IT'S TIME FOR HALLOWEEN IN THE CLASSROOM

 

It's about time, teachers, for Halloween resources!  Let's start with FREEBIES:

This product is a combination of word work and computation. It is differentiated, making it useful in all elementary grade levels.  You can read more about here. My students cheer when I break out SCRATTLE.

These resources are also differentiated, allowing all elementary teachers to use them:

These products are intended for primary teachers and draw upon my experience as a Reading Recovery (TM) and literacy teacher:

Incorporate Halloween in your centers/stations rotations with this graphing and tallying product:

The following resources are best suited for upper elementary grades and draw on my experience in gifted education:

In the spirit of tricks or treats, I am offering all of the above at 20% off!  The sale prices are in effect through Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.

IT'S ABOUT TIME for SCARECROWS!

 It's about time, teachers, for SCARECROWS!

Nothing embodies fall quite like a scarecrow.  Now that it's officially fall, it's time for scarecrow activities.

The above video depicts all the products in my SCARECROW BUNDLE.  

That's 4 products plus a FREEBIE at a 30% discount.  

The FREEBIE is a fun SCARECROW GLYPH.

The other components are:

1. a thematic unit provided in print and digital formats.  Subject matter includes ELA, poetry, math, music, and crafts.
   
   
   
2. a SIGHT WORD coloring activity based on the Dolch word lists.  
   
   
   
3. a SPIN-TALLY-GRAPH math center that is differentiated.  
   
   
   
4. a differentiated LATIN SQUARES ACTIVITY that can be used in intermediate classes, too!  It is also provided digitally on TPT Easel.
   
   
   

Back to School Planning

 

It's about time to start planning for the new school year. A great way to start the school year is with these fun poems and the many POSSIBILITIES for using them in your classroom.

From allaying 1st day jitters to establishing rules & procedures for the year, these poems will get your students off to a great start!

Incorporate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) with poems like the one above.  SEL will have a great impact on everything from developing strong, positive relationships to academic achievement. Reassure all of your students that everyone has some jitters at the start of a new school year.  Your timid learners will especially appreciate knowing that you will not be cruel if they have forgotten something.

Above is another poem that deals with feelings, this time focusing on learning new things and how frustrating that can be.  Use the POETRY POSSIBILITIES to lay the foundation for employing patience and practice.

Use the following poem to introduce concrete poetry.  Invite your poets to try one of their own. When poetry is this fun, everyone loves it!

This collection of 12 poems includes a broad range of reading levels, making it appropriate to both primary and intermediate classrooms. This will allow teachers to accomodate students reading above and below grade level with differentiated instruction.

BACK TO SCHOOL POETRY POSSIBILITIES is on sale this week!  Save 50% through Friday, 7/29/22.

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This best selling unit has been updated to remove any Native American graphics that may be deemed offensive.

February Classroom Decor FREEBIE

The dawn of a new month means it's time for new decor.  This product is FREE and it offers lots of fun, February decorations.

Try this bulletin board math center:

The center is open-ended and easily differentiated, making it perfect for any elementary classroom. It is similar to Boogle(TM) for numbers. Using adjacent numbers, students are challenged to reach the target number in as many ways as possible. You post the operation symbols appropriate for your learners and change the target number as often as you choose. Critical thinking and fluency are exercised along with computation skills. And, this display is good for the whole month!

How Many Ways? makes a wonderful anchor activity, math center, fast finishers' challenge, and/or enrichment project. 

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR GROUNDHOG DAY FREEBIES!

Although February is the shortest month, it is surely packed with more holiday and seasonal topics than any other month.  It starts off with Groundhog Day.

Bring the celebration to your students with these FREEBIES:

SCRATTLE is fun activity that is packed with learning.  Similar to SCRABBLETM, learners will make words from a set of letters.  But what makes this more fun, and more importantly, elicits more learning, is that scores are not simply the result of addition.  This DIFFERENTIATED center can combine addition, subtraction, and/or multiplication.  You choose which recording sheet is most appropriate for your students.

But wait, ...

there's more ...

After making their words, children engage in a BATTLE with a friend (or 2).  They will compare their words, determining who has the most high value words.  Prepare to be amazed. After the 1st battle, your learners will be clamoring to have a do-over. Suddenly, all of those easy, high frequency words will be eschewed for vocabulary that yields higher scores.  It makes my teacher heart swell when I see my kiddos start exercising their vocabularies and begin to strategize how to get ever higher scores.

This video may make this activity easier to understand:

For more Groundhog Day fun, try Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  

These task cards challenge your students to problem solve while applying vocabulary skills, such as synonyms, parts of speech, rhymes, definitions, and syllables.  You can almost see the cogs turning in their brains as they determine the 2 word answers to these riddles. 

Did I mention this product is FREE???

Here's a video to entice you...

My students literally beg to do Hink Pinks, et al.  I'm willing to bet your's will, too.

And now, Hink Pinks, et al. are available digitally on TPT's Easel platform!  Woo hoo!

Happy Groundhog Day and hurry up spring!

TEACHING RESOURCES for THE MITTEN

Winter brings mitten weather. So what could be better for your primary classroom than a study of THE MITTEN?  I love to immerse my class in all things mitten while we study various versions of this Ukranian folktale.

We begin our week long study by reading all the versions of the folktale I can find. The above 3 are available in my library. Then I provide a plethora of materials with the mitten theme.

One of my favorite winter bulletin board displays is this one:

It is not only a winter display, but provides an awesome math center, anchor activity, sponge activity, enrichment, &/or fast finishers' challenge. Learn more about it from this video:

This thematic unit has literacy centers, math centers and printables. It is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Explore its offerings by watching this video:

Mitten math centers include:

Practice number sense and numeracy with Mitten Math. It is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. 

This video explains its numeracy activities:

Glyphs are always popular with my learners. This activity also provides a fun display. Watch the video to see what it offers:

Although my curriculum map does not include graphing at this time of year, I like to spiral my students' exposure to these skills.  This product offers 9 graphing sets with differentiation built in. Video follows:

Latin Squares combine math & critical thinking.  They are open ended activities that can challenge even the most gifted of students. This product is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Learn more here:

Mitten literacy centers include:

Establish a literacy center focused on antonyms and synonyms. It's 2 centers in one and it is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. Here's a video introduction:

Matching Mittens gives practice with onset & rime. This center is differentiated to give more challenge to those who need it. It,too, is available on TPT Easel for digital learning. See it in action here:

Sight word practice is always beneficial.  These color-by-word printables with delight your pupils. See more about them with this video:

You can also exercise CRITICAL THINKING while studying The Mitten. Mitten Square Puzzlers are learning disguised as fun.  They, too, provide varying levels of challenge for differentiation. To see how they work, watch this:

You can buy a bundled version of all of these products.  The bundle saves you 20% over the individual prices, PLUS, the bulletin board math center, How Many Ways?, is included for FREE! 
 

Happy winter teaching!