Parts of Speech: The Eight Parts of Speech quiz. Three different parts. Part A - This is a short fill in the blank quiz on the eight parts of speech. Students have to write the part of speech that matches the definition. Part B - Students have to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in sentences. Part C - Students have to identify pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections in sentences. Use one, or all three. Simple and easy to grade. - HappyEdugator

Character Project and Adjectives List. Students create a fiction character for a new story. They must use 10+ adjectives from the provided list to create traits and an interesting personality for their character, and write detailed sentences to describe. Students will also make a drawing to describe what their character looks like. Included is the project handout with directions, an adjective list, and a writing checklist. The adjective list and writing checklist are also useful for any creative writing activity. Great to help students develop a character which they later introduce in a narrative. Supports common core! - HappyEdugator

Chemistry Tic Tac Think. A Differentiated Writing Assignment Tic Tac Think Menu. In this activity, students choose a task from each horizontal row. Students have a choice but the first row is related to the history of chemistry, the second to the periodic table and the third to the elements. In some cases the teacher may want to specify certain tasks for individual students. You may challenge some students to complete all the squares for enrichment. Can be used in class or as a homework assignment. Includes a writing checklist. Revised June 2013 to fix a typo and to give more guidelines to the assignments. Enjoy!

Sentences; All About Sentences PowerPoint. Animated. Sentence types and sentence structure. Interactive. Describes kinds of sentences (such as declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative), subjects and predicates (simple and compound), fragments and run-ons, simple, compound, and complex sentences, and adverb and adjective clauses. Great test prep! Has everything students need to know about sentences and sentence structure and gives short practice exercises which can immediately be checked. Teaches common core standards. Students can also copy notes on each lesson, and a list of subordinating conjunctions, and more. Each of the thirteen sections with practice and feedback can be a separate minilesson! - HappyEdugator

The Gift of the Magi PowerPoint. Animated PowerPoint on The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, a classic Christmas story that is a good resource for the holidays. Focus on figurative language. Complete lesson with before, during, and after reading activities. Includes background information about the author, twelve critical vocabulary words, review of foreshadowing and suspense, and a link to read the story online. Students close read to find foreshadowing and suspense, and focus rereading on discovering figurative language. Includes definitions and examples of figurative language in the story, such as metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, and idiom. Discussion questions, explanations with examples of irony and allusion, and concludes with a short story writing activity with a 100 point rubric. Includes a quick interactive comprehension check. - HappyEdugator

Back to School Study Skills Tips for Success PowerPoint. Great study tips for back to school! 13 slides with animation on basic study skills, such as setting up a study center, organizing papers, prioritizing assignments, and managing time...plus more! Use on the first day of school to get students off to a good start. The slides can be printed as posters as well. Last slide ends presentation with an inspirational quote from Bill Cosby.

Poetry - Writing Poetry is EASY Smartboard fun and interactive activities. EASY stands for Emotional Appeals; Alliteration and Sound Devices; Similes, Metaphors and Figurative Language; and You Make the Rules. Students will love playing with words on the Smartboard and writing their own poems! - HappyEdugator

Bullying in School PowerPoint - What Parents Should Know. Defines bullying and cyber-bullying, how to recognize bullies and victims of bullying, and what to do to help. 13 slides. - HappyEdugator

Rebus Puzzles 2 - a fun critical thinking activity. Figure out the word puzzles. Great to do with partners, or use as a warm up. Print and go, Works especially well for gifted and talented students who enjoy challenges, but will work with other student populations as well. Also includes a blank rebus puzzle sheet for students to create their own. Enjoy! - Happyedugator

Coordinate Adjectives and Cumulative Adjectives Worksheets. Practice for identifying cumulative and coordinate adjectives, and placing commas in between coordinate adjectives. Includes practice sheet and 2 worksheets, with keys. Supports common core standards. L.7.2a Updated February 2015. - HappyEdugtator

Icebreaker - Back to School People Search Handout. Use this at the beginning of the year as an icebreaker and getting to know you activity. Find someone who...Give this to the students, and give them time to find people on the grid and have them sign the box when they do. It's fun, and a good way for students to get to know each other. Afterwards, they will do a writing activity about the experience. You will end up not only getting to know your students, but you will have a work sample as well. Teacher directions included. - HappyEdugator

Poetry Anthology Anchor Activity and Rubric. Students create a poetry anthology or poetry portfolio. Handout is the complete assignment for a poetry anthology for a poetry unit, including rubric. Give this handout and rubric to your students if you wish them to work on a poetry anthology project, which can also be used as an anchor activity to work on when other work is complete. - HappyEdugator

Parent Conference - 27 Tips for Good Communication. Communicating with parents is one of the most important things we do as teachers. When we can work together with a child's parents toward common goals, we improve the atmosphere for learning. Here are some tips to help make all your parent conferences productive and successful. - HappyEdugator

Where the Red Fern Grows Novel Study and Supporting Materials. All kinds of resources to use when teaching the novel Where the Red Fern Grows. Included are chapter by chapter fill-in-the-blank questions (with answer keys) for review of the chapters, as well as multiple choice comprehension questions, vocabulary, quizzes, tests, and activities. I have my students keep a table of contents in their notebook, and do the activities in chapter order. Enjoy.

Book Project Rubric. This rubric was created to go with my Book project for independent reading assignment, but works well with almost any book report. One version has a word count included, and the other version does not, for differentiation. Both versions are included here. - HappyEdugator

Sentence structure PowerPoint game. A fun interactive way to practice identifying sentence structure. Students are given two sentences and have thirty seconds to decide their sentence structure...simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. 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 and click to start with a new set of sentences. Can also be used for team play. 36 sentences in all. Supports common core state standards. - HappyEdugator CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.1b Choose among simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences to signal differing relationships among ideas.

Martin Luther King Jr. Vs. Malcolm X Venn Diagram. Students must research and compare the two civil rights activists using the Venn diagram provided. Students research Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and can use this Venn Diagram to report on their findings, or as a graphic organizer for writing a comparison contrast paper. Good for black history month, MLK day, or any time for a study of the two different leaders and how they were similar and different. For differentiation, one page is blank where students have to fill in both sides, and the other page has the MLK side completed so students just have to complete the information on Malcolm X. The last page is a key with both sides completed and the central question answered.

Christmas Around the World. Merry Christmas! PowerPoint on traditions and customs of the Christmas holiday in 19 different countries: Canada, England, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, China, Vietnam, Australia, India, and the United States. Great introduction to your Christmas Around the World unit, or use as a follow up activity. Animation and lots of interesting fun facts! Kids will enjoy this before Christmas break. Great way to practice reading informational text. Fun! Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

One Hundred Essential Questions for Language Arts. Vitally Important questions for students in critical areas of reading, writing, and grammar. Not open-ended questions as named in some specific curriculum programs, just essential questions for learning the content. This list of one hundred essential questions can be used to drive lesson plans in an English Language Arts classroom. Good for back to school. You can give it as a handout at the beginning of the year and focus students on what is essential to know and what they will learn. This is also a useful tool at the end of the year for review for state standardized testing. It will help you focus on learning what is really important in the areas of grammar and writing.

Literary Terms for Fiction Handout. This handout has 47 essential literary terms defined in easy to understand language that students should be familiar with when taking standardized tests. Great for test prep! Some of the litereature terms include elements of a short story, such as exposition, climax, resolution; elements of plot, conflict and theme. Supports common core standards. Goes with my Literary Terms for Fiction TEST. - HappyEdugator