Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.
This fun game is perfect for practicing the parts of the body with your ESL students. Have them roll a die and color the body parts in the correct colors.
Need to entertain the kids? Try some of these free indoor and outdoor activities for kids that can all be done from your own home. There's also a list of free online educational resources.
Whether you're looking for a first day ice breaker or games to play at a back to school bash, this list has something for everyone!
I was hoping I would get to use this interactive notebook page idea next year. I'm a little sad that I won't! I was secretly hoping to teach pre-cal next year...not sure why... I found this small unit circle from Jean Adams on TpT. It's a free download. I like that it's small enough to fit in the notebook and still has room to label all of the important information. I also drew a little coordinate grid to help students remember where the x and y values are positive and negative. Sometimes it's nice to have a quick reference.
How to help your child find the right learning styles to enhance their potential in school and to prep the brain for higher learning. Learning is unique and different for each child.
Write and decode secret spy messages with these cool secret codes for kids. Keep the kids busy making their own secret code with the free printable!
If you struggle with classroom management no matter how many different strategies you try, there's a chance you're doing something to get in your own way.
10 ideas for planning engaging novel units: creative, engaging lesson ideas for your next whole-class novel unit
Teaching ideas and activities to support the personal financial literacy standards in middle school!
English teachers, help your high school students write brilliant rhetorical analysis essays with these rhetorical analysis sentence starters.
This is a fun ESL worksheet to practice the months, days of the week and seasons.
Learn how to find a hobby as an adult with this list of over 125 hobby ideas and info on how to find the best hobby for you and how to get started.
An escape room in the classroom is a super fun way to engage your students in any topic. Make one easily with the worksheet you already have!
Using this educational game, dedicated to social history and women’s history, children will learn about twenty amazing women who changed the world.
Use our free printable yahtzee score card so you can have a fun game of yahtzee with friends and or family. Easy and cheap family game night.
"GIVEAWAY: All of my responsibilities."
If you need new ideas for group work to use in your high school classroom then this blog post is for you. It includes 3 fantastic ideas and a free download!
A compilation of the best ideas I've seen for an awesome detective classroom theme.
Morse code is a great example of such a system, since not many people understand how to use it these days.
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
I LOVE Four Corners! It is seriously one of the easiest strategies to boost engagement that I know of and it's a cinch to put together!Basically, all it requires is four signs for your classroom:Hang
Use your bricks to teach kids LEGO coding. Fun and easy ideas for LEGO coding activities include binary code and algorithms.
Visit Germany and fit in like a local - Use these German phrases (with pronunciation) to travel Germany like a pro and have the best German vacation!
You're sipping champagne at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2018, enjoying your celebration and not giving much thought to tomorrow. Suddenly, you notice that there is a large peacock standing beside you. You're not quite sure where it came from, or if the bird is even real. The peacock cranes its slender neck to look up at you, then politely asks if you intend to uphold the code of chivalry and make the Vow of the Peacock in the new year. What do you do?
These handy free printable school cheat sheets are a great way to refresh memories and have on hand for quick reference.
It seems like every day there is an endless stream of students reporting behaviors or incidents that happen in the classroom. On one hand, we want to help our students feel heard and validated so they know we are a safe person for them to talk to. On the other hand, we certainly don't want to feed into the tattle machine. It's a fine line to walk. So how do we handle tattling in our classrooms?
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
How to Create a Caring Classroom features a free webinar and active engagement lessons for creating a caring classroom environment that will last all year long.
Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour
15 exit ticket ideas for any subject or grade level!
This is the first time in over a decade of teaching that I’ve gone through a stack of papers saying, “Yes! Yes! YESSS!!!!” I’m so proud of what’s been accomplished that I’m just dying to share with you how to make this happen in your own classroom. Here's how to write essay prompts, offer a new t
Learn how to make both a basic homopolar motor and a tiny dancing motor! Great science fair project for older kids!
This worksheet is a great reading comprehension practice. Students have to read the descriptions and guess who lives on each floor.
Have you been wanting to try stations in your Secondary ELA classroom but aren't sure where to start? Read through this quick post where we share 8 station ideas and how to use them with your ELA students.
A look back at the best of 2013...reflecting on the past year and the year ahead. A blog hop of the best kid activities from around the web.
In an earlier blog post, I wrote about the benefits of assigning a collaborative writing assignment in the high school English and middle school ELA
The kids and I have been talking about words with ing added on the end. My youngest has just started coming across these words in his reading and his big sister was showing him how to break the wo…
If you have followed the discussion over the past years about "21st Century Skills" or have been on this planet long enough, you know that the ability to work with others is just as important as any "content" knowledge that we, as teachers, can provide. That being said, working "cooperatively" is NOT natural for all people, especially young children, and we have to make sure we are thoughtful about how we help students learn this valuable skill. Today I thought I'd share three key things to keep in mind--and then offer a few suggestions to get your brain thinking about ways to incorporate more learning partnerships in YOUR classroom! Partnerships are the perfect "starting point" for cooperative work! Think about how difficult it is for us, as adults, to get 4 or 5 of us to agree and be productive! Young students simply haven't been around long enough to know how to do that "delicate dance" of sharing, contributing, listening, and more. Learning how to actively listen is easier with just one other person. Sharing with just one person is so much easier for student who are more shy--and it's easier to have a back and forth conversation than try to balance several people. As students become accustomed to working with pairs, then it becomes easier to add people to the group. When forming partnerships, be mindful of your students' feelings. Be careful about the "find a partner" direction--because that is SO difficult for so many students. Whether they be shy, slower thinkers, worried about other students' feelings--asking students to form partners on the fly is often a tricky situation. Think about those who struggle finding partners and make sure everything is safe for them. Ideas? Use a "people picker" like popsicle sticks or index cards. Premake partnerships whenever possible (in addition to avoiding popularity contests, this allows you to encourage students to work with MANY other students, not just best friends). If you DO have students pick partners at times, consider a disclaimer, "If you don't find a partner in 15 seconds, come to me." so you can quickly help pair off those last few students. My students get very used to working with EVERYONE in the class (males, females, tall, small, etc) and they actually REQUEST me to pick popsicle sticks to take the partnering process out of their hands. We need to explicitly TEACH partnering skills Before I ask my students to work in partners, we have a number of discussions where we talk about what partnering LOOKS like, SOUNDS like, and WHY working in partnerships is beneficial. Together we made a list that we continue to refer to as we refine our partnering skills. The students did a pretty good job, I thought! Consider making a similar list with your students to make sure they understand that partnering isn't always easy--but it's worth it! As students start to work in pairs, you may need to stop and review some of these...and your students may come up with different ideas as well. Students need to realize that partnering isn't easy--and they will have to work at it! For some students, understanding that "balanced power" means that BOTH people have to share and both people have to listen is key--they can all relate to times they have had someone try to take over a group...and trying to work with someone who is NOT engaged or on task. So when should I use partnerships? All day long! Think about all the different ways that "Two heads" might be better than one...try some of these! Creating a climate where students work peacefully together will help increase engagement, improve learning, and increase the amount of academic discourse in your classroom. Another added bonus? As students work well TOGETHER, you are free to circulate, coach, and get a better sense of what is happening with your students' learning. Buddy reading Whether your students read with younger students or with others in your class, learning to read so others can hear, taking turns, staying on task, and using an appropriate voice level are all easy to practice with buddy reading. Try making copies of a fun poem for students to experiment with--or have them partner read an article. If you really want to dig in, have students read a novel as partners where they have discussions and buddy reading over an extended period of time. They can even complete a culminating project together! Checking for accuracy One of the first "partner routines" my students learn as we start the school year is "check for accuracy". I start this with basic math problems, math homework, and other tasks--where students work alone, then compare answers with a partner. We then practice how to handle when answers are different...and learn how to re-solve the problem together to see who was wrong and how to "fix up" any mistakes together. This really helps create a climate for collaboration, not competition and is a great way for students to check homework, to check over practice work, or to test the spelling of a tricky word! "Turn and Talk" One of the classic partner activities...and a GREAT way to get all students involved in discussions--turn and talk is a way for students to participate more frequently. This DOES need to be explicitly taught as well. If you simply say, "Turn and talk to a partner", you can sit back and watch certain students immediately turning to a best friend, other students sitting back and waiting to be asked (often ending up sitting silent)--and this doesn't lead to productive talk. Teach students to turn and talk by first checking around them to "include" students (may mean creating a trio!) and to make sure that each partner has a chance to share their ideas. This is a great way to get everyone talking--especially when asking questions ALL students should have access to. Not all students will know the answer to all math problems...but everyone should be able to answer questions related to opinions...to read alouds ("What do you think Ally should do next?")...or other easily accessible ideas. Math games Math games are a fun and easy way to teach the give and take of partnering. When students struggle, you can sit with them and coach the fair play and sportsmanship...but with games, the turn taking part is more automatic and students can work on some of the other factors such as voice level, on task behavior, using supplies wisely and more. This is one of the games in one of my "Partner Play" resources! Partner journals One thing my students enjoy once in a while is what I call "partner journals". You can do a lot of different things with this--but essentially in involves "sharing a notebook" to reflect back and forth on a read aloud, an article, a math problem--anything. Check out THIS POST for more information. It is a great way for students to realize that they write so that others can understand--and if they don't, communication breaks down. Try it and see! Challenge problems Putting students in situations where they need to solve difficult problems can be a great way for partners to learn how to make suggestions, listen to ideas, and politely disagree. When the answer isn't immediately obvious, it becomes clear that "two heads can be better than one"...and students can take their learning to higher levels. What about when students WANT to work alone? This is when coaching might be important...students need to see that other students might have great ideas, might help them find errors in their own thinking--and can make the entire process more fun! My students did a great job partnering on this back to school shopping challenge! These algebra thinking cards were MUCH easier when partners started working together! The math discussions they had were fantastic--and they found lots of misconceptions and mistakes they were making as they worked! My favorite quote? "I knew I could never do math this hard by myself!" And so much more! These are just a few suggestions to get your students working in pairs--but there are so many more! Keep stressing how important collaboration is--and how it takes practice to get good at it...but when we ARE good at it, working together can be so much fun! Follow me on... Facebook Pinterest Instagram @Fourthgradestudio Twitter @FourthGrStudio Periscope @ FourthGrStudio Teachers Pay Teachers Store Blog
Update, January 1, 2019: Hi! I have posted each resource as a free download in my new Teachers Pay Teachers store. I just uploaded the files, so they may not all be visible for a couple of hours, …
Check out this free speech therapy verbs conjugation chart! It's the perfect visual for teaching and practicing tenses of basic verbs!
This is a fun worksheet about adjectives and their antonyms. Students match each word in Twin Tom with its opposite in Twin Tyrone.
Hook your students before they read the first page with
Crack the Code – Penguin Facts – Codebreaker Worksheet Going along with the Cold theme, I thought we could learn a little more about some of the animals from the colder regions, specifi…
Printable Secret Decoder Wheel - Attention all secret agents! Your secret decoder wheel has arrived and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to send and receive secret messages to your friends without anyone being the wiser. No one will be able to decode your messages unless they have the secret key. This is a super
All of us have some resiliency to cope with challenges. When we encounter difficult experiences that take us past the range of our ability to tolerate, the ways we tend to respond fall into one of two categories: those of us who get agitated, and those of us who shut down. Emotional regulation refers to our ability to stay present, engaged, and able to listen and learn despite challenges. My rainbow of emotional regulation is a social-emotional learning resource that can help teach this concept in the classroom, in counseling sessions, or at home.
Fictional boarding schools are mysterious places. Use this boarding school story generator to find out what your experience would be!
Working with kids and young adults who are oppositional can be challenging. Being oppositional might mean refusing to do work, breaking rules, and engaging in other challenging behaviors. The truth is, many kids can be oppositional from time to time, so many of these strategies work with all learner
