Unlock strategies for 4th and 5th grade small group reading. Explore different focuses and a six-step process to use.

Everything you need to know about teaching 5th grade categorized and organized by topic for easy reference.

This entire blog is full of my 5th grade teacher advice. I thought you might want to hear from some of the amazing veteran teachers who were eager to share their wisdom with new 5th

Learn how I use two engaging picture books - The Hundred Dresses and Mr. Peabody's Apples - to help create a positive class culture in my upper elementary classroom.

Are you a first year 5th grade teacher? Find out how to have a great first year with this post! Get tips that work well in ALL 5th grade classrooms.

Everything you need to thrive in grade five!

This list includes my favorite books for 5th graders. Perfect if you're looking for fifth grade read aloud or novel study resources.

Morphology walls are a great tool in 4th and 5th grade classrooms! Read more and sign up for free posters to make your own morphology wall!

This One Quadrant Coordinate Plane Poster & Handout is a must have for any 4th, 5th, or 6th Grade Math Classroom! Help your class learn plotting points and identifying points on the coordinate…

Welcome, Upper Elementary Teachers! If you're looking for social studies and writing ideas, you've come to the right place! Teaching Social Studies Click Here Teaching Writing Click Here Manage your classroom like a rockstar! Click Here https://thriveingradefive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/brand-updated.mp4 Visit my store! From quick printables to comprehensive

Use these 5th Grade Writing Prompts to help kids express themselves and grow more comfortable with their own thoughts and ideas.

These are the top 10 best 5th grade classroom transformations. They are easy to implement, rigorous, and fun for fifth graders!

If you are new to teaching 5th grade, you have come to the right place. This is a collection of blog posts and resources for 5th grade teachers.

This 5th grade reading list will help you choose books for your child. Also, there's a FREE lesson or novel study for each book on the list!

Introducing your students to figurative language can be fun with picture books. Use these figurative language activities to help your students practice.

5th grade classroom tour with lots of great decor, organization ideas, and colorful classroom pictures!

Up-level how you teach grammar with these Grammar Game Shows that get students excited about mastering their grammar rules.

So, you're a new 5th grade teacher... Are you overwhelmed? Excited? Terrified? Maybe you're all of these things! It is my hope that after reading this blog post, you will feel prepared and confident to meet your new

Increase student engagement and reading comprehension with this simple strategy!

So, you're a new 5th grade teacher... Are you overwhelmed? Excited? Terrified? Maybe you're all of these things! It is my hope that after reading this blog post, you will feel prepared and confident to meet your new

Ideas for helping students begin to understand the meaning of letter and number grades so that grades are a learning tool!

FREE ELA Morning Work Grades 3-5. A LOT of skills in a LITTLE amount of time. The simplest (and most engaging) way to consistently cover critical ELA content in 10 minutes per day. Grab your FREE WEEK to perk up your morning routine now! Enter your information to get your FREE ELA Morning Work for Grades 3-5 instantly!

Capturing your students interest and curiosity during the first few minutes of class is the key to keeping them engaged for your entire lesson. But not all math warm up activities are created equally. Math teachers miss out on activating their students’ critical thinking and reasoning skills when

Your 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th grade math students will really benefit from this fractions operations poster! Having a constant reminder on the wall really helps!

Just print these 5th Grade Math Worksheets to get extra math practice at school, at home, or for summer learning - NO PREP, fun way to review!

Take your word work reading center to the next level with these low prep and engaging word work centers! Plus, learn how to organize and run the word work center!

Fresh journal prompts are a great inspiration for students whether they've been writing for years or just starting out! Try these new prompts for 5th Grade!

Blackout Poetry is SO MUCH FUN and I absolutely love how it allows my kiddos to apply a poetry skill with a book that we are currently immersed in. I feel like often times poetry is taught so independently that students struggle to understand how to actually apply it, but Blackout Poetry allows them to do just that. They are learning about poetry while applying it in a way that makes sense to them. We do blackout poetry once we finish the book "Chains". Students absolutely love the book we read, so they are invested in the pages and love pulling out words to create a poem. I love how connected they are to the book and how excited they are to create their poem. What is blackout poetry? Blackout poetry uses a written piece of text from a book, newspaper, or magazine to create a poem. Once you have found all of your words to make your poem, you "redact" all the words you don't want by blacking them out. You can take blackout poetry even further by creating an image or design to the page instead of just blacking it out. This can be done with literally ANY pre-existing text. How do I teach my students to do this? For our "Chains" blackout poetry projects, I provide my students 4-5 different page options that they can use. They are also allowed to dig through the book to pick one of their own, but I know that would be too challenging for some students. Giving them a choice of a few pages is plenty for most of my students. If this is your first time introducing your students to this type of poetry, give them page options that include very vibrant words, lots of details, etc. This will make it easier for them to create their first poem. 1) Once students have decided on a page, I have them skim the page for words that STICK OUT. They love this part because they don't have to read the page word-for-word. Ha. I tell them to circle word and phrases that they like. 2) Once they finish circling words that stick out, I have them pull out their writing notebooks and write down the words/phrases in order and then read through them. What words do you know longer want? Mark them out. What words need connecting words like "a" or "and"? If connecting words are needed they dive back into the text and circle those as well. 3) After they've gotten their words and phrases, I have them read it again to make sure it "flows" and follows a theme. What is the poem about? What are they expressing? At that point they create a title. 4) Once their poem is how they want it to be, I had them type it out and gave them a new BLANK copied book page for them to re-circle their used words and sketch their image. Blackout poetry can be simply that - blacking out the other words on the page, or students can illustrate an idea or image on the page as they cover up the words. Most students choose to do that because it is FUN. I have them block their words off with sharpie and then sketch out their image before they color anything. *Disclaimer: I am NOT A PROFESSIONAL at poetry - this is just what we do in my classroom. Haha. My kiddos really enjoy this poetry activity and I absolutely love seeing them make deep connections with the text we are reading. = )

Use these 5th grade opinion writing prompts to get your kids thinking about new issues they may have never considered before.

Looking for 5th grade anchor charts? Try some of these anchor charts in your classroom to promote visual learning with your students.

Free lesson plans 5th grade forces

This post breaks down how I teach math in 5th grade and how my weekly instruction is structured, including the math resources needed.

We use Wonders for our ELA curriculum. There is A LOT of stuff in this program. We use some of it and some of it we don't. I wanted to create a packet for my students that focuses on the parts of the curriculum that we do use. We focus on the first story in each week. If time allows we try to fit in the second story. My district does not require any spelling requirements. So I took out the weekly spelling words. This cover is what we cover - essential question, genre, vocab words and strategy and a comprehension skill. Ever week for every unit has this cover page. The next two pages relate to the story we read. We will cover the essential question, the vocabulary and comprehension strategy, and the genre. The next two pages works with the vocabulary in the week. Students will have to use 3 words in their own sentence and then each week has a vocabulary practice sheet. The next part in this packet is the grammar practice. I have separated the grammar rules page and the practice page. Students will put their rules page in their writing binder as we complete them to help when they are writing. I also tie in a grammar interactive notebook page that correlates with the grammar rule we are learning. The last page of this packet is the daily language page. As they learn the strategies they will use them to find the errors in the sentence. I also teach editing marks and require the students to mark up the sentence then rewrite it. This could be used as morning work too. Of course all units come with answer keys too! I know not all teachers use wonders so I have separated out the vocabulary, grammar, and daily language as stand alone products too. Head on over to the store to grab the bundle. If you would like to try before you buy Unit 1 Week 1 is free in my store.

First days of school can be stressful. There's an insane amount of pressure to make a great first impression. The administration wants you to go over the handbook of rules for the district. There's tons of forms that need to be filled out. You need to learn their names and it's hard because half the names don't match your class list. His name is Samuel but he goes by S.J. Her name on your roll says Mary, but she goes by Mary Beth. You want to start off the year on the right note regarding procedures and expectations, but you also want it to be a little bit fun, too. Yes, it can be complicated to plan out the first day. My first day was absolutely fantastic. Yes, I learned names. Yes, I went over the handbook. Yes, I went over forms. But we also did some quick exciting things that started us out on the right foot. In no particular order, here is what made my first day FANTASTIC. 1. I let my students collaborate on a story. I started a story on the whiteboard and each student could only add four words to the story. It ended up being hilarious and making ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE but no one cared. It was fun. They worked as a family. 2. That bring me to my next point--we don't call our classes, um, classes. Or homerooms. We call them families. So I have Mrs. Johnson's Family for my 1st period class and Mrs. Anderson's Family for my second period class. (Homeroom teacher names were changed for this post.) You get the idea. And it really does reinforce this idea that we need to work together like a family should. 3. I embraced and addressed my students' biggest fear. Each teacher has his/her students coming to the room with a big fear. Go ahead and address it. Since I'm the first year of middle school, the big fear is the locker. Will I ever get into it? Will I have enough time to get everything out of it? My students can't begin to learn procedures until we address the locker issue. Once they feel confident with their locker, they are ready to learn procedures. So, what did I do? I lined up my wonderful parents to come work with my students one-on-one the very first day of school on their locker. And it was the best thing for that first day. Address your students' fears with a solution. Don't think, "Oh I need to teach procedures! I'll help them with that later on in the week." No. Their Big Fear is ALL THEY CAN THINK ABOUT. Fix the fear, then they can face all the procedures and rules head on! 4. If you know me, you know that I ABSOLUTELY DETEST GETTING TO KNOW YOU GAMES. Why do I have to name a fact about myself that starts with a J just because my first name is Jordyn? Nothing starts with a J that I like! I hate jelly beans. I'm ok with jolly ranchers but they aren't anything special. I. HATE. GETTING. TO. KNOW. YOU. GAMES. I think I've made my point clear. Soooooo---what did I do to get to know them? I made a statement and pointed to two sides of the room. The students moved to the side of the room for their answer. Examples: 1. Team Cat or Team Dog 2. Would you rather travel every day or never leave home? 3. Team Math/Science or Team Language Arts? 4. Alabama or Auburn? (I live in Alabama, so this is a big deal around here. Feel free to change to whatever sports teams works for you. And by the way, the correct answer to me is the side of the room that was yelling WAR EAGLE!) We didn't do this as one big activity. I broke up the reading of the district handbook by doing a couple of these, then back to the handbook, then a couple more of these, then back to the handbook, a couple more of these, then going over forms. THEY LOVED THIS ACTIVITY! It didn't force the quiet kids to talk, but they did participate by moving. It let the other ones announce why they were on that side. It was just a great icebreaker for those of us who are anti-icebreaker. --->Do you need a GETTING TO KNOW YOU ACTIVITY perfect for the first few days? (And not icebreaker questions that tweens dislike---actually questions they enjoy answering!)

If you are new to teaching 5th grade or thinking about teaching 5th grade, here are my top things to know about teaching 5th graders.

Podcasts in the classroom are so fun and engaging! Have you jumped on the podcast train yet?! I have a great system for using podcasts in the classroom...

Make the most of your writing block with these funny picture prompts! Go here:

Here they are–the fifth grade reading standards! I created this handy guide to all of the standards for both fiction and nonfiction text. Each page of this guide includes the following components to help you understand and navigate the standards like a pro. The Fifth Grade Reading Standard: The top left portion of the pages within […]

What is First Chapter Friday? First Chapter Friday is a sneak-peek of a novel to entice your students to want to read the rest of the book. You (or a student) reads aloud just the first chapter of a book. The goal is to get your students so intrigued by the first chapter, that they

Did you think teaching students to write would be a snap? I mean, you are a college-educated, certified individual. How hard could it possibly be? Well, it’s a challenge, especially when just starting out. In my classroom,

Teachers often have questions about what a literacy block should actually look like. How do you structure your time? When do you pull reading groups? How and when do you teach grammar? The list of questions is lengthy, and with good reason. No one really ever told us what to do! Probably because there is […]

FREE 5th Grade Math I Can Statements! Download free I Can Statements for 5th grade math and read ideas for how to use these in your classroom.

Snowball fights aren't just for brain breaks (or winter)! Try this compare/contrast activity and see for yourself the invaluable learning and assessing power of snowball fights in your classroom!

Introducing your students to figurative language can be fun with picture books. Use these figurative language activities to help your students practice.