1-2-3 Come Do Some Dr. Seuss Activities With Me Do you read “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss? It’s one of my all-time favorite Seuss stories. “Oh the Places You’ll Go” is not only perfect for March is Reading Month, Read Across America, or a Ce...
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K-1 POETRY UNIT I love teaching poetry to kindergarten and first grade students! Even though I have this labeled as Unit 8 in my Writing Series , I actually teach poetry throughout the entire year. We follow the same routine and students look forward to our poetry week every month.
There’s nothing quite like a really memorable villain to add drama to a story! Who can forget Count Fosco, or Moriarty, or Sauron? Use this worksheet to craft the perfect villain. Click Here to Download This Worksheet (PDF) If you’d like a more well-rounded villain, you might consider plotting their character arc. You can also…
Plotting by J.L. Bell
Creating a scene list changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Includes examples of the scene lists from famous authors.
This blog post features a contraction anchor chart. Plus, two free concentration games are provided... one contraction game for lower elementary and one for upper elementary!
Teach your child to recognize and read consonant digraphs /th/, /sh/, and /ch/ with a digraph garden!
I made this Subject & Predicate Writing Game from craft sticks as a fun way to show the students that every sentence need a subjects and a predicate. I made the sentence options very simple,
There’s nothing quite like a really memorable villain to add drama to a story! Who can forget Count Fosco, or Moriarty, or Sauron? Use this worksheet to craft the perfect villain. Click Here to Download This Worksheet (PDF) If you’d like a more well-rounded villain, you might consider plotting their character arc. You can also…
Teaching students to use nonfiction reading strategies, as well as allowing them to interact with them, is crucial to their reading comprehension of nonfiction texts. These nonfiction reading thinking caps are a fresh, hands on and unique way students can record information from the text and practice using many different nonfiction reading skills. It is an alternative to reading response that will help you to reach all learners in your classroom. This nonfiction reading activity requires little to no prep, and the only materials needed are scissors and glue. 2 Thinking Cap Options Included: 1.) Nonfiction Thinking Cap Book: Students fill in 5 pages to complete their thinking cap. The thinking cap pages include graphic organizers for: Main Idea & Details Text Features Questions (Before, During, After) Fun Facts Vocabulary 2.) Close Reading Thinking Cap Book: Students do 3 readings of the same text, filling in each of the 3 pages of their thinking cap while reading. Each page includes a graphic organizer to guide their thinking. 1st Read – Locate Key Details (Main Idea & Details) 2nd Read – Zoom in (Text Structure, Text Features, New Words) 3rd Read – Analyze & Connect (Analyze the Author, Make Inferences & Draw Conclusions, Make a Connection, Ask Questions)
Synonyms and Antonyms Anchor Chart! This blog post contains the material to create this anchor chart, plus a FREE interactive notebook entry for synonyms and antonyms!
Unleash the power of your anti-hero! Explore our top 5 tips for creating a character that's flawlessly flawed and irresistibly complex. Perfect for writers looking to add depth to their storytelling.
Ring in the new year with these January Writing Prompts! Fun, educational, and imagination building ideas for Opinion, Narrative, and Informative writing.
Answers: 1b 2c 3a 4c 5d 6d 7b 8a (cause and effect) linking_words_phrases (linking words) (linking words)
by Jarrett Lerner I’ve been wanting to make an activity book for years now. Something that could help kids – and kids-at-heart! – explore and develop their creativity, and turn to as a source for r…
Have you ever had the vibes of your story figured out but no plot? This post gives you an easy process to find out what actually happens in yor novel
by Jarrett Lerner I’ve been wanting to make an activity book for years now. Something that could help kids – and kids-at-heart! – explore and develop their creativity, and turn to as a source for r…
How to Write Gallifreyen: Many people watch doctor who, whether they are fans or not. In this instructable, I will show you the basics of writing Circular Gallifreyen.So keep reading and enjoy ;)
These bring back memories....*sigh*
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Greetings friends! I created this 5 Star Writing page for my students as a self accountability piece. Each morning after completing our morning work, my students write a story on the back of their paper. I've shared
Learn how to write your name in Egyptian hieroglyphics! Great for an ancient Egypt lesson activity for kids of all ages.
A blank novel outline template for use with Google Docs, Google Keep, and Scrivener. The One Page Novel is a simple, memorable structure for novelists.
Notre impression d’art de ponctuation populaire présente douze signes de ponctuation courants avec un conseil d’utilisation rapide. Disponible en trois couleurs : Kraft Brown, Chalkboard et Cream Impression d'art disponible en trois tailles : 8" x 10", 11" x 14" et 18" x 24". Chaque format est disponible en papier ordinaire, laminé ou encadré. ACHETER DES RABAIS SUR QUANTITÉ • Achetez 2 tirages ou ensembles et obtenez 10 % de réduction sur la totalité de votre achat. Entrez le code ECHOLIT10 à la caisse. • Achetez 3 tirages ou ensembles et obtenez 15 % de réduction sur la totalité de votre achat. Entrez le code ECHOLIT15 à la caisse. • Achetez 4 tirages ou ensembles et obtenez 18 % de réduction sur la totalité de votre achat. Entrez le code ECHOLIT18 à la caisse. • Achetez 6 tirages ou ensembles et obtenez 20 % de réduction sur la totalité de votre achat. Entrez le code ECHOLIT20 à la caisse. INFORMATIONS SUR LE CADRAGE • Notre impression de 8" x 10" est encadrée à l'aide de notre cadre en bois massif noir Soho sur mesure, de 2 pouces blanc cassé mat et de verre. La taille encadrée finie est de 12,5" x 15,5". • Notre impression de 11" x 14" est encadrée à l'aide de notre cadre en bois massif noir Soho sur mesure, de plexiglas blanc cassé mat et cristal de 2 pouces. La taille du cadre fini est de 15,5" X 19,5." • Notre impression de 18" x 24" est encadrée à l'aide de notre cadre moderne en métal noir construit sur mesure avec du plexiglas transparent, sûr et durable. La taille du cadre fini est de 18" x 24." Copies numériques imprimées à l’aide d’encres Lucia Archival vibrantes, de qualité supérieure, à haute brillance et résistantes à la décoloration sur du papier d’art mat épais. Soigneusement emballé pour éviter tout dommage lors du transport.
This Finish the Drawing shoes worksheet gets your child to stretch his creative thinking skills. Try this Finish the Drawing shoes worksheet with your child.
There are so many engaging resources and activities that can be used to help 2nd grade students master verbs!
I LOVE saving figurative language until June - it's such a fun language unit ... and perfect for our "dreaming of summer brains". We finished up our EQAO testing mid week, and this onomatopoeia activity was the perfect break from testing. How fun is that??? Students chose two contrasting colours - one for the background and one for the word and border "bursting out of the page". They also needed newspaper (cut just a fraction smaller that the "bursting out of the page border" and glued the newspaper on top. They glued their word on top of that (we had brainstormed a lot of onomatopoeia words, but for some reason most of them chose SPLAT for their word). I also had them do a little shading under their letters for that little extra POP (see, I know some onomatopoeia words, too). ;) I had seen this awesome idea on Pinterest and followed it back to Artisan des Arts. Her examples are FANTASTIC!! We also wrote simile poems this week. I found a little template HERE for the students to use for their rough copies. When students were finished their templates, I had them write out their good copies, and illustrate a few lines with a small image. I hung these up, too ... LOVING our bulletin board switch up ... even this late in the school year!!! (I have two of these "smART class" bulletin boards side by side in the classroom. 15 more school days left ... I think I can ... I think I can ... Happy Friday!!!
Get kids writing with our 30 day challenge. The free printable invites children to write a variety of text types with 30 writing prompts. For home or school.
When it comes to teaching, one of the most beneficial things I try to do for all of my students in every lesson is provide layers of differentiation and scaffolding so that I reach as many kids as I can. When it comes to teaching writing, one way I scaffold instruction comes in the form of sentence frames. But first, an anecdote. I’ll never forget my first teaching job. It was a long-term substitute position teaching ninth grade English to students who were severely behind grade-level. I was still in my pre-service teaching days, and I was completely unprepared. The first couple of weeks were awful. My classroom management skills were abysmal, the kids were not cooperating, and I was beginning to second-guess my career choice as an educator. Yes, it was THAT bad. It wasn’t until one day when I had, at the time what I perceived to be, a crazy idea. I was going to get those kids to work whether they wanted to or not….and like I said, my classroom management wasn’t something to brag about. After reading a short passage with the students, I wanted them to write a brief paragraph responding to the text. I was desperate. All earlier attempts of assigning a writing prompt in the class failed. And it failed because of me. These students were not at the level, both language wise and ability wise, for what I was assigning earlier. However, at the time, I didn't realize this. So, in response to this situation, I wrote a fill-in-the-blank paragraph on the board before class started. After reading the selection, I slowly read the fill-in-the-blank paragraph aloud to the kids and modeled different types of responses that were appropriate for the blanks. Then I asked my students to copy the example from the board onto their papers and fill in the blanks with their thoughts. And let me tell you something: it worked! Not only did it work, but the students ALL sat quietly and wrote their responses. They were working. They were engaged. They were demonstrating their understanding, and they were trying their best. Afterward, I had them take turns reading their responses aloud in the classroom. Again, I had 100% participation. However, this strategy only worked because I experienced a complete failure before this victory. I wasn’t meeting my students’ needs, and I wasn’t giving them appropriately differentiated material that matched their ability levels. I just expected these ninth graders to be able to sit in their seats and write because after all, that is what I was able to do when I was in the ninth grade. That failure is one-hundred percent on me, and I own it. I was expecting work that did not match their capabilities. And, as a direct result of that, I created an environment in which the students didn’t feel comfortable. They weren’t comfortable with the work, nor were they comfortable with me. And that was a big problem! This was one of the most significant learning experiences of my teaching career. And I am very thankful that it’s a lesson I learned early on. We can’t just teach and expect grade-level, common core work from high school students if they aren’t there. There are so many outside factors that we must take into consideration when it comes to students’ learning equations, and as teachers, we have to acknowledge and accept that sometimes things are out of both our hands and our students’ hands. So, this is where sentence frames come into play. A student won’t know how to properly craft an argumentative claim about a piece of nonfiction text if he or she doesn’t understand how the parts of speech work together. Students can’t learn, and study, and work on mastering nouns and verbs and prepositions if outside forces, forces in which they have absolutely no control of, are working against them. There are students who are hungry, anxious, homeless, victims of neglect and abuse, responsible for the care of their siblings, and doubting their existence. We owe it to our all of our students to understand this. We have to go back to the basics and build our middle school and high school students up, even if that means teaching concepts and skills at the beginning of the year that are five grade-levels below what we teach. By teaching to our students’ needs rather than to what the grade-level standards dictate, we can then begin to move toward grade-level skills as the year progresses. Afterall, we can't teach the quadratic equation to kids who don't understand simple multiplication. One of the biggest reasons why I use sentence frames in my classroom is because they help every student. Sentence frames are not just for our EL and below-grade-level students; they benefit every single learner in the classroom. And yes, I even use them with my college-bound juniors and seniors because sentence frames model concise writing and help reinforce academic writing. As educators, we are more well-read than our students. We’ve read works by many different authors of varying abilities and have seen how authors craft their stories and arguments. Our students, not so much. It is our job to teach them how to engage with, understand, and respond to a text. Some teachers may shy away from providing students with sentence frames because they may believe that in doing so, the work is becoming “too easy” or “too watered down.” However, if it is what our students need, shouldn’t we be doing it? Giving our students structure and sentence frames isn’t diluting the work. It’s not watering it down, and it certainly isn’t making it too easy. It is teaching them how to respond. A sentence frame provides our students with the structure they need to help them get their thoughts from their brain onto their paper. Sentence frames don’t tell students what or how to think, they show them how to structure their ideas logically. As time goes on and students utilize sentence frames in class, you’ll begin to notice that students stop using the frames verbatim and start adding their own style to the frame. This is progress. As even more time goes on, you’ll notice that some of your students won’t use the frames you provided them with, but that they were able to write loosely within the structure entirely on their own. This is learning! FREE WRITING DOWNLOAD As a result of this learning experience, I created my differentiated writing responses for literature. For each writing topic, I created two handouts -each with a different level of differentiation. The level with less scaffolding guides students through the response and helps students organize their thoughts. The handout with more scaffolding provides a series of sentence frames to help students learn how to write academically about the literature they read. These organizers were game-changers in my classroom. Not only did I create generic scaffolded writing prompts for every piece of literature, but I also created some for specific works of literature: Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. I believe so much in sentence frames and providing students with differentiated writing scaffolds that I am sharing this differentiated writing task with you. Click HERE to download a sample writing assignment that you can use in your classroom with any piece of fiction. This is a direct excerpt from my Differentiated Writing Tasks for Any Text resource, and I know it will help all of your writers, not just the struggling ones. Here are some of my favorite sentence frames to use in the classroom. These can be used menu style where students create their paragraphs by selecting which frames to use, or you can use them for specific responses. Sentence Frames to Talk about a Text: According to _________, one reason why _____________. Furthermore, __________ argues that ___________ because ___________. As stated in the text, _________________. Sentence Frames to Talk about Literature: In the short story, the author describes ____________. After ____________, the main character then _______________ which ____________. The theme of the story is fully developed when __________________. Sentence Frames to Agree with Evidence: Confirming with ______________, further evidence shows ________________. Similar to _____________, __________ also suggests _______________. Likewise, ____________ also states ______________. Sentence Frames to Argue or Disagree: Even though __________________, there is evidence to believe that _____________. While __________ states that ____________, contradicting evidence from __________ proves that _______________. Despite ____________, _____________ argues that ________________. Additional Resources for Scaffolding Writing Sentence Fluency by Stacey Lloyd Narrative Writing by Addie Williams Back to School Creative Writing Video by Presto Plans Literary Quote Analysis by Nouvelle ELA
Help your primary grade students explore, learn, and write about landforms. See our hands-on landforms activities plus our culminating writing project!
by Jarrett Lerner I’ve been wanting to make an activity book for years now. Something that could help kids – and kids-at-heart! – explore and develop their creativity, and turn to as a source for r…
Teaching opinion writing can be a lot of fun in First Grade. First graders have LOTS of opinions, and they love to share them! Here are a few ideas that have helped me to teach opinion writing to first graders. Start by teaching students how to write a topic sentence. I have found that having an anchor chart with sentence starters for students to refer to is super helpful. I like to create the chart in front of the students. It might look something like this: Once the chart is completed, hang it in the room for students to be able to refer to throughout the year. Don't rush it! At the beginning of the year, I like for students to be able to write a topic sentence and two reason sentences. I like to do modeled writing in front of the kids before I ask them to do it on their own. If three sentences are too much for your students, then start with a topic sentence with one reason sentence. You can also teach students to write one opinion sentence with "because" as a linking word. As the year progresses, we will add a third reason. By the middle to end of the year, we will be able to write a five-sentence paragraph with a topic sentence, three reasons, and a closing sentence. Usually, the hardest part for first graders is thinking of good reasons for their opinions. I love using a “Discussion Web” to help develop this skill. This is a simple strategy to use. I like to gather students around me by the easel. Start by having a question in the middle of your chart, and two columns on the sides. It should be a question that can have strong opinions on both sides. The chart above has More/Less as headings but you could also have Yes/No, or other headings as needed. Then lead the class in a discussion of both view points. List student responses on the chart. Then, students are ready to complete an opinion writing piece on the question. Last, have fun with opinion writing! There are so many great topics students can write about. These digital prompts are perfect for displaying on your interactive whiteboard. You can also print them in black and white to use them as worksheets. I have created a free chart to get your started. You can download it here. Looking for more great writing ideas? Check out my Writing Interactive Notebook for First Grade.
September Writing Prompts are here just in time for fall. Get your Narrative, Informative and Opinion Organizers and Draft pages today.
Private swap with Norway_girl in Norway. Thank you so much!!
Rune Reading is easy for beginners to the Craft to experts its not hard to read Runes anyone can do it You need a set of Ru...
Implementing icebreakers on the first day of school is neccessary for building classroom community. Check out these easy first day icebreakers . . .
Sentence sticks work great to teach parts of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. Use it to make silly sentences or real sentences too!
Homophone anchor chart for upper elementary students! Students write the other spelling of the homophone on the FREE handout linked to this blog post!
Easy tips to increase your keyboard typing speed As we move further into the digital, typing faster is a sought-after skill. If you hunt and peck for letters, your typing is probably really slow. Try switching to touch typing, or finding...
Conjunctions Anchor Chart- compare and contrast coordinating and subordinating conjunctions with this conjunctions anchor chart! Plus, a free interactive notebook entry is included!
Adverbs Anchor Chart Plus, this blog post contains a fun, engaging class book project to do to reinforce the concept!
A scene list is a simple but powerful tool you can use to wrap your head around your whole story and begin to troubleshoot where it might need revision. Here's how and why it helps.
