Earth Day Crossword Puzzle. 21 Vocabulary word cross word for Earth Day. Includes conserve, reduce, reuse, recycle, Earth, ecology, environment, ozone, pollution, etc. Good activity for Earth Day, spring, or for a filler before and after state testing.

Dead Verbs PowerPoint.Good Halloween writing activity. Bury those dead verbs! Give your students some practical strategies to revise their writing and remove dead and overused verbs to create more lively writing. Students can apply these writing strategies to engage the reader. Four useful strategies with examples provided. 15 slides. Animated graphics will keep their attention. :)

Limericks - Writing Limericks Handout and Activity Sheet. Fun St. Patrick's activity! How to write a limerick! Writing limericks handout explains the possible history of limericks, what limericks are, how they are patterned, and how they often contain figurative language like onomatopoeia, idioms, and hyperbole because they are meant to be funny. Activity includes practice activity with pattern, and writing an original limerick and illustrating it. A fun activity to do on St. Patrick's day, in the month of March, or anytime, really!.

Thanksgiving Word Scramble. Fun Thanksgiving activities! Two Thanksgiving word scramble puzzles. 18 different words related to Thanksgiving that students have to try to unscramble. Fun Thanksgiving holiday activity that helps develop vocabulary, as well as word recognition, classification and sorting skills. Happy Thanksgiving! - HappyEdugator

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.

Penguin Digraph Sort Literacy Center Activity. Fun winter activity with penguins. Students match the pictures on the eggs to the penguin with the correct digraph. Four penguins: TH, CH, SH, and WH. 32 eggs to match. Print out penguins and eggs on cardstock,and cut out and laminate for durability. Have students match the pictures on the eggs to the penguin that has the correct digraph. Some cards have the digraph as an ending sound and some as a beginnig sound. Example – tooth matches the penguin with TH on his tummy Store pieces in a gallon size zipper lock bag. Directions and key included. - 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

Reading - Poetry Reading Process Handout. Comprehension strategy for reading poetry: a handy guide on how to read poetry. Promotes close reading. Reading poetry can be difficult for students, but these guidelines will give them a strategy to use when reading poems that will help their poetry comprehension. Supports common core state standards. - HappyEdugator

End of Year - Summer Jumbled Words PowerPoint Game. Fun end of the year interactive word scramble game with summer words. Words will appear in scrambled form for students to try to puzzle out. Click for a clue, then click for the answer. Click again to go to the next slide. Fun activity for the end of the year , last day of school, or for summer camp. 18 slide PowerPoint Skill Level - EASY

End of the Year Activities - Ice Cream Writing PowerPoint. These end of the year activities are a fun jump into summer! Ten different writing activities that are related to ice cream. Use for whole group on the projector, or print out and laminate for centers or small groups. If you set up your printer first, you can print out on index cards. Varied levels for differentiation. Celebrate student writing accomplishments with presentations and a real ice cream social. Nice way to end the year or use as an activity for summer camp. Includes activities that incorporate creative writing, narrative writing and expository writing.

Poetry: Ways to Read Poetry PowerPoint. Presentation guides students in how to approach reading poetry with a plan so they can reach their goal of understanding what a poem means. Teaches close reading of poetry. Before, during and after reading strategies including paraphrasing, journaling, and "two per line" will help students become more active and responsive readers. Supports common core standards. 17 slide PowerPoint. - HappyEdugator

Beginning of the Year - Open House Sign in Sheet for your back to school night or parent night information. A quick sign in sheet for the most important information- student and parent names, phone number and email. Other information is usually available through the office, so this is just a quick contact sheet so you can have a quick reference ready for back to school. Apple and Owl theme. Color and black and white sheet. - HappyEdugator

Halloween Spooky Songs - Twelve Fun and Easy Songs to Sing. Halloween collection of fun little songs sung to familiar tunes like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Kids love to sing these Halloween tunes and sometimes get creative adding new verses. Have fun and don't let them scare you. Happy Halloween! BOO! - HappyEdugator

Poems Graphic Organizer. Using the acronym POEMS, this poetry graphic organizer allows students to show what they already know about poetry and poetic devices, including figurative language such as personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, and similes. Useful as a poetry preview activity. Students take the wordsplash of vocabulary words, and match them to the graphic organizer. (Hint: The font of words that go together is the same! See if they can figure that out for themselves.) This can be used as an introduction to a poetry unit, and as a pre-assessment which can give you an idea if your students know anything at all before you even start. Use the graphic organizer to complete the study guides that are included. - HappyEdugator

Poetry - Using Emotion to Create Poetry PowerPoint. Graphics and animations will engage your students as they learn about poetry writing. Includes a definition of poetry, explanation of figurative language, imagery, and sound devices, a list of human emotions, and a step by step approach to writing a sensory poem. You can also print out the included poetry frame if you desire. When students are finished, they will have created their own poem! Fun way to get reluctant poets to writing. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Halloween Smart Board Activities - Four different Halloween ELA activities for your Smartboard. Sort the Halloween vocabulary into Parts of Speech, complete a fill-in the blank or cloze story, put together some Halloween antonyms, and solve the Halloween crossword puzzle. All interactive activities. Answers can be checked right away for immediate feedback. - HappyEdugator

Smartboard Christmas activity - identify figurative language in Christmas songs. Students have to read through the lyrics of different winter tunes and Christmas songs and identify types of figurative language, such as metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, or idiom. Lyrics have examples highlighted in different colors, so they can try to figure out the color code. Each song has a snowflake link to a music video of the song. Five songs...fun activity for the holidays. Color code key is at the end, so they can check their answers, and a name that tune/figurative language quiz at the end, with key under the pull down shade. Happy holidays! - HappyEdugator

Christmas Analogies PowerPoint - a fun December Christmas activity for students to practice looking for relationships between word pairs. Students number their papers 1-10 and write the word that completes each analogy on their paper. They can then check their answers with the key on the last slide. Includes animated pictures that are entertaining and engaging. Two sets of ten Christmas analogies. All the analogies are Christmas related. Enjoy! Happy Holidays! - HappyEdugator

Poetry Sound Patterns. Writng poetry with sound devices. The first page of this handout discusses four different types of sound patterns or sound devices that are used in poetry, including alliteration, assonance, consonance, and rhyme. The second page of this handout is a writing activity for students to apply what they have learned. The third page gives possible solutions to the writing challenges. - HappyEdugator

Christmas Activity - Teaching Vocabulary with Lyrics from Jingle Bells. Here's an engaging December or winter activity to teach vocabulary by using the familiar Christmas carol Jingle Bells. The lyrics for all four verses are large enough for a transparency or LCD projector. The words highlighted in red and green are the vocabulary words. There is a list of words, also made for the overhead or LCD, and a key. This was designed as a Christmas lesson for kids in upper elementary and middle grades, but it can be used for higher levels as well. - HappyEdugator