Online school can be difficult. Learn how to become a more organized and successful online student by using these 5 essential tools!
Before beginning any writing unit with my middle school students, I always begin with vocabulary but not with boring old dictionary work!
The Printable Lined Handwriting Paper Template is a helpful tool for individuals of all ages looking to improve their handwriting skills. This template provides an organized and easy-to-follow structure for practicing letter formation, spacing, and alignment. Whether you are a student learning to write in cursive or an adult wanting to refine your penmanship, this template will assist you in achieving neat and legible handwriting.
I totally forgot to tell you about this great item I made because I started making it over April Vacation stopped and didn't finish till the first days of summer. Labor of Love!!! I have found that many of my kiddos struggle with writing a claim because they just can't recognize one themselves. I created these task cards to help them. On each task card, students are given two to three pieces of evidence supporting one side of a contemporary debate. Using the evidence, students have to choose the best possible claim from three possibilities. This is great as a quick review, a launch to claims, or remediation for your struggling writers. Head on over and check it out!!!
Book reports and summaries are a thing of the past. Engage your middle and high school students with five book report alternatives that will leave them asking for more and, most importantly, building vital reading and analysis skills along the way. 1. Assign one pagers at the end of a novel. One pagers are engaging, allow for creativity, and lead to higher level thinking and analysis. Assigning a one pager is easy and works for any novel. Follow these simple guidelines: • Make it standards base
**These worksheets are included in my complete Persuasive Writing Worksheet Pack** Persuasive Writing Handouts - No Prep Printables This persuasive writing pack includes a range of worksheets and activities to support the teaching of persuasive writing. Worksheets include: Persuasive writing template. Persuasive writing sentence starters. Persuasive writing topics. Persuasive writing checklist. This resource includes a digital (Google Slides) version. See the end page of the resource for the details and the link to access the digital version. ________________________________________ For more persuasive writing resources, click the links below: Persuasive Writing - Marking Assessment Rubrics Persuasive Writing Worksheets - Persuasive Tools Persuasive Writing Worksheets - Include Expert Opinions Persuasive Writing Posters - Earth Tones Classroom Décor Persuasive Text Posters - Classroom Decor Persuasive Writing PowerPoint - Guided Teaching Persuasive Writing Prompts - Lightning Writing Persuasive Writing Posters - Classroom Decor Persuasive Texts - Writing Samples with Comprehension Questions ________________________________________ For more writing resources, click the links below: Compound Words - Worksheet Pack Understanding Nouns Worksheets - No Prep Printables Add The Adjective To The Sentences - Worksheet Pack Nouns, Pronouns & Capital Letters - Grammar Worksheets with Answers Add Punctuation to the Sentences - 10 Worksheets Reading and Grammar Pack, Google Slides - Distance Learning Parts of Speech Grammar Workbook Homographs PowerPoint - Interactive, full lesson Parts of Speech - Fill The Blanks Worksheets Verbs PowerPoint - Interactive ________________________________________ Follow Me Click the green star at the top of my page to be the first to receive updates about new products and discounts. ________________________________________ Feedback Please help me to improve my products by leaving valuable feedback. Simply click the 'Provide Feedback' button on your purchases page and leave a rating and a comment. You will also gain credits to use for further purchases. ________________________________________ Copyright Information This product is not for commercial use, individual use only. If you plan to share this product with others, please purchase extra licenses at the 50% discounted rate. The fonts used in my resources are from: Babbling Abby and Kimberly Geswein Fonts The clip art used in my resources is from: Krista Wallden Creative Clips and Whimsy Clips ________________________________________ writing | persuasive | expository | convince | persuasive tools | classroom | bundle | English | literacy | literature | warm up | reflection | text | reading | extension | alliteration | emotive language | groups of three | inclusive language | draft | rubric | no prep | printable | homework | teacher | booklet | learning tool | elementary school | primary school | homeschooling | homeschool
Do you have elementary students in your homeschool? If so, you will find this FREE Elementary Reading & Writing Bundle so helpful! It’s full of useful homeschool printables for writing and reading assessment as well as reading comprehension. This limited time freebie will end on 4/26 so you will want to be sure to grab the...
Looking for unique post-reading activities to inspire students and provide a sample of their analytical skills? Find high-interest strategies for secondary.
Teachers got so many projects for the students, writing assignments being one of them. Problem is, not all students have access to lined paper at home when they need it.
A limerick is a five-line poem with an AABBA rhyming pattern. In this worksheet, you will write two limericks. You might also like our Poetry lapbook and our other poetry worksheets.
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!!
This four page printable is designed to encourage children to do some really good research about a country of their choice, and put together a book that they will be proud of! We've asked them to compile all sorts of interesting facts but left room for creativity too.
Get more and save money by checking out my ARMS and CUPS Revising and Editing Posters Bundle! Use these posters/handouts as anchor charts for your writing process! Students can use the acronyms "ARMS" and "CUPS" to help them revise and edit during your writing time. Both colored and black and white versions are included, which allows you to distribute a copy to all of your writers while saving ink! Perfect for writers notebooks, or handy reference sheets. Included in this set: - Colored Arms vs. Cups Poster - Black and White Arms vs. Cups Poster/Handout Posters/handouts print at 8.5" x 11" If you have any questions about this project, please let me know! Enjoy!
A clever classroom trick to help children learning to write inside lines
hold students accountable while they independently read with these easy to implement reading tips and tricks and strategies
This week’s Homeschool Help topic is “Help! My child hates writing!” My suggestion whenever a child hates anything is to take a complete break from the current routine and have so…
For and since are both English propositions that are used when talking about time. This post looks at how and when to use them both correctly.
writing a book template free online for nonfiction outline review from High School Book Report Template , source:leroyaumedumonde.com
Why I don't review the syllabus on the first day of class in high school and what I do instead. Fun first day of school activities and icebreakers!
This is an idea that comes from one of my interns this year, Tracy. She saw it in another classroom. I could not find anything about it online so I just had to make my own poster. When you begin teaching handwriting on the “lines” this is such a helpful visual for the children. Chicken […]
