I have a total of 27 years teaching experience . After I received my M.Ed. from the University of Florida (hence the name "HappyEdugator"), I began teaching in elementary school, where I taught pull-out remedial classes for grades 2-5 and a section of K-1. Then I taught Pre-K for 5 years, before I went up to Middle School, where I have been in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Last year, I went back to 1st grade in a private setting. I have traveled worldwide and am also fluent in Spanish.
I have a total of 27 years teaching experience . After I received my M.Ed. from the University of Florida (hence the name "HappyEdugator"), I began teaching in elementary school, where I taught pull-out remedial classes for grades 2-5 and a section of K-1. Then I taught Pre-K for 5 years, before I went up to Middle School, where I have been in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Last year, I went back to 1st grade in a private setting. I have traveled worldwide and am also fluent in Spanish.
Following Directions TEST - A Tricky Following Directions Lesson. FREE Fun for April Fool's Day, too! Give this following directions test to your students, and try not to laugh too much when they are taking it. If they don't read the directions first and do what the directions say, they will be shocked at the end to find out they only had to do number one...write their name! Great test preparation activity to get kids ready for exams too! Enjoy! - HappyEdugator
Following Directions TEST - A Tricky Following Directions Lesson. Fun for April Fool's Day, too! Give this following directions test to your students, and try not to laugh too much when they are taking it. If they don't read the directions first and do what the directions say, they will be shocked at the end to find out they only had to do number one...write their name! Great test preparation activity to get kids ready for standardized tests, too! Enjoy!
Confusing Words Beat the Clock PowerPoint game. A fun interactive way to practice identifying commonly confused words. (there, their, they're) Students are given two sentences and have thirty seconds each to identify the correct confusing words that go in each sentence. They can work with a partner and use wipe-off white boards or write the answers down on paper. After time is up, the answers will disappear. (Timer is built in) Click again to check answers. Advance slide with another click to start with a new set of sentences. Grades 4 and up. Supports common core for frequently confused words! 36 sentences in all. - HappyEdugator
Multiple Intelligences Book Review. Multiple intelligence assignment menu for reviewing a book or story. Great differentiation. Students choose 5 boxes from the assignment menu and are also required to complete one reading response. Students may choose from verbal-linguistic, visual-spatial, musical-rhythmic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, or naturalistic intelligences. - HappyEdugator
100 Book Projects and Activities you can have your students do to accompany the books they have read and to foster a love of reading. A list of ideas to get you started on having a fun year sharing about fiction and nonfiction books.
Parts of Speech TEST. Comprehensive assessment of student knowledge of the parts of speech. May be used as a pretest, a formative assessment, or summative assessment. EDITABLE for your own classroom use only. This is not a multiple choice test. Students will have to write and construct responses, which is a critical thinking skill. - HappyEdugator
Behavior Management Warning Cards. Classroom management tool.. Slip quietly on a desk and don't stop teaching! Be prepared for the beginning of the year or anytime you need a behavior plan. Explain to your students when they come back to school at the beginning of the year that you will expect them to follow your classroom expectations. Give them examples of positive and negative behaviors Tell them that once you give a verbal warning, you expect the behavior to stop. If it does not, and you have to address the issue again, they will quietly, without disrupting instruction, be given a behavior warning card. Just put it on their desk and don't stop teaching! They must sign it, date it, and write the behavior they are being warned about on the back and return it to you. You keep the card for documentation, which is useful for parent conferences or in the event of an office referral. Includes a plain set without name and date if you wish to use repeatedly without documentation. Includes cards with place for name and date, blank cards with a line to write on that you can customize, Last Chance cards, Stop! cards, and Oops! cards...which you can use as you choose. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator
Science Fair Project Student Guide. Includes 100 science project ideas, directions for creating a science fair project, how to graph and record data, and how to make a display board with dimensions and helpfu hints for success. I have also added information on how to create a logbook with rubric, parent letter, parent tips, a list of helpful websites, and a volunteer form. 19 pages. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator
Punctuation - Punctuating Dialogue PowerPoint FREE! Improve writing by using quotation marks! Punctuation is important! Show students how to use quotation marks in dialogue correctly. 10 slides explain the correct way to punctuate dialogue. Explains split quotations, capitalization, commas, question marks, exclamation marks, and periods. Helpful for understanding where to place punctuation.
Summer Outdoor Fun Crossword Puzzle! Fun and free as a thank you to all my wonderful followers We all hate to see summer go, but hopefully it will last just a little bit longer. Enjoy this little piece of summer! - HappyEdugator
Punctuation - Punctuating Dialogue PowerPoint FREE! Improve writing by using quotation marks! Punctuation is important! Show students how to use quotation marks in dialogue correctly. 10 slides explain the correct way to punctuate dialogue. Explains split quotations, capitalization, commas, question marks, exclamation points, and periods. Helpful for understanding where to place punctuation. Good for reviewing for state tests. Supports Common Core!
CCSS L 3.2c - using commas and quotation marks in dialogue.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.2b Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from a text.
A great activity to do with this PowerPoint is to have the kids write their own dialogues. I cut out of magazines some interesting pictures of all kinds of different people interacting. I glued them on cardstock, with the words Who? What? Where? When? and Why? written on each card, and laminated them. I passed the cards out, and students had to imagine what the people were saying to each other in the pictures, and then write the dialogue, using correct punctuation. They also had to later incorporate the dialogue into a short story that answered the five W questions/ The kids enjoyed this activity and got very creative with their stories! Enjoy! :)
HappyEdugator
Organize for back to school with this free desk planner! Print on cardstock, laminate, and use dry erase markers (or wet erase) to write on and wipe off. Write in the month, dates, and days of the week. Calendar also has a place for Notes, Reminders, Daily To Do List,and Weekly To Do List. In color or ink friendly black and white. - HappyEdugator
Thanksgiving Acrostic Poem - Thankful. For Thanksgiving, students can use this festive template to write an acrostic poem using the letters in the word thankful. Lower grades can write one word answers, upper level students can write phrases or sentences. Adjustable for your grade level. Enjoy! Thank you for looking. While you are here, please check out my store. Happy Thanksgiving!
Valentine Quiz...a free Valentine's Day Activity for choosing the right word. Multiple choice questions about Valentine's Day. Help children with word choice. Students have to choose the best choice of three words to fill in the blank. Grammar usage that is often tested on standardized tests. Great for building an understanding of how words are used correctly. Especially good for ELL, ESL and ESOL students, who may need extra help in identifying subtle differences in word choice and easily confused words. - HappyEdugator
Practice worksheets for writing numbers and number words for the numbers 1 - 10. Trace and write, color the number, and circle the number of bees that match. - HappyEdugator
Organize for back to school with this free desk planner! Print on cardstock, laminate, and use dry erase markers (or wet erase) to write on and wipe off. Write in the month, dates, and days of the week. Calendar also has a place for Notes, Reminders, Daily To Do List,and Weekly To Do List. In color or ink friendly black and white. - HappyEdugator
Drama Extension Activities PowerPoint. Includes five extension menu choice boards for differentiating instruction for any drama unit. These were developed originally to be used with the plays "A Christmas Carol" and "The Diary of Anne Frank," but can be used with any play or dramatization. There are extension menus or enrichment activities for author, time period, play comprehension, drama terms and an independent study guide and a menu of reading project ideas for multiple intelligences-auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Also included is an oral presentation rubric and a peer evaluation form. Useful for gifted students who need extra independent work. You will also have a color slide for each menu for projection on a white board and printer friendly student handout. Editable for your own classroom use. Enjoy. - HappyEdugator
Narrative Hooks and Writing Practice. Examples of various types of hooks from literature. Students will learn about hooks that writer's use to engage the reader and apply what they have learned by using a hook in their own writing. - HappyEdugator
