Guest post by Tina Schmidt Over the last 6 years I have become very passionate about “flattening my classroom walls” and reaching out to connect with others. One of the easiest ways to get started with that is doing a video conference using Skype. The only equipment needed is a computer with a webcam and
Sorting by same and different attributes is a must in early childhood classrooms. From storybook lessons to math centers, these activities have it all!
This last week was a Big week. We hit contractions hard all week during Skills! I purchased Christie's adorable Contraction Surgery Center/Activity Packet. Best $2.50 ever spent. I had seen the idea all over Pinterest, but I loved having Christie's packet and Center to go along with the activity! Click on the picture to buy your own! Here is a picture of our Operating Room: One of my parents brought in gloves and surgical masks to make it more complete! We also celebrated the 100th day of school by dressing like 100 year olds! In my opinion these two boys stole the show!!! Does he not look just like the little old man in Up?? So sweet! I also have started giving weekly timed addition tests. We have already completed +0s, +1s, Doubles, and now +2s. I give the "pretest" Monday morning first thing so my students know what they are in for and then I give the "real" test on Friday. I tell my kids that the First Grade goal in 25 in 2 minutes. I also made the following sheet to include in my homework packet for the week: I hope you are enjoying your weekend as much as I am! P.S. We are starting our Geometry Unit next week. I would LOVE some pointers on units available that are linked to Common Core Standards if anyone is using any!
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Check out these 5 No-Prep Reviews Games for any classroom or any subject! Click to see what no-prep review games you can add to your teacher toolbox!
Use these ideas (and the FREE download) to help you and the IEP team determine classroom accommodations for students with hearing loss.
I'll reveal an embarrassing fact about myself. The people that work at the print counter at Office Max know me. I'm mean really know me. I coached the new guy on how to find the right barcode in his binder, so I could check out the last time I went. (Yesterday.) As in, they even recognize my husband because I send him over there a bunch to pick stuff up for me. (I have a nice husband.) I'm at the print counter at Office Max waaaaaay too often. Here's the thing, though. You know how you see a poster at the teacher store, and it's almost what you want? And you're thinking to yourself, "Gosh, if it just said _____________ instead, it would be perfect!" This happens to me often, especially with writing. We use Lucy Calkins' Units of Study for writing, and let me tell you, there are no Lucy Calkins teaching posters at Lakeshore. Yes, I could make it on chart paper. But I can't. Because I expect my posters to look like this: I Do, We Do, You Do The First Grade Parade Working for the Classroom The Inspired Apple And they never do. Ever. So what's an OCD girl to do but make them herself on the computer? If you have the newest version of Word, you can do some snazzy stuff. Check out this post I read on Teaching Blog Addict that tells how to use Word to make a blog button: Blog Button in 3 Tutorials. You can make some good looking graphic work. I didn't know about all this business in the newest Word, but I do have Printshop. I even recently downloaded Photoshop Elements. I love it, but it's a bit of a time commitment to figure it out. So go create your 11x17 file in one of these programs and get to the next step. Moving right along. At Office Max or Office Depot, you can upload a file to their website (or bring in a flash drive), and they'll print out an 11x17 color poster on nice, glossy card stock for you. For less than $2. Seriously. It works like this: After that, you put in your name/number/etc. and then select which store you want to pick it up from. Office Depot's process works EXACTLY the same, except you also have the option to pay online. I'm sure Staples has something similar. Sadly, no Staples near me. Try it out for yourself! Here are two posters I've made: Plot Poster Love **To download, click on the name of the file (shown above the image). The link will open and just click download. Voila! Happy poster making!
Volcano Paper Fortune Teller A fun and engaging activity for the children to create their own fortune teller origami chatterbox all about composite and - High quality downloadable teaching resource from Teacher's Pet.
Whether your students are lethargic or super-charged, adding movement to your lesson plans will help to solve both issues. Not only is it healthy to move throughout the day, but it can also help students focus and become more engaged with the content they are trying to master. Due to the nature of English classes, ELA ... Read More about 10 Ways to Add Movement in the ELA Classroom
In these early weeks of school, it's so important to enforce the idea of teamwork among your classroom. I feel that if you have a classroom that functions as a community, everything runs more smoothly. My teacher and I discussed the importance of team-building exercises among the students this week. She told me that she loves to incorporate them into the classroom and that they usually produce wonderful results! I was more than excited to see it with my own eyes. For our team-building exercise, we "saved Sam". ( idea found on Pinterest) You will need: Gummy worms (Sam) Life-saver Gummies (Life vests) Clear plastic cup (Boat) Cocktail stirrers (Oar) Paper clips Poor Sam is a worm that has found himself in a rather unfortunate situation. His boat has capsized and his life jacket is trapper underneath it! Poor Sam can't swim! His oar, his only means of movement, has fallen into the rocky waters as well! He now sits perched on top of his capsized boat and he needs our help! It is the students job to SAVE SAM! they will be responsible for flipping Sam's boat over and getting him back inside. He needs his life jacket ON him this time, and his oar laying horizontally across the top of his boat. Here's the catch: You can't touch Sam with your hands. You may only use the two paperclips supplied. Keep in mind we wouldn't want to hurt poor sam by stabbing him or popping his life jacket by stabbing it! Also, we cant let him touch the water (the floor or desk) because he can't swim! It was so enjoyable to watch the students problem solve! Our little engineers were hard at work. It was interesting to see how they utilized the materials given. Some bent the paperclips into tweezers, while others snapped them in half to create more tools. This fun exercise really got our students excited to work together. I loved seeing their wheels turn as they asked "are you sure this is possible?". I loved seeing the proud looks on their face when they figured it out!
Use these distance learning assignment ideas to assign to studnets digtally. Get them reading, writing, and staying engaged with these free and fun assignments!
Hi, Friends! Today we are linking up with Carla from Comprehension Connection for her Thematic Thursday (even though we are a day late!), and this week's topic is Colonial America! Please click her button below to go check out all the awesome ideas that you can use in your classroom! There are so many! You will be set! :) Colonial America is always one our favorite units to teach! The students LOVE it because it is so much fun to hear America's story- they are always amazed to learn about what life was like then! Here are some of our favorite books to use. We always start with reading about the lost colony of Roanoke- the kids get enthralled with the story! Then, we talk about Jamestown and Plymouth before moving into the 13 colonies. The book, You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Colonist also grabs the students' attention. The whole series of You Wouldn't Want...books is fantastic! We actually did a Must Read Mentor Text post about this series of books. Click here to see how we used this series of books and make sure to download the freebie (the link to download is in that post)! The freebie is a poster for the students to make showing what they learned about why you wouldn't want to be an American colonist. In addition to reading great texts about Colonial America, we also use nonfiction articles to teach our students everything they need to know. We created these articles because our text book didn't quite have the information we needed, and it wasn't written in a way that our students could understand. We paste the articles into our Social Studies notebooks and use the accompanying interactive notebook activities and flip books to take notes. We LOVE using the articles because they are written in kid friendly language, they promote great discussion, and our students can highlight and take notes right on them! It really keeps them engaged and helps them to understand the information better. After we finish reading and discussing the articles together, the students answer the comprehension questions that follow each article. Sometimes we use these for morning work or homework, and they are great for assessment grades as well! The questions are an easy way to check for comprehension and review the students' learning. Just the click the pictures to check out the articles available in our TpT store. We also compiled some other resources, ideas, and freebies in a Sunday Sharing Post from the end of October. Here is the image. Just click to download it and then click on the individual images in the download to go to those resources! We hope you found some helpful resources to use during your study of Colonial America! Have a great weekend!
If you have distractible kids you've wondered how to teach them and how to get them to concentrate. Here's several tips I've found working for helping distractible kids focus.
To create an appealing Hyperdoc, you'll need to know how to do more than hyperlink text and insert images. Below are 8 elements that you will want to
I was reading a book on helium. I couldn't put it down!
The Story of Ferdinand activities are great to add to your studies. You can talk about moral of the story Ferdinand and do some critical thinking, read Ferdinand story (read online and in-person), watch a Ferdinand The Bull 1938 movie, discuss Ferdinand questions, use fun Ferdinand the bull coloring pages and so much more with these 29 lesson plans, worksheets, and activities.
Learn about the Terracotta Warriors with this fun Terracotta Warriors lesson
Fun and engaging grammar games for your secondary ELA classroom! These grammar games will get your students collaborating, moving, and discussing those critical sentence structure and grammar skills! Bring fun to grammar instruction!
Whether you call them cootie catchers or fortune tellers, you'll love turning spelling and sight words into an interactive exercise!
This week we will be discussing the Pythagorean Theorem, which is an idea that came from the ancient Greeks about the right triangle. The basic principle behind this idea is that if a triangle has a right angle and you made a square on each of the three sides, then the biggest square has the exact same area as the other two squares put together. Here’s a right triangle. The hypotenuse is the longest side of the triangle. This week, please take the time to watch the following videos to assist you with your learning of Pythagorean Theorem. This concept builds upon the Square Roots that we learned today and will be something that you will truly love to work out because they are so easy! Introduction to Pythagorean Theorem Pythagorean Theorem 1 Pythagorean Theorem 2 Pythagorean Theorem 3 Also, any commenting on these 4 videos will be for extra credit. Remember to use the 3-2-1 Response method and number the things so I can easily read them. Pythagorean Theorem Practice is due on Friday. I will also be taking a grade on your class notebook on Friday. You will need to have the following 5 things for a 100... 1. Square Roots Notes 2. Perfect Squares Chart 3. Root of the Problem 4. Technical Reading Strategies 5. Pythagorean Theorem Notes Edited 2/9/2013: You can now find a copy of Pythagorean Theorem Notes Graphic Organizer and Task Cards Activity in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
An excellent resource for early finishers or for independent work time that requires higher level thinking with SCAMPER terms (Substitute, Combine, Add Something, Magnify/Minify, Put to Other Uses, Eliminate, Rearrange) and words from Bloom's Taxonomy: Create and Evaluate. You will find a color version which you can laminate for durability. A black line version is also included to make individual student copies. Try a FREE Sample: August This is part of a bundled package: Monthly Choice Boards {HOTS for Early Finishers} Looking for the PRIMARY version? Head Here *************************************************************************** Customer TipsHow to get TPT credit to use on future purchases: • Please go to your My Purchases page (you may need to login). Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button. Simply click it and you will be taken to a page where you can give a quick rating and leave a short comment for the product. Each time you give feedback, TPT gives you feedback credits that you use to lower the cost of your future purchases. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for your classroom so I can create more for you. Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies and product launches: • Look for the green star next to my store logo and click it to become a follower. You will now receive email updates about this store. ***************************************************************************
