Did you know that one year I forgot to teach graphing? Oops! Check out these activities to make graphing fun with bar graphs, line plots, and much more!
March is reading month and we have so many fun activities going on at our school to engage our students into reading!
Teaching ideas to engage VISIT THE BLOG Teaching Resources to Save Time VISIT THE SHOP
If you’re like me, being more organized is one of the things you want to focus on this school year (or…every year). Organization skills are critical for any efficient teacher. In my seven yea…
This week's mentor text is the book Enormous Smallness: A Story of E.E. Cummings by Matthew Burgess. This is a nonfiction biography that centers around the poet E.E. Cummings. As we turn through the pages,
Teaching ideas to engage VISIT THE BLOG Teaching Resources to Save Time VISIT THE SHOP
Here's another Project Based Learning unit I developed about Owls. This unit of inquiry is great for giving kids freedom to learn about the owl of their choice. It's perfect for teachers w
This packet was created to use as first grade morning work. It could also be used as homework. Kindergarten skills that are also taught during 1st grade were used to construct the first nine weeks. This way, students should need a minimal amount of help. Each day has one language arts page and on...
Are you looking for examples of "I do, we do, you do"? This blog post provides examples of it in action in the classroom and in lesson plans.
Help your students become passionate about reading during science with these engaging but important ideas. Then grab a freebie!
Teaching elaboration might seem impossible sometimes, but I recommend this engaging and authentic activity to better help students understand what it means.
Hands-on learning is a word that gets thrown around often in the upper elementary classrooms. This post will walk you everything you need to know.
"Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun" is touching and provides strong advice for students who may be the victim of bullying. Life lessons are the best lessons!
Owls Are A Hoot: An Informational Text Unit provides detailed lesson plans, engaging reading and shared research projects plus several supplemental activities.
These Owl Themed Teacher Gifts are perfect for spoiling your kid's teacher! Find out the best gift ideas for teachers to tell them thank you.
"Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun" is touching and provides strong advice for students who may be the victim of bullying. Life lessons are the best lessons!
Around October many classrooms do a study on bats, spiders, and owls. As part of your owl activities for Kindergarten you might read books and learn about their life cycle and habitats. You might also do an activity to help students learn to label the parts of an owl. That's where today's blog post comes...
Whether you are enjoying the holidays or can’t wait for them to end, we all want back to school 2023 to be easy and stress-free. The lead-up to bac...
"Brag Tags" are engaging and a great classroom management tool to motivate students, but now there is a new and exciting way to use them!
We were both coming to work every day feeling that we were teaching on the surface level and struggling to teach day to day. amazon - home - blog - shop - read
Each classroom is likely utilizing the art form of Madeline Hunter’s ITIP in some way. If you’re a new teacher, then you may not know what I’m talking about specifically – and maybe I’m showing
Wilma Unlimited can be used as a nonfiction mentor text for teaching about biographies in reading, along with perseverance, theme, sequencing, and reading strategies.
Whooo knew there were so many adorable owl books for kids? Explore this ultimate collection of books about owls with your child. Plus a few owl book extension ideas.
Do you think games are time-consuming or too competitive? This post helps you understand all the reasons why you should be using games in your elementary classroom- including one that will surprise you.
Teach your students about differentiation and students' needs in the classroom with the free and engaging glyph activity!
Learn about owls using all different learning styles when you pick and choose activities from our owl unit study. Easy owl lesson plans!
A little while ago, my class did a study of OWLS. I decided to turn it into a Project Based Learning opportunity where the kids could learn about their favorite kind of Owl. In order to make the
We were both coming to work every day feeling that we were teaching on the surface level and struggling to teach day to day. amazon - home - blog - shop - read
Since the month of October is bullying prevention month, I thought I'd start right away with that theme. In fact, all my posts this week are related to that. So this week's book is an
Your teaching with outdated textbooks doesn't have to be outdated with these 10 ideas! Learn how to teach any content area with these ideas and resources.
Worksheets are a normal and expected part of any teacher's instruction. However, they are arguably not very engaging and one of the least valuable teaching tools available. In this blog post, I share 15 alternative ideas for more engaging and authentic teaching tools that you can use instead of worksheets. Check out the list here, and leave a comment if you have another idea to provide!
Differentiation can be hard and time-consuming! Learn to tier your lessons so that you can meet the needs of all your students!
Getting to know your students with these 10 ideas will help your classroom management and teaching. It includes a FREE interest inventory to download!
Happy First of January!! Can't believe it's time to start planning for January already, can you??!! Here are some of my favorite themes, lessons, and ideas I like to do for January. First I start with New Year's and Snowmen.... The first few days we get back, we talked about our goals for the new year. I like reading THIS book as our lesson starter. We just wrote them on our "quick writes" paper. I also have them do an old Scholastic News article and this cute little craft - which perfect for taking up time! lol. I just have them trace the hat, I will write the year in the middle, and then they have the freedom to decorate their hats however they want. And since we were going to have Monday off for Martin Luther King Day, we talked about how it's okay to be different. I really like to focus on accepting everyone, not just people of other colors. Todd Parr's book is one of my favorites to talk about this. The book class book we wrote comes from my January Class Books Set. My class loves writing class books. Take a look at this post to see more ideas for class books. Another favorite activity we did comes from Christina, HERE. We read the book Snow Dream, and we focused on using clues... a lot of inferencing with this activity! We also used the Snowmen Books to help us with our writing that week. After we read a few of the books, we brainstormed ideas on what they could do with their snowman. Then, we did the planning page and wrote it out as a paragraph. I really want them to start focusing on topic, details, and closing, so I had them use a crayon to underline their topic (green), details (highlighting the transition words in yellow), and closing (red). After they finished their writing and illustrating, they did the snowman craft to go along with it. It's a non-tracer craft. They are getting so good with those! That was the first week. Our 2nd week back, we move on to Penguins... We reviewed prepositions (with my stellar chart anchor chart that I forgot to take a picture of, but it was something like my Turkey Preposition chart HERE), then they did their Penguin Adventure book. It's a freebie! :) Grab it HERE Also - every theme we always start with making our folder for it. We make a header for the folder and then they do a directed drawing for the cover. I always love how different they turn out! They really make it their own! The first week, we focus on Tacky! We did some summarizing. The kids said that they thought "Then" worked better, the way we were wording the summary, so we changed it on the form. Sure! Why not? Right? They took the planning page and turned it into a paragraph writing. We also compared Tacky to his friends and did a cute craft to go with it! After reading a few of the books, we did a little character analyzing.... Next week, we'll still be doing penguins, but we're moving to nonfiction! The kids will be doing their own research on PebbleGo and creating their own book! I always love watching their first research book come together! Here's a preview of what's included in the Learning with Penguins unit. Sometimes, depending on where we're at in our technology skills, I have them do a Google Slide on their penguin research. Check out this video And finally, if we have time in our month - or at least an extra week, we do a unit on Predator and Prey in the arctic. I use an OLD Scholastic News for this and some ReadWorks articles - and the kids LOVE it. In addition to my PENGUIN packs - here are a few other things I have planned for January! Hope you have a wonderful rest of your break!
Next week is one of my new favorite weeks of October! I added in Owls a few years ago - and my kids LOVE it! Let's take a look at some things I do during the week. I use a lot of Readworks and Reading A-Z. Readworks is free for educators and I use their articles all the time! For this article - They found the main idea and the details that support that main idea. Then they wrote out a main idea/detail writing...or you could have them do some research on PebbleGo and do a nonfiction writing. We do a drawing from Art for Kids Hub on YouTube, then I let them do watercolor painting. I LOVE how they turn out! We end the week with dissecting OWL PELLETS!! I get the from OBDK - and I found some bone charts so they can sort them. They have SO much fun with these! Some other things we do during the week - we do another class book... And during centers, I add in a Label and Write About it page. These are great of differentiating! And of course they do some of the October Centers. I also have 1st Grade HERE. Have a great weekend!
Investigating the World of Owls for Grade 3 to 6 If you have an aim to nourish curiosity and spark interest in the intriguing world of owls, then 'Investigating The World Of Owls' teaching resource will hold considerable value. This comprehensive study pack is perfect for grades 3 through 6, aimed at illustrating to young minds the fascinating universe that these nocturnal beings inhabit. A prominent feature of this unit is its 'hands-on' initiation concept - often appreciated by students as it enhances their engagement level. It commences with a straightforward chart, encouraging students to note down their initial understanding about owls. On completion, they can compare their novice comprehension with the new knowledge acquired - an activity designed to cultivate reflective thinking among learners. What's More? The unit includes informative sheets and illustrations on many types of owls - ranging from Barn Owl to Snowy Owl, Great Gray Owl through Saw-Whet Owl right up until the magnificent Great Horned owl. Each section comes accompanied by follow-up tasks that reinforce newly acquired information while fostering interactive learning. The limitations aren't stern here - if some learners want to delve deeper into other owl species beyond those covered in this pack; they are free birds! The goal is purely about channeling student inquisitiveness into valuable research while enhancing language capabilities and sparking artistic expression concurrently. An appealing pairing option available here aligns with Farley Mowat's novel "Owls in the Family." Mixing lexically-rich narratives along with scientifically accurate facts equates to captivating lessons that children will remember vividly! The product caters excellently for large group classes where every student actively participates, proving equally effective in smaller group settings if peer-learning sounds more appealing - or even suitable for homework tasks for bouts of independent learning! The Package The resource is conveniently packed into one PDF containing all its 52 pages that are ready-to-print. With a focus on Zoology under Science curriculums', this easily-digestible product makes both teaching and learning a fun, enriching experience. By integrating this inventive lesson plan into your schedules, you could potentially revolutionize the way your students appreciate and decipher the world of owls. INVESTIGATING THE WORLD OF OWLS Gr. 3-6
These FREE Owl Printables go along well with the owl pellet dissection activity or with your study of forest animals. You'll find them free here...
Discovering the theme of a story isn't the easiest thing in the world. It takes some inferring, some synthesizing, some determining i...
I’m one of those people who likes to surround myself with inspiration, and often it is in the form of favorite quotes or words. I especially like to s ...
Faithful Elephants is a historical fiction book that can be used as a mentor text to teach a variety of reading genres and Vocabulary. It can also be used to teach comprehension strategies.
Nearly every teacher goes through these phases of teaching in a school year. You are not alone and it's perfectly normal to feel this way!
Check out what digital resources for the classroom you shouldn't be teaching without! Distance Learning taught us what matters!
Owls Are A Hoot: An Informational Text Unit provides detailed lesson plans, engaging reading and shared research projects plus several supplemental activities.
I have an owl shaped planner ready for next week - I love adding one to the wall near my desk to jot down a big focus for each day {or to give Brett a reminder}! I would love you to have it too. Find it in Google Drive, HERE How to use the mini week planners Our printable mini week planners were originally created to be a to-do list for the wall or desk. Lots of you have given me feedback to say you use them differently. Some being: in planners and diaries in student journals in the classroom for goal setting, planning or to do lists I am sure you can think of a stack more. Simply download the file, print and cut. I have included both color and blackline versions. Other mini week planners Find more of these printable cuties here on the blog. Lovely cute Owl things We have added a sweet owl design to our Red Bubble store. If you love owls as much as us, head over to find tote bags, coffee mugs, cushions, notebooks, journals and more! Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today - take a moment to sign up to our newsletter so you don't miss our weekly update of news and new products.
It's time to restore a little energy to our classrooms! What better way to do that than by teaching about the various types of energy?
