Each week, I post a different writing prompt at writersdigest.com/prompts. And each week, a collection of lovely writers responds to them. Here were some of our best writing prompts of 2018.
Are copywriters wordsmiths? Or researchers stringing found messages together? I posit we're much more. Here's my theory of copywriters.
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Use with paint strip samples…
Creative Writer Worksheet – Steal These (PDF) A simple worksheet this week: a place to stash all the shiny, re-purposeable ideas you filch from your favourite artists. Steal these with stealth! After all… “Good writers copy. Great writers steal.”
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I love having Mondays off, because the rest of the week seems to go by so quickly! I can’t believe tomorrow is already Wednesday! Also, I feel like my students are really getting a hang of our routines and procedures, which is always exciting! We start out our grammar unit by talking about types of […]
Whether you're teaching in a classroom or working with the kids at home, these printable worksheets are a great resource for your 1st grader.
Would you like to decorate your classroom with fun, hand-drawn anchor charts/posters? Do you simply not have the time to get them done? Well, you have come to the perfect place! I love making these engaging and appealing anchor charts. I also can draw/create any other topic you would like, just contact me directly and ask! My students absolutely love these posters and references them every day. Many of them are visual learners, so the colorful images really help them connect and remember what they have learned. This particular anchor chart is for readers/writers learning all about the different parts of speech. My students always struggle with this skills, and easily confused the various parts of speech. They found this anchor chart for helpful, especially with the fun, engaging visuals! **These will be copies unless asked otherwise for a custom poster. They are not laminated, and are printed on normal, anchor chart paper. I ship these out ASAP after being ordered, but please keep in mind once shipped, it is outside of my control. Therefore, if shipping does not meet your expectations, I highly encourage you to please reach out to me first, and we have always been able to work something out to make up for anything that may have occurred after I have sent your package, thanks so much!! Hope you love it :)
Happy Sunday! Common Core math has been a big shift from what many educators and parents have been used to in the past. I have personally embraced the shift towards a deeper understanding of mathematical practices and welcome the shift towards assisting students to build a strong number sense. As a student, I could have benefitted from this style of teaching. I was one of the students that wanted to know "why" when learning mathematical algorithms. My district has adopted the Engage New York curriculum and it has been interesting to see how one particular curriculum has been designed to meet the Common Core standards. I see both positives and areas for improvement with the program. I have really enjoyed the engagement pieces of the program. There are many fun games and activities designed to engage students and practice skills. For some areas of the program I have seen a need for additional practice of skills. To meet my students' needs I have created supplementary materials and have incorporated these materials into my daily routine, as necessary. I strive to create lessons that incorporate a hands-on and interactive component. I have created many cut and paste activities to meet the Common Core standards and they have been very engaging and helpful for my students. When I show my students the cut and paste activities there is always an audible "Yay!" from the children. Check out some of the activities below! Click here to get the Related Fact Number Bond Cut & Paste. Click here to get the Related Fact Cut & Paste. Click here to get the Missing Addend Match Cut & Paste. Click here to get the True or False Expressions Cut & Paste. Click here to get the Domino Related Facts Activity. Happy Teaching!
We had a fun-filled week full of gingerbread activities. If you have not purchased Deanna Jump's Gingerbread Unit, DO IT!! It is full of amazing activities! She has some freebies on her blog too. So we started out by making our gingerbread journals. I followed Deanna's steps to make the gingerbread man, but for the booklet, I just folded a large piece of construction paper in half, stapled our activity pages inside, and rounded the top corners. It was so easy to make and a lot less cutting! The gingerbread boys and girls turned out so cute! Here's a view of the inside of our activity books. It was a collection of gingerbread pages I've found from different resources. Each day we read a different gingerbread book and filled in this chart from Deanna's unit. During our writing time each day, students had to write a response about each of the books. If you would like to download my journal pages for these four books, you can click here. We just finished our mapping unit in Social Studies, so I decided for a fun wrap up activity that would create a Gingerbread Town! I collected small milk cartons, covered them with brown construction paper (hot glued a strip around the bottom and two rectangles to the top... very easy!) and let the kids decorate them with crayons, markers, and pictures of candy! I found a photocopy page of a bunch of different candies from some gingerbread unit (maybe a Teacher Created Resources book) that they coloured and cut out. They placed their houses on the large map. Using the compass on our map, we played a little game! I would draw names and the first person would take the little toy car to their house. The second person I drew would have to explain to the first student how to get to their house (using the cardinal directions). When they arrived, the second person would get the car and I would draw another name. The third person would then explain to the second person how to get to their house. We went until everyone got a turn to drive the car and give directions. It was so much fun and the kids were so engaged!! What is a gingerbread unit without TASTING some gingerbread cookies!! We sat on the carpet with our gingerbread activity books and I passed out a cookie to everybody (store bought.... I don't have time to bake yet!! lol) with the instructions they could LOOK and SMELL, but NOOOOO eating!! Yes, I'm sooooo mean! ;) We came up with some descriptive words about the gingerbread cookie. After that, I allowed them have ONE bite! Then we graphed which part of the cookie we ate first (idea from Deanna's unit) in our graphing pocket chart. Students had Deanna's graph worksheets in their activity book, which they completed AFTER we ate the rest of our cookies :) If you would like my graph labels, you can download them here. In Math we are practicing counting by 5's, so I created these gingerbread men activities to reinforce this skill. I started by handing out these gingerbread cards. The students had to rearrange themselves in order, from 5 to 100. Then we placed the cards in the pocket chart. Then we did this little cut and paste activity that was a lot of fun. I gave each student 3 strips of brown construction paper (about 2x18") and they glued them together to make one LOOOOOONG strip (I think this was the fun part... working on the floor or on TWO desks). Then they got a page of gingerbread men that they had to cut out and glue in the correct counting by 5's order. We coloured them after. Later in the week we did a little worksheet that had the students write the numbers out on the gingerbread men's tummies. If you are interested in these gingerbread men counting by 5's activities, I put them together and put them in my TpT store for {free}. You can download them by clicking on the picture below. I'm hoping to get my "Christmas Around the World" unit up on TpT this weekend. I'm starting the 9-day mini-unit on Monday with my class, and it will take me to next Thursday, the last day before Christmas break! Yahoo!! I can't wait to have 17 wonderful days of relaxing! Happy weekend, everyone!
My new obsession this year has been making and using anchor charts for my lessons. Here are just some of the anchor charts I have made this year. Some of these charts are original ideas but many are ideas I have seen and used from other teachers. I am not good at drawing so I use clipart from my computer to add pictures to my anchor charts. I print them out and glue them onto the chart! It’s so much easier and looks so much better than what I could draw! I also laminate my anchor charts so I can use them year to year. By laminating the charts I can easily write and erase on them by using an Expo marker. Click HERE to download the worksheet writing templates for opinion writing, informative writing, step writing, personal narrative writing, fictional narrative writing, and postcard writing that match these anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the files needed to make the Sequence of Events and Transitional Word Examples anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the file needed to make the Fiction/Non-Fiction Sort anchor chart from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the words I used on these anchor charts on my TpT store!
Hi all! The big day is Tuesday! That's my first day back with my little sweeties. I'm getting excited and nervous. Yeah, can you believe after all these years of teaching I still get excited and nervous! I'm starting again this year with 30 firsties and I'm sure it will increase. I guess I should be used to it but I don't think I ever will. I thought I'd share with everyone some little tools I print to have on hand when I'm working in guided reading with my kiddos. I print several copies and have a stack of each of these by my reading table so I can quickly grab some for my lessons. Let me start by telling you that I tell my firsties they are 'smart readers under construction'. We talk about what that means and I tell them I am going to help them in every way become a smart reader. I love the word 'smart' more than 'better'. It seems more positive to me. When I think of 'better', I think well maybe I'm not very good to start with and I want my kiddos the think of themselves as good reader and I'm just going to help them be smarter reader. The first is sorting pages. I have 2, 3, 4, and 5 way sort pages. I use these a ton of ways. I might have them list short vowel words, long & short vowels, word families, inflectional endings, root word and ending, suffixes, prefixes, characters and describing words, who & what, hard & soft c or g words, the list can go on and on. Sometimes I give the words, sometimes they find the words in their reading. You can use it with the low, middle and high kids. It's open to whatever you can think of to use it with. It's a fun, quick easy practice or assessment for your kiddos. I don't make them into a booklet because I want the kids to take them home so parents can see what we are doing. The next one is the character sheet. I use this one a lot especially after I've taught describing words. I can generally use this one at the beginning of the year with my high students too. Another one I use is Did You Know. This one is great for non-fiction books. These sheets don't have to be used only in guided reading. Sometimes I'll use them with the whole class like when I read Boxcar Children. We fill out a 4-way sort on the four characters and what we know about them. There are so many possibilities, just use your creativity. If you'd like a FREE download just click HERE. Oh and some super GOOD NEWS- I have a new grandson!! This is Elijah Ray Robison. Born August 15th. He was 10 lbs. 5 ounces. My daughter has BIG boys! I just LOVE all the dark soft hair! Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone has a terrific week!
If you need a writing anchor chart to help your students with visual references, this post has 9 must-make anchor charts to boost your writers.
So, where exactly is your plot taking you? What happens next? What is this story about? It’s time to think about plot. Plotting Worksheet
This emotional cheat sheet is based on the wheel chart, but it’s longer, with no misspells or duplicates, and in an easier-to-read format.
Last week I was here: Doing this: And it was fantastic. This week I was doing this: With them: And it was also...
As we near the end of July, I’m about halfway through Draft #2 of WINTER: Book Four of the Lunar Chronicles, so I thought this would be a good time to talk about my process for tackling this book, before I forget what I was doing when I took all of these very impressive looking photos.
The activities below are available for free download, and are to be used in educational and/or private settings. They may not be used elsewhere or for other purposes (such as for profit) unless exp…
A great start to a great year! Welcome to all of my new kinders and parents. You are now "o-fish-ally" a kindergartner!
