It's important to help our students build their morphological awareness, but how can we do this? By using controlled text!
Montessori-inspired Africa themed learning activities and free printables for kids.
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Learn about the science of beaches, plus get fun math, language, and geography practice, in this printable beach unit study!
There's a lot of ground to cover when you teach creative narrative writing. Here are 5 creative narrative mini-lessons you should be sure to use!
Need some guidance for teaching preschool Spanish? You’re in the right place! Young children are the perfect age to soak up a new language. I'm currently raising my own three kids bilingually, and have taught classes to this age group as well. It's never too late to start, and 3-5 year olds are really fun to teach! In this post I've compiled my favorited strategies for you. To get started in learning Spanish together, you Can Do three things: 1. Outline some beginning topics. You can create your own list, with common preschool topics (think numbers, colors, greetings, etc.)Take a
Teaching figurative language is easy! Start with good definitions and examples, add a little practice, then apply in kids' writing.
Everything your kids never knew they wanted to know about Madagascar. (Spoiler alert: watching Penguins of Madagascar isn't that educational.)
If you are looking for some high interest teaching activities, try using animated shorts to to teach the reading skill problems and solutions.
My kids are obsessed with Harry potter and want to learn all they can about the author who created him. That's how our J.K. Rowling Unit Study came to be.
3rd Grade CKLA Units 1-11 Focus Wall BUNDLEThis Bundle includes all CKLA 3rd Grade unit focus walls. Each unit has been carefully created to showcase the essential questions, the language/morphology skills, and the reading skills highlighted for that specific unit. I hope you and your students love ...
Short story units have the potential to deeply inspire and impact learning with students, but if the approach is disjointed or lacking any sort of alignment, these units can feel like flops. Here are the ways that I craft meaningful, engaging, and interesting units to highlight the short stories th
Check out these 7 activities to use with the novel Charlotte's Web including spider web synonyms, how to draw a pig, spider web art, and more.
This FREE literature-based unit study introduces students to 16 different countries and cultures around the world.
I've always struggled with my Animals unit in Science. I pride myself in creating hands-on, engaging lessons--but it's kind of hard to make animals "hands-on." I mean I have a few feathers, a turtle shell and a snake-skin. But my unit was still just a lot of reading books and watching videos. This year, I decided to shake things up a little--by creating a Kindergarten Zoo! Whenever I plan a unit, I start by looking at the standards for that unit and planning my learning objectives. The standards for "Animals" in Texas are fairly simple: (A) sort animals into groups based on physical characteristics such as color, size, or body covering. (B) identify parts of animals such as head, eyes, and limbs. That's it! I don't have to teach about adaptations or habitats or food chains. I don't have to teach kids the difference between reptiles and amphibians. My job is simple. And rather than spinning my wheels trying to teach my kids material that is (possibly) developmentally inappropriate and (possibly) causing them to develop misconceptions, I make darn sure they develop a thorough and sound understanding of the concepts I am responsible for. And I make sure we have...
What if your next unit were self-grading and had students clamoring to work ahead? Yep, you read that right. Your next unit, whether it's skills or facts, could be presented to students in a visible trail of learning that compels them to keep moving forward. In fact, in our classroom, we're doing a game board system for GRAMMAR, and students are doing above the minimum to compete, succeed, and be creative. I've been slowly improving this system for five years in my classroom, and it has manifested into a really cool grammar program for my seventh and eighth graders. Now, I'm finally ready to share it with you. What madness is this? As any quick Google or Edutopia search will tell you, game-based learning is hot right now. A lot of people are looking at different styles of gaming to think about how we can hack the brain's motivation, reward, and learning cycles to help our students make engaged progress. My take on gaming is a basic one, at least for now, but it works. The game board I created is basically the full cycle of learning in disguise: introduce new information, practice, formative assessment, respond to assessment, and repeat... until a final summative assessment happens at the end of the unit or academic term. ...But when presented in the game board, suddenly all this learning isn't just a pile of work anymore - it's a compelling trail that makes students say things like "Challenge accepted!" Example 1: Grammar When I teach The Grammar House Cup, students follow a learning sequence for each grammar topic, gathering "points" for their houses along the way. (Learn more in this blog post.) Example 2: Essay Writing What if you sequenced your "game board" to teach all the parts of an essay, alternating between instruction and writing? The game board could have built-in checkpoints so that you are giving rough draft feedback (OR actually grading the essay pieces) as you go! It also opens up self-paced learning and a writing workshop format. Get the EDITABLE templates! I hope you've been inspired to think of options for how you could reframe or reformat your teaching and learning sequence! Check out my game board download on Teachers Pay Teachers if you want to try a game board program out for yourself! What do you think of this game board madness? Tell me in the comments below!
Download these free picture mats to build vocabulary in preschool and kindergarten. These are great for English language learners, too! #vocabulary
A Charlotte's Web unit study perfect for homeschool, classroom, or thematic novel study. The book study resources listed in this post are all FREE!
Procedural writing or "How-to" is one of my favorite units! Read this post to discover some fantastic mentor texts to use in your classroom!
Games to play with youngsters when teaching the story of Cain (and Abel) as found in Genesis 4.
This post contains the animated short film "Glued." Download the accompanying handout leveled for upper elementary students to teach theme.
Engage your early learners in hands-on fun and sharpen sorting skills with this Seasons Sort printable game.
Apple Unit Study bundle with 40+ apple activities and 325+ printable pages covering sensory, fine motor, art, science, math, and language. Preschool - Gr 2.
FREE printable game for toddlers and preschoolers to match pets with their cages or homes. Great for language development and learning about animals.
Create a Math Block I can't say this enough. An effective math block will help you tremendously! It creates routine and structure that you need to make sure everyone is on task. This is what I include in my math block: Engaging Mini Lessons Math centers Independent practice visuals throughout the classroom Use A
Are you a newer teacher who could use some guidance and Spanish lesson plans from a veteran teacher? Are you teaching multiple levels of Spanish classes at once (3-5 preps)? Do you wish your students were more interested and engaged? Are you looking for fresh ideas to spice up your class? Do you feel really
Games for kids to play for Matthew 25 The Parable of the 10 Bridesmaids. A selection to suit any setup. Supporting material available.
{Affiliate links used.} Summer is rapidly approaching. There is a plethora of ideas, books, and resources out there to teach Spanish. Here is a list of all the ideas that would work well with summer to help your students/kids learn more Spanish. {By the way, if you are a teacher and thinking of hosting Spanish summer camps, check out my series here with a ton of games, activities, and crafts to do your own camp.} Here is the unit I developed on Oceans. {Free printables available.} Si Quieres Ver Una Ballena is such a sweet and funny book about how to spot a whale. I have developed some activities for it here. Here is a post with a list of Ocean-themed books in Spanish for kids. Books for summer...a great time to read! I love doing this unit with my students in the summer! {Free printables available} Insects are another great subject to study during the summer. For the younger set, here is an activity to go along with La Oruga Muy Hambrienta. Enjoy teaching Spanish this summer!!!
Blueberries for Sal Unit Study with printables for math, language, science and more! For early learners, preschool to 2nd grade.
I have been meaning to update my Read and Sequence pack for a while now. This is a combination of all of my Read and Sequence pages from various other packs (literacy menus, holiday packs, seasonal packs, fairy tale pack, etc.) So if you own those packs, you don’t have much use for this. If you ... Read More about Read and Sequence (unit makeover and a lemonade freebie)
These 6 short clips are great to include in your daily routine unit for a clip chat or movie talk in Spanish class!
Crow: The Legend is a phenomenal animated short film. It features an all-star cast, is beautiful, is perfect for teaching students about diversity.
The book, Shiloh, is a family classic and is great for all ages. You can study it together with this unit study that is simple and sweet. It includes a discussion guide, coloring pages, a video, and more. The free, printable notebooking pages are perfect for children to record what they've learned.Click here to continue reading at tfhsm.com and to access your FREE printables!
A mystery unit is perfect for a classroom of curious kids! There’s excitement in the suspense, significance in every detail…. and spooky thrills to keep students engaged throughout the class’ mystery literature studies. Mystery units can work in amazing ways by integrating problem-solving and close-reading skills in a painless
