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.

Throughout the school year, I know I would often find myself scrambling for ways to keep my students engaged in their learning and jazz up our classroom routine. As the sun starts shining brighter and summer is in the air, students are restless, and so are we... but the show must go on! Learning must continue, but can be done in an engaging and fresh way with hands on, creative project based learning resources! Grab a few of these PBL project ideas to finish out the year and enjoy watching your students engage in their learning and demonstrate their hard earned skills!

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

Finally, a guide for upper elementary teachers that will show you how to teach research reports in a step-by-step format! If you are struggling with teaching the research report process, you are not alone. Seriously, we’ve

Spark creativity with these exciting writing prompts for 5th grade students! Unleash your child's imagination with these fun and educational ideas.

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

Nearly 400 teachers weighed in on their favorite back-to-school activities and ice breakers - and here are their top picks! The most popular, practical, and unique back-to-school activities loved by teachers around the world!

This post shares hands-on 5th Grade literacy centers that can be used with any ELA curriculum + a free block scheduling guide for teachers.

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.

If you’re looking for some fun reviews to mix into your lessons this year, here are a few ways to use these ELA Digi-Games to mix things up a bit!

Are you looking for early finisher activities to keep your students engaged and productive when they complete their work early? Look no further! Here are 20 early finisher activities that your students will love. From creative projects to physical activities, there’s something here for everyone! These early finisher activities will help keep your students motivated and on task while also having a little fun. So grab the supplies, turn up the music, and let's get started with these awesome early finisher activities today! (Some links below are Amazon affiliate links. . .no extra charge for you, but it helps support

Morning Work Choice Boards

The end of the school year is such a special time as testing winds down, and you finish teaching those last few standards. You may even find you have little pockets of time throughout your days when you and your students can work to strengthen that special classroom community bond that's been building throughout the year. One of my favorite ways to savor that last few weeks with my family-away-from-home before they head off for summer break is through design challenges and game play.

Students need to get their wiggles out after sitting even for a short period of time! These 12 FREE Brain Breaks will give you some fun ideas to try in your 1st - 5th grade classroom.

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!)

After teaching for quite a few years, I’m always on the look-out to find something new for my classroom! I love finding ideas on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook, as they keep me motivated and inspired. I recently found this one on Pinterest called a Did You Know Board. The idea is to put an interesting, […]

One of the things I do every year that really makes a difference in my students' learning is having them use notebooks to store notes, examples, work, and

Contact Me Blog Shop Lesson Plans & Resources​​​​Engage Your Learners.My mission is

5th grade writing doesn't have to be a struggle! This blog post will provide all of my best tips and ideas for teaching your fifth graders to succeed as writers. I’ve had classes where writing

Find out how to use these free grammar posters in your classroom. From parts of speech, to comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs!

You’ve been working all year on prepping for the state test… but once it’s over, what do you do now? Whether you still have weeks or just days left of the school year, you’re going to want to keep your students engaged. Keep reading to learn about 3 end of year activities that my students

These FREE activities for kids are perfect for elementary and middle school teachers. So many great freebies here on a variety of topics. Check them out!

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!

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,

Give your studenst the opportunity to research a U.S. state in more depth with this Great Explorations research project! Get all the details in this post.

Looking for ways to motivate students to read? Try these five free nonfiction articles to use in your classroom. No prep and ready to go!

If Montezuma had an Instagram account, what would he say when Cortez arrived in 1519? My fourth graders have some ideas. We are finishing our study of the conquests of the Inca and Aztec empires and have been reading about … Continue reading →

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!

Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute

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

This blog post will guide you through using Project Based Learning to hold a school parade of floats. It shows samples of projects and provides ideas for implementation of the parade.

Discover how to overcome 10 different challenges with classroom transformations in this insightful blog post.

As adult writers, we have a clear idea of how we each personally attack a piece of writing. For me, I know that I tend to spend a lot of time collecting information, using sticky

If you are a teacher looking for a quality free math website to support your pre-k through fifth grade learners, Happy Numbers is for you!

Having a little time at the end of class is something my students look forward to because they have an opportunity to do fun five minute social studies activities. If you find yourself with a

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

Discover simple ways to make your punctuation and grammar lessons fun and engaging and make memorable moments in your classroom.

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

Are you looking for some writing prompts that are related to an April theme? You've come to the right place! This extensive list of prompts are divided into categories to help you in your search. They include Narrative, Opinion, Informative, Descriptive, Persuasive, and How-To. If the writing prompt is

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

Looking for Wordle classroom ideas? Incorporate Wordle into your classroom with this activities, ideas, and templates.

Read about 10 end of the year activities for you to use the last few weeks of school. Keep your students busy with projects, challenges, and more!

Twenty five easy and fun Google Meet & Zoom activities to keep your kids engaged during distance learning. Freebie inside!

Help upper elementary, middle school, & high school students with media literacy by teaching them to distinguish between real and fake news. Great tips here!

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

Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.

Your literature book selection is off the charts. You are set for guided reading groups for the next ten years. But then you realize, you lack a good selection of informational text. Your class library doesn't have enough titles to make one guided reading group, and your school book room is inadequate as well. You want to make informational text not only a part of your teaching, but you want to make it engaging for your students as well. Believe it or not, there are some great informational text websites out there that you can start using right away. Here are some great websites (many of which are free) that will help teach informational text to your students. 1. Readworks This is probably our favorite informational text website. It does a great job of finding informational text articles that relate to many different areas in both science and social studies. For example, there are many articles on Westward Expansion, Civil War, Slavery and so many more. The great thing about this site is that you can select a grade level or lexile level and many articles can be written at different levels so you can use them for guided reading groups. Check out the website here! 2. Newsela This has been a popular website among teachers for quite some time. It has short informational text articles that students can read. The articles are of high interest and often relate to current events that are happening in the world. A nice feature is being able to select the grade level and the CCSS that you want to assess as you can see from the graphic below. You can find Newsela by clicking here. 3. Scholastic News Your class does need a subscription to the magazine in order to access this site. You will be issued a class code that students can enter onto their digital devices. They then have access to not only the articles online, but also vocabulary games and even videos about the topics. The articles are highly engaging. The teacher guide even comes with CCSS aligned questions that you can use to assess your students after they read each main article. You can find Scholastic News here. 4. ReadTheory When you create your class roster, each student will take an 8 question pretest that will help assess your students' reading levels. As students take the quiz, depending on if the questions are answered correctly or not, the quiz adjusts to your students' levels. Once a students' level is determined, s/he is given informational text passages to read and answer questions. If a student gets a question wrong, it is explained why the answer was wrong which is a great feature. This site would be great for individualization when not meeting in guided reading groups. There is a great teacher component where you can see the students' data on the quizzes and see if their reading levels are moving up, going down or staying the same. You can find the website by clicking here. 5. CommonLit Common Lit is a newer website that we have just started using. What we like about this site is that it has historical documents along with informational text. There are also special features to help lower level students as well. It is called Guided Reading Mode. See the image below. Below is an example of what CommonLit has to offer: short stories, poems, historical documents, and more. One of the best features is how the text can be read out loud to struggling readers as well. You can find this website by clicking here. These websites are all great, but make sure that you teach the skills necessary for understanding nonfiction text. We have created nonfiction strategy cards that would be perfect for you to use in your classroom. You can find them by clicking here. We hope you take some time to explore the above websites and find one that best suits you and your students. We think you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy they are to use and how students will be excited to use them.