It's another week of teaching bible class to these precious three year olds! They sure loved this lesson of Samuel and the fun activities that went with it. ARRIVAL Just like every week, the first 10-15 minutes of class the children come in and play with toys that are laid out on the table. It is

These DIY Tween Boy Costume Ideas are perfect for Halloween! Here are some DIY character costumes along with others, perfect for big kids!

Learn more about and download our Anger Management Skills Worksheet.

Cheesy Shredded Beef Taquitos that are baked, not fried! This baking method makes cooking a big batch of taquitos a breeze, and less clean-up! They are also healthier, not greasy, and you still get that crunchy CRISPY outer shell!

Learn what is under your skin with a fun life-size human body project for kids. Download FREE skeletal system bones and organ printables!

Discover creative IKEA Kura hacks 🛏️ for stylish, functional kids' bed makeovers. Get inspired with easy, budget-friendly DIY ideas!

Help your first grader practice sounding out short vowels with a fun coloring activity.

What causes sensory toe walking in children and how do you address it? Learn about toe walking sensory strategies, how it relates to sensory processing disorder, and when to be concerned.

Build a paper model of one of the most famous clocks in the world, Big Ben! This paper craft requires some tricky scissor-work and patience.

Students can travel across the globe without leaving the classroom. Check out these fun geography lessons for any grade and curriculum.

Teach your kids coping skills with these easy and brilliant anger management activities for kids - designed for positive parenting.

How do we, as parents or educators, teach children gratitude, such an abstract skill? Here are 20 Ideas to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude in Children.

The Armor of God can be a big subject to teach little ones. This printable activity will help make it more understandable and fun!

The Most Fun Things to do with Toddlers before they’re Big Kids! (Well, OK- plenty of these are fun for big kids too, but you can start playing today…)

Preschoolers have BIG FEELINGS. Having a preschool emotions sensory bin in the classroom is perfect for the beginning of the school year.

Learn how to pack healthy school lunches that are yummy and protein-packed so they will...

Emotional regulation involves recognising emotions, using language to express feelings, learning to calm oneself down in the face of overwhelming emotions, and learning to treat others with kindness and empathy. And these are skills and behaviours that need to be learned. Toddlers and preschoolers are learning so much about themselves and their place in the...

Kids Lying? If you’re looking for strategies and consequences that don't involve punishment to stop your child from lying, we've got 20 ideas to help!

Everything you need to know about the tactile sense from tactile defensiveness, tactile seeking behaviors, tactile play ideas, and the best tactile toys!

Language is like a big, colorful puzzle, and words are the pieces that fit together to create beautiful pictures, or in this case, sentences. Prefixes and suffixes are special pieces of this puzzle. A prefix is a little group of letters we add at the beginning of a word to change its meaning, like adding […]

Learn the most fun way to exercise with baby or exercise with kids! Moved to turn a dance party into a HIIT cardio for mom! A HIIT dance party is the perfect way to HIIT with kids. Fun bonding with the family and a killer exercise for mom. The BEST way to exercise with a toddler at home.

I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!

Download these darling and FREE coloring pages to give as favors to keep the kids at your wedding entertained!

To view my full 14 page Fairy Tale Compare and Contrast activity, click here This is a fun activity to compare/contrast the Big Bad Wolf character in the fairy tales, "Little Red Riding Hood" & "The Three Little Pigs". You can also use the Wanted Poster for any fairy tale villain you are readin...

Get skinny legs FAST with this collection of no equipment slimming leg workouts you can do absolutely anywhere. Getting sexy legs has never been easier!

Yep, I said Perfect New York Style Bagels… and I do mean perfect!! These were my second attempt at homemade bagels. The first was a much simpler recipe, and turned out great bagels. This recipe though, is a perfect copycat of my favorite New York Style bagel shop bagels! I’m sure I will be making...Read More »

This FREE handout is a great activity for warm-ups or even early finishers. This handout was inspired by the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. Here is the BLANK version. This is a good opti…

Not sure what to teach the first week of 3rd grade? Here's what we did!

Teach your kids coping skills with these easy and brilliant anger management activities for kids - designed for positive parenting.

Skip the flipping with these big batch sheet pan protein pancakes! Light and fluffy, with juicy blueberries and a hint of vanilla, they are filling with 11 g protein per serving. Prep them ahead and reheat for easy breakfasts through the week.

Day sixteen of our Stay at Home, Screen Free Activities Programme is all about cool things to do with a big roll of paper. Cool things to do with a big roll of paper One of my daughters favourite things to do is roll out a BIG sheet of paper. There’s something about the scale which […]

Do your kids love things that glow in the dark? Try one of these 11 glow in the dark activities for tons of dark and nighttime fun!