Writing Strategies for School Success PowerPoint. Includes back to school writing activities. Writing tips that give students easy to follow instructions for success on school writing assignments. Slides cover how to use effective sentences, an editing checklist, and how to go about writing an assortment of different writing situations, including: comparison/contrast paragraphs, book reports, friendly letters, business letters, expository text giving directions or explanations, selecting a topic for research reports, taking notes, writing an outline, writing a report with a bibliography, taking a test, and conducting and writing interviews

Beginning of the Year Rock and Roll Classroom Signs. Back to School Rocks! Great for a back to school rock star theme! Welcome sign, customizable, four different blank bulletin board headers, student CD and IPOD name plates, and much more. Rock Stars poster, School Rocks, We're Rockin' the Common Core Standards. Your little rock stars can autograph the Welcome Sign, or use it for your name. Just print out on cardstock, laminate, and keep for years to come. Fun way to decorate for the beginning of the year.

Exit Slip - Ticket Out - Sponge Bob Summarizing Activity Ticket Out. Ticket out the door? Use this summarizing activity to have students take notes on what was important to have learned in your lesson. Students summarize by filling in the thought bubbles and can take additional notes at the bottom. Can be given out at the beginning of the week and students fill in daily Monday through Thursday, and review it for a test on Friday. Also can be used to summarize when students read independently. - HappyEdugator

Literature Circle Jobs - Cooperative Learning Assignments. Literature Circles made easy with assigned jobs. Research shows that children working in cooperative learning groups should have assigned roles and guidelines in order to be highly productive. These printable worksheets will help you organize your groups into 4 distinct roles: The Word Finder, The Discussion Director, The Passage Picker/Summarizer, and the Connector. I have also included an Expectation Grid for all group members to work on together

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!

Robert Frost - Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening PowerPoint. Poetry analysis for a close read of the poem and writing activity. Includes slides about the author, setting, characters, figurative language, alliteration, metaphor, end rhyme, internal rhyme, structure, meter, different interpretations (including a Christmas one), and a writing activity based on common core standards that requires citing text evidence. 27 slides. Enjoy

Common Core Standards for Reading Literature PowerPoint Posters. Common core standards for reading literature in grades 6, 7 and 8 summarized. Use as WE CAN posters or as a slide show. You can go over the standards with your students, and afterwards you can print out the slides and laminate them to post in your classroom. Kid friendly language with colorful graphics. The common core state standards for grades 6 and 8 are the same. Only the level of complexity changes, so feel free to use them for all three levels

Reading - Book Project for Independent Reading. This book project assignment is an alternative to a traditional book report. It gives students nine options for creating a project to demonstrate their independent reading. Better than a book report because students have to be able to convince their teacher that they have actually read the book, or be required to stand before a jury of their peers and prove it in five minutes!! Customizable for your needs. Also availale is an optional rubric for this assignment that you may wish to use: Book Project Rubric.

Watership Down Part IV - Vocabulary and Study Questions. This is a two page document that includes vocabulary for each chapter and study questions for Part IV (Chapters 39-50, and Epilogue) of the novel Watership Down by Richard Adams. - HappyEdugator

Mother's Day Coupon Book - Easy Printable Gift. Wish Mom a happy Mother's Day this spring by printing out this coupon book. Students choose the slides they wish to include to customize their own special coupon book for Mother's Day. Have them sign their name on the front, and put the slides together together to honor Mom as a thougtful gift. Includes cover page, back page writing activity, a special poem about how to use the book, and kids can add their own special touches, too, such as drawings, poems, stories, fingerprints, handprints, etc. With a white background or a color background. 27 different coupons. - HappyEdugator

Owl Bookmarks - Owl Save Your Place! Cute owls will save the place for your lucky readers. Great for an owl theme! 4 different colors and 1 page in black and white that they can color themselves! These also make great gifts for a birthday, Christmas, or other events. - HappyEdugator

Word Challenge - A Fun SmartBoard Critical Thinking Game. Students choose a letter with the random letter picker, and then a category with the random category picker, and then set the timer (which is adjustable to set to any amount of time). Good critical thinking time filler! Object is to make as many words as possible beginning with the selected letter that belong in the selected category. (For example, write words that begin with a in the category of fruit) If students don't like the 1st category board, then can choose a category from the second board. This game can be played by the whole class as individuals or groups. They can keep score by counting how many words they created, or play just for fun. Enjoy! Good critical thinking time filler!

Frequently Confused Words Packet - Supports Common Core! Includes a Poster or Handout on how to study commonly confused words, Four sets of frequently confused spelling words for study, four quizzes, and answer keys. The word lists are typed in text boxes, so they can be cut out and put on index cards. Students can then write the words on the other side of the cards. They will have a set of flashcards that they can then use to quiz each other for practice, and a way to self-check. Give out the words at the beginning of the week and have them take a quiz on Friday. These four sets will provide four weeks of practice! If you would like, do one set one week out of the month instead of their regular spelling words. However, you use them, enjoy! - HappyEdugator

A. A. Milne Biography Activity and Constructed Response. A short nonfiction text for students to read, with questions about the selection and a constructed response question. Learn how Winnie the Pooh came into being. Supports common core standards that require more intensive reading of nonfiction text and more writing about the reading, citing text evidence. - HappyEdugator

Valentine Mythology - Cupid Candy Search. In this engaging Valentine's Day activity, students try to identify the different types of candy names used in the story about Cupid. Can be used individually, in small groups, or as a listening activity. Develop attention and have fun! Includes a handout on puns, for discussion about what a pun is, and a student activity to make a "punny" class joke book. Updated February 2015. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Classroom Performance Evaluation Sheets for Reading and Writing. Oral reading rubric, writing rubric, and reading assignment tracker. Evaluate student's oral reading and writing with a simple rubric, and monitor completion of reading assignments with a simple classroom form developed for upper elementary and middle school students. Especially useful for novel study. Students and teachers can keep track of reading assignments, evaluate oral reading and writing about the selection. A tool that is quick and easy for teachers, and useful for students to use for self-evaluation and peer review. - HappyEdugator

Thanksgiving Writing - Countdown Cards. Fun Thanksgiving writing activity! Print and go quick wirtes or journal prompts forf November. Each card has a different theme for giving thanks. You can print these out and have your students write on them, or project them on a screen if you prefer. They can be used as journal prompts, task cards, literacy centers, or as a choice activity as well. This Thanksgiving, enjoy counting your blessings! Here's another idea: print them out on index cards and stick each one on the cover of a composition book. Then students write in the composition books and rotate them each day, so that each student gets to write in a different book each day. (Just ignore or cut off the dates) This way they also get to see what other students have written. (They can edit other entries, too.) You can also print them out on index cards and have students make a Thanksgiving Blessing Tree. After they write on the cards, punch a hole in them, string a colorful ribbon though, and hang from a tree! Or make a great interactive bulletin board with a tree made out of brown paper and have your students stick their blessings on the tree each day. Make it fun! - HappyEdugator

Letter Sounds PowerPoint. Consonant sounds and vowel sounds - long and short. This can be projected on a whiteboard or you can print these out on index cards and laminate. . Beyond just letter recognition of the alphabet, saying consonant sounds is the first step in learning to read and the first evidence of phonemic awareness. Carefully go through each letter, and assess how well each student knows the consonant sounds. Explain to them that if they have difficulty remembering any of the consonant sounds, they should remember the key word pictured with each letter. The key word for b, for example, is bus. Avoid as much as possible adding the uh sound after the consonant sounds, so that students will have less difficulty blending words when they start putting letters together. Useful for Letter of the Week activities. You can project this PowerPoint on a Smartboard, Whiteboard, make transparencies, or print out the slides on cardstock for flashcards and laminate for use in centers. Supports common core standards. Includes sound cards for all the consonants, and sound cards for the vowels a, e, i, o and u.

Sentence Structure - How to Identify Sentence Structure Handout or Poster. This is a tool for identifying sentence structure. Similar to a flow chart, it walks students through the steps to figure out if a sentence is simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. Supports common core state standards!

Commonly Confused Words Crossword Puzzle. Commonly confused words are the answers in this crossword. Some are homophones, some are not. Words such as site, sight, and cite...quite or quiet...personal and personnel. Intermediate level. 32 clues. Fun test prep! NO PREP. Print and go. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator