IT'S ABOUT TIME for DOLLAR DEALS

 

I've teamed up with a group of awesome intermediate teachers to bring you 2 days of dollar deals.  On March 12 & 13, use #345dollardeals to find great products for your 3rd - 5th grade learners on TPT.  

Here are my offerings:

There's Still Time to Shop!

 

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR A TPT SITE SALE!

 

Everything in my store is marked down 20% -- even bundles!  If you use the code FEBSALE23, you will get an additional 5% off.  The sale is Feb. 7 & 8.  

Fill your cart now!  Then you can just advance to the checkout once the sale commences.

You may be interested in these trending resources:

TEACH SMARTER NOT HARDER Part 3

 It's about time, teachers, to teach smarter not harder.

When I was in Reading Recovery™ training, one concept that was ingrained in me was to teach with a sense of urgency.  That has carried over into all of my teaching and has prompted me to try to maximize both my teaching activities and the learning of my students.  In other words, I try to teach smarter, not harder.

To that end, I created One Dollar Words Challenges. Using these with my 3rd - 5th grade enrichment students proved to be smart teaching that incorporated computation with vocabulary development, grammar with research, and editing with Higher Order Thinking Skills.

The challenge is to find words that have a value of exactly $1 when the letters are added together using these values:

Just blindly striking out to discover a $1 Word couldn't be more frustrating to students.  So, I created clues to lead them.

Give each student a clue, a table of values, and a calculator.  Then send them off to find their words.  A thesaurus is an enormous aid to this pursuit and can be used in print or digital form.  [Be aware that digital thesauri can, on occasion, produce objectionable words for children.] 

Before long, students will discover the value of base words, prefixes, suffixes, plurals, participles, ... The skills honed include:

• addition computation
• vocabulary development
• parts of speech
• base words
• prefixes & suffixes
• participles
• singular & plural
• compound words
• spelling & proof-reading
• dictionary & thesaurus
• calculator
• internet research
• critical thinking
• problem solving
• cooperative learning

Teaching just can't get much smarter!

This file is FREE so you can try them before you buy them.

You can find 6 more units here. Additionally, they have been combined into several bundles which will save you money!

Come back soon for more ideas about WORKING SMARTER NOT HARDER.

USING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM - Part 2

It’s about time, teachers, to describe more ways I use poetry in the classroom.  

Poetry lends itself to guided reading lessons so seamlessly.  Virtually any reading skill can be taught through a poem. The following is one I use for compound word study.

Depending on the students, this poem can launch the study or allow them to review the concept.  For primary students, I begin by demonstrating that compound words can be broken into 2 separate words. One of the most dramatic ways to explain compound words is to write some on sentence strips and then cut them apart in front of the group.  Using a pocket chart, you can “rejoin” and “separate” the words until the concept is clear.  This is also effective in showing them why some words may sound like compound words, but actually are not.  Then we hunt for compound words on an enlarged copy of the poem.

For older students, I would challenge them to highlight all the compound words they can find on their copies of the poem.  Using a pencil, rather than a marker, is a good idea should they mistake a multisyllabic word for a compound. 

Using an example from the poem above, “believe” may seem like a compound word to some readers.  However, when you cut it apart, it becomes clear that it is not, in fact, 2 smaller words. Spelling counts!  (lieve vs leave) 

In my next post, I’ll describe skill lessons that poetry readily proffers.

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