Writing a narrative short story isn’t easy. Many kids enjoy creative writing, but their structure ends up being all over the place, they don’t know how to create a problem, build suspense, develop an ending, etc. I wanted to create something that would allow my upper elementary/middle school (5th/6th/7th graders) to plan more than justRead more
Not only did my 5th/6th/7th writing class enjoy this activity, it was a great way to get them thinking about their main character before they started writing their short stories. What You Will Need Character Interview and Character Brainstorming Sheets (you can come up with your own questions or get it here for $1). WritingRead more
We polled dozens of teachers to ask the question – do you think teaching is an art, or a science? While teaching does involve science, teachers we polled overwhelmingly agreed: teaching is an art, NOT a science. Educators gave us many great reasons to consider. Here are some of our favorites: I once read that scienceRead more
If you’re like us, you worry that your high school students, especially high school seniors, have NO idea what the real world has in store. A great project to do in a Life Skills, Advisory, or Financial Literacy/Consumer Education class is a “Can You Live on Minimum Wage?” project. ALL Kids Need to Know About LivingRead more
This year I kicked off our first writing project with formal letter writing. All of the Google documents referenced below are included in our free resource library. Why Teach Formal Letter Writing? Writing a letter is a fun, real-world task that is short, sweet, and easy to revise. By upper elementary and middle school, students haveRead more
This is a great way to get your students into groups and assess their number sense, as well as their cooperation skills. Preparation: I whipped up these cards with different types of rational and irrational numbers. They are available for free when you click here, but you can easily make your own set if youRead more
This was a really effective lesson I did with my 5/6 combo class to work on several skills: listening comprehension, annotating text, identifying plot elements, plot diagramming, and using technology (Google Drawing). It took about four class periods, and my kids learned a lot and had a great time. Step 1: Choose a short storyRead more
Many students enter upper elementary or middle school knowing how to text, how to quickly find information on Google, and even how to make their own YouTube videos. But a surprising number of students have never used email. It simply isn’t a preferred method of communication among today’s youth. Why Teach Email Etiquette? As aRead more
A few weeks ago I was out to dinner to an old teacher friend. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and I was curious to know how her daughter, Lily, enjoyed second grade. Unfortunately, Lily had a terrible year and went from a kid who loved learning, to a kid who dreaded goingRead more
This year I attended my first TpT conference. It was an amazing, worthwhile experience. Here are some of my top takeaways: Everyone is a Big Deal to Someone I knew that I would probably “fan girl” some big sellers at the conference, but I had no idea that this would happen to me. On moreRead more