I guarantee you that your students will love doing these activities during the first week of the school year and you will become the most popular teacher at the school. All you have to do is to design a Welcome Back to School cover page for the first activity with two cartoons. The questions on page 1 and 2 are about the cartoons that you are going to choose, so please read them before you choose the cartoons. If you follow this link http://tinyurl.com/z3vk5rb or this one http://tinyurl.com/hagfo3u, you will find several cartoons to choose from. This fun activity will also help your students to understand media messages, learn how to analyze cartoons, and to think critically. Both activities require students to reflect on the meaning of education and learning and how they learn best. The journal entry they are going to write, the cartoon and the video they are going to make will not only enhance their creative skills but will give you lots hints about their expectations from you as their teacher. Have a great school year!

This 21st century research guide contains information on the Super3 and Big6 research skills, links to safe search sites and to videos on plagiarism, copyright, paraphrasing, citation for beginners, , Web 2.0 tools to conduct research effectively, graphic organizers, rubrics, checklists and a song on Super3. There is 1 ppt for Super3 and another one on the Big 6. Once your students master Super3 research skills, they can move on to the Big6 research process. You can use this guide to teach your students age-appropriate research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.

There are two resources in this pack for the first week/s of school suitable for both virtual and face-to-face learning. I posted the Power Point versions here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teacher’s Guide. Both activities will allow you to get to know your students better and build positive relationships with them. Since each student is going to complete them individually, they are naturally differentiated. Enjoy:)

This four-page creative writing activity based on BBC's short video, 'The Supporting Act' is ideal both for ELA and ESL students. It includes two graphic organizers to scaffold writing a summary, before the creative writing activity. Play the video until 00:59 and ask your students to predict the rest of it. At the end of the creative writing project, you can also show this video https://vimeo.com/82282346 to your students for fun.

There are two resources in this pack for the first week/s of school suitable for both virtual and face-to-face learning. I posted the Power Point versions here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teacher’s Guide. Both activities will allow you to get to know your students better and build positive relationships with them. Since each student is going to complete them individually, they are naturally differentiated. Enjoy:)

This four-page creative writing activity based on BBC's short video, 'The Supporting Act' is ideal both for ELA and ESL students. It includes two graphic organizers to scaffold writing a summary, before the creative writing activity. Play the video until 00:59 and ask your students to predict the rest of it. At the end of the creative writing project, you can also show this video https://vimeo.com/82282346 to your students for fun.

This 15-page resource pack includes fun game-based activities and games for your students to learn or recycle addition with numbers 1-20 .The pack includes games and activities to understand and use addition and equal signs, mental math, to solve and create one-step addition problems. It can be used at the beginning of year 2 to review year 1 as well. ESL teachers can also use it if they are teaching CLIL . If you liked this resource, please visit my shop to see the packs about numbers and subtraction for year 1. Thank you.

This 11-page Christmas themed pack includes game-based resources and activities on representing numbers 1-100 creatively, skip counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, comparing and ordering numbers 1-100 and place value in 2-digit numbers. You can use it to review the Numbers unit in class or assign it during the holiday break. My students loved the Christmas images and enjyed the games. I hope your students will love them, too.

This 11-page Christmas themed pack includes game-based resources and activities on representing numbers 1-100 creatively, skip counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, comparing and ordering numbers 1-100 and place value in 2-digit numbers. You can use it to review the Numbers unit in class or assign it during the holiday break. My students loved the Christmas images and enjyed the games. I hope your students will love them, too.

This 12-page resource pack includes fun game-based activities and games for your students to learn or recycle subtraction with numbers 1-20 . It includes games and activities to understand and use minus and equal signs, add and subtract one-digit and two-digit numbers up to 20, mental math, solve and create one-step and missing number subtraction problems. It can be used at the beginning of year 2 to review year 1 as well. ESL teachers can also use it if they are teaching CLIL . If you liked this resource, please visit my shop to see the packs about numbers and addition for year 1. Thank you.

This 19-page lesson is a great opportunity for the 21st century learners to learn about and practice the art of asking questions based on a digital story. Students first answer the questions after watching episode 1. They then learn about asking read on the lines/between the lines/beyond the lines questions, watch episode 2, and ask different types of questions about it. In part III, they learn about higher order thinking questions, analyze the chart on questioning for quality thinking, watch episode 3, and ask lower and higher order thinking questions about it. In the final section, they conduct research on one of the 3 countries used as the setting of the episodes they have watched. They learn about the tools they can use to research, to evaluate and narrow down the information they have found, and to cite sources. They also learn what a big question is and come up with a driving question to conduct their research. Finally, they learn how to share their findings with their peers by preparing a visual presentation and a speech. If you have a class blog or a school website, you can share their presentations with the entire world, which will be much more motivating for your students. The pack also includes a 21st Century style KWHLQ chart adapted from Silvia Tolisano’s KWHLAQ chart http://langwitches.org/blog/2015/06/12/an-update-to-the-upgraded-kwl-for-the-21st-century/, a research guide for the students, detailed information on public speaking and presentation skills, self and peer evaluation sheets, and an oral presentation rubric. The entire unit is suitable for ESL learners as well. If for any reason you are disappointed or not satisfied with this product,please contact me at aysin.alp1@gmail.com so I have a chance to make it right. Your suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for visiting my shop

Close reading is a perfect strategy that will help you scaffold your students with challenging texts. Your students will find it very useful not only as a text-taking strategy, but also as a technique that helps them become better readers and critical thinkers. This bundle includes a lesson plan with a list of annotation marks, a list of steps that will guide the students, a text for close reading and questions.

This differentiated choice board will give your students the opportunity to learn about digital citizenship as well as practicing the 4 C’s (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication) . My students had great fun while doing this activity. You may do it in a different way but I allowed them to choose the task they want to work on and their partners to promote student voice and choice in the classroom. The activities in the first row (horizontal) are for groups of three, in the middle row for students who want to work individually, and the ones in the final row are for the students who want to work in pairs. You can assign the tasks in the middle row for a pair of low achievers in order to enhance collaboration as they are relatively easier and shorter. Please read the instructions to use this document which also includes the Google dRive link for the PDF document. Using the Drive link will give you the opportunity to share this document with your students digitally and edit it. On the second page there are discussion, vocabulary and reflection activities for the students to complete. I hope you and your students will enjoy it:)

The amount of information available on the Internet is astonishing, and it keeps growing. Therefore, students should learn this critical skill to determine whether the information they have found is relevant and reliable. In this unit based on evaluating websites students: * Read a text on website evaluation * Do a vocabulary activity on prefixes and suffixes * Answer the questions about the text * Visit a website and do the activities there to learn more about website evaluation * Choose a website among the ones given in the list and evaluate it by answering the questions in a graphic organizer * Prepare a 5–8 - minute oral presentation on it by using the information in the organizer and following the oral presentation guidelines * Evaluate their own oral presentation and their peers' by filling in the self and peer assessment forms * Prepare a leaflet on website evaluation for younger students. The lesson also includes two rubrics - one for the oral presentation and the other for the leaflet. This unit can be used with English Language Learners as well.

Digital literacy is more than knowing about how and when to use the tools. It is the ability to process information by locating, understanding, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and sharing it using digital technology. In the past, we used to do it with printed materials, but now technology provides access to a much wider range of learning resources available at all times and allows us to communicate information in a variety of media beyond word and text; so, looking up information in the library in traditional ways is obviously not enough. To be literate today requires navigating a connected world offering students endless information with which they can interact in many different ways. Our students are familiar with technology but they use it for social purposes. They know how to copy and paste but they don’t know how to process information with the help of technology. They should master the critical skills to conduct research effectively and come up with creative projects instead of copy-pasted ones. For more information, you can read this post http://aysinalp.edublogs.org/2015/08/05/how-to-integrate-the-new-literacies-into-our-curriculum-part-3-information-literacy/ on my blog. This 21st century research guide contains information on research skills, links to web research guides, alternative search engines other than Google, Web 2.0 tools to conduct research and to present effectively, information on evaluating the quality of content and websites, academic integrity guidelines with emphasis on plagiarism, copyright, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and citing appropriately, tips on preparing and giving effective presentations. You can use this guide to teach your students A-Z 21st century research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.

This differentiated choice board will give your students the opportunity to learn about digital citizenship as well as practicing the 4 C’s (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication) . My students had great fun while doing this activity. You may do it in a different way but I allowed them to choose the task they want to work on and their partners to promote student voice and choice in the classroom. The activities in the first row (horizontal) are for groups of three, in the middle row for students who want to work individually, and the ones in the final row are for the students who want to work in pairs. You can assign the tasks in the middle row for a pair of low achievers in order to enhance collaboration as they are relatively easier and shorter. Please read the instructions to use this document which also includes the Google Drive link for the PDF document. Using the Drive link will give you the opportunity to share this document with your students digitally and edit it. On the second page, there are discussion, vocabulary, and reflection tasks for the students to complete. I hope you and your students will enjoy it:)

The amount of information available on the Internet is astonishing, and it keeps growing. Therefore, students should learn this critical skill to determine whether the information they have found is relevant and reliable. In this unit based on evaluating websites students: * Read a text on website evaluation * Do a vocabulary activity on prefixes and suffixes * Answer the questions about the text * Visit a website and do the activities there to learn more about website evaluation * Choose a website among the ones given in the list and evaluate it by answering the questions in a graphic organizer * Prepare a 5–8 - minute oral presentation on it by using the information in the organizer and following the oral presentation guidelines * Evaluate their own oral presentation and their peers' by filling in the self and peer assessment forms * Prepare a leaflet on website evaluation for younger students. The lesson also includes two rubrics - one for the oral presentation and the other for the leaflet. This unit can be used with English Language Learners as well.

Great print and teach vocabulary and writing practice for students based on the awesome video, The Present, which ran on over 180 short film festivals and won more than 50 awards. The activities include writing a summary, a tweet, a journal entry, a film review with a rubric, creating a word cloud, colour-coding parts of speech in a text, and filling in a vocabulary journal. The pack also includes some questions to enhance critical thinking skills and links that will help students write their film review. Suitable for ESL students as well.

Close reading is a perfect strategy that will help you scaffold your students with challenging texts. Your students will find it very useful not only as a text-taking strategy, but also as a technique that helps them become better readers and critical thinkers. This bundle includes a lesson plan with a list of annotation marks, a list of steps that will guide the students, a text for close reading and questions.

This 10-page interactive end-of-the-year reflection activity gives the students an opportunity to revise the key concepts they have learned throughout the year. Students are asked to think critically and creatively while they are preparing a learning and survival guide for the students who are going to be in the same grade the following year. In order to add more fun to the activity, they are asked to complete tasks that will help the students next year understand what to expect of that grade level both academically and socially. The activities include making a visual collage of the year and a mind map of the important concepts they have learned, writing a poem/rap and a letter, designing a list of top tips or golden rules for their grade level, creating a comic strip, a cartoon or a short graphic novel showing the key points they have learnt this year, finding a title for their guide and assess their work. The links provided are differentiated for students at different levels. The pack also includes a rubric for the letter and a self-assessment rubric. I didn’t grade this activity as it was the end of the year. I gave oral and written feedback to my students, instead. I asked them to grade themselves after they completed the self-assessment rubric.