn't make it to my board.... but we do discuss it often. When I was starting out with the Traits, I wasn't sure where to go for resources. Here are some of my favourites to help you out: "Using Picture Books to Teach Writing With the Traits" is an excellent resource. Even though I teach grade 4, I still use it. They give you a scripted lesson plan for every trait as well as several other picture books that fit the trait and how you could use them to inspire writing. I use their examples and then extend on it for my bigger kids. Here are my favourite picture book for for each trait: Voice The story of the 3 Little Pigs told through the Wolf's perspective. Gives students a chance to think about the other side of things, and, it's funny. Organization Or any of the "If you Give a..." books. I love how they are cyclic. You really have to think ahead to write one of these stories. Good cause and effect too. Okay, I picked two for organization. Scaredy books are organized in a different way. I love all the charts and diagrams. Ideas This book is a favourite for many reasons. It is so touching. The boy in this story is searching for the answer to what a memory is. So many beautiful answers are given to him. Conventions This book uses two words. Yo! and Yes? You can talk about how the punctuation helps imply more language than is given. I also like to teach inferring with this book. Excellent Word Choice Max collects words. Although some of his words are basic, he collects some powerful ones as well. The author uses descriptive language throughout this book. Sentence Fluency I like to teach sentence fluency with poetry, because Jack's poems have such a good flow. They just roll off your tongue when you read them. And, they are hilarious. Pin this post. Helping to inspire,
Looking for esl task cards to use with your english language learners? Try these picture cards that are perfect for quick and effective language practice!
Abuse is not always straightforward and in-your-face, however, quiet verbal abuse can have the same impact on your psych nevertheless, maybe even more.
Teaching properties of functions is foundational in Algebra 1. Read some of our tips and tricks for having students master this concept.
I tried many different study methods, some more effective than others. Some worked well for certain classes and not for others, so I had to adjust for each class and each professor. Hopefully this …
Learn more about and download our Anger Management Skills Worksheet.
Do your students have to create timelines to meet academic standards? I'm sharing 10 engaging types of timelines that make this activity FUN for students!
Here are 50 strategies for differentiated instruction to better meet the needs of your diverse, evolving learners.
Rising in popularity over the past 10 years is the idea of the “combination class”. There are teachers and studio owners who love the idea, and others who struggle with teaching all that needs to be taught in such a short amount of time. How can teachers learn to adapt and provide a solid dance […]
Subscribe to the Teach 4 the Heart Podcast.It was a great day when I discovered 4 magic words that just seem to dissolve tension and eliminate at least half of the arguments in my classroom.And those words are: "You're not in trouble."Students can be so defensive, can't they? (and let's be honest,
As we have entered the month of August, every teacher, whether she likes it or not, starts thinking about school. Some of us have dreams (or nightmares). Some of us go on a Pinterest spree. We walk through Target and ask ourselves "What do I 'need' from the dollar section?" You don't do this? Okay, maybe it's just me. Anyway, we are also thinking about what were some of our students' challenges last year, and how we will address them this year. My third and fourth graders had difficulty with vocabulary and making inferences, which was evident in how they would describe their characters: Nice Mean Sad Oh my. So late last school year, I developed this chart of character traits with the intention of helping students organize their thinking when selecting a character trait. Traits are arranged in alphabetical order in the following categories: nice/mean/sad, confident/nervous, and does a lot/does very little. The rest of the categories are partially alphabetical and having a corresponding opposite. This year I will be teaching second graders, so I'm thinking how I will adjust this chart to better suit their developmental abilities: Less words? Words that are more relevant to a second grade schema? Some pictures or graphics to support the vocabulary? Some food for my thought... Many teachers or parents who have downloaded this chart seemed very happy, and I'm happy that they're happy!! Update: Hello there, long time friend! If you found this resource useful for your students, please check out my Character Feelings blog post and TPT product!
Self-reflection is one of the most powerful practices to improve teaching. When you practice self-reflection regularly, it will completely transform your classroom and instruction. Furthermore, self-reflection can take you from being a good teacher to being a great teacher. Are you ready to begin the transformation?
If we want to raise gentlemen, we have to start instilling values in our sons at young ages. These are the 7 ways I am doing that.
Plenty of people in the room have something to say; they just haven't been asked the right question.
Setting SMART goals is a great way to challenge yourself and your family to effectively make healthy lifestyle changes. This article shares how to make your goals SMART to help set you and your family up for success! Download our worksheet below to make your goals SMART-er! Setting a Goal Our Favourite Tip for Family…
