It's About Time, Teachers!

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

It's about time, teachers, for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

MLK, Jr. Day is Jan. 15. Do you need resources for it? Try this one; it's FREE!

This FREE poetry unit provides 3 poems about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Each of the poems in Poetry Possibilities -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Edition has a page of possibilities for teaching. The poetry possibilities are custom designed and include a teaching point related to poetry, as well as activities and skill lessons from multiple disciplines. Topics covered include:

POETIC DEVICES
• metaphors
• rhythm
• sensory detail
POETIC ELEMENTS
• meter
• iambic foot
CREATIVE WRITING
READING SKILLS
• accented syllables
• unaccented syllables
GRAMMAR
• capitalization
• punctuation
ENRICHMENT OPPORTUNITIES
RESEARCH TOPICS
ART PROJECTS
BOOK LINKS

These poems are copy ready and, thus, may be added to your students' poetry anthologies. The range of reading levels in these poems makes them appropriate for all intermediate classrooms. This unit is CCSS aligned.

"The time is always right to do the right thing."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Thursday, November 9, 2017

The Great $1 Word Challenge

This is one of the best teaching challenges I have ever used! Year after year my students beg to do this and they have a voracious appetite for it. Such enthusiasm warms my teacher's heart!

So, what is The Great $1 Word Challenge? The simple answer is it's a quest for words that equal exactly $1 when the letters are valued like this:

Most $1 Word Challenges ask the students to discover words with no parameters; no clues. How daunting is that? So, I created clues that will lead students to such words. Along the way, they practice computation, calculator skills, dictionary & thesaurus skills, parts of speech, vocabulary development, prefixes, suffixes, verb tenses, plurals, spelling, editing, proof-reading, critical thinking, and problem solving. Talk about BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!

I'm a visual learner, so I created a series of visuals to explain these awesome challenges.

If your kiddos enjoy them as much as mine do, you will be grabbing more clues as fast as you can. You may be relieved to know that these clues are available in money saving bundles.

Did you notice that my images failed to include $1 Words 1.0? That's because I saved the best for last! The first unit is FREE!

You can try $1 Words before you buy them.

You don't have to take my word for how fun this project is. Read what your comrades have said:

Head here to find all of the $1 Word products.

Monday, October 30, 2017

It's about time for Veterans' Day, teachers!

That means it's about time for a poem. And, of course, some activities to go with it.

Here are some teaching possibilities:

This poem and the teaching possibilities are part of Poetry Possibilities: Fall Edition. There are 25 additional poems. Each poem is accompanied by a teaching point related to poetry, as well as activities, skill lessons, and poetry writing prompts. All of the activities are custom designed for that poem. Lessons include:

• Elements of poetry (rhyme, internal rhyme, rhyme scheme, rhythm, figurative language, voice, imagery, form)
• Poetic form (haiku, tanka, acrostic poems, tercet poems, cinquain poetry, 1-2-3 poems, 5 senses poetry, list poems)
• Guided reading lessons (CAP, phonemes, rimes, fluency, expression, grammar)

• Book links
• History
• Math (graphing, patterns)
• Art (visual, performing)

Every poem is copy ready so that you may have your students bind them into an anthology of their own.

These poems provide a range of reading levels appropriate to both primary and intermediate classrooms. Thus, you can accommodate students reading above or below grade level.