TEST PREP Top Ten Writing Tips for State Writing Test Success PowerPoint. Give your students the top ten list like they may have seen on the David Letterman Show, but for writing tips! Count down to what is the most important tip for being successful on a standardized writing test. Prepare for the new constructed response assessments for common core standards. A fun way to prepare your students to write better on assessments, from conventions to creativity. - HappyEdugator

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

December Holidays PowerPoint - Guess the Word. Students guess the correct words to fill in the blanks about the winter holidays. Students will learn that Christmas, Hanukkah, and kwaanza are all celebrated in December, and that although there are different traditions, there are similarities as well. Happy Holidays! - HappyEdugator

Test Taking Skills For Essay Tests PowerPoint. Test taking strategies for acing essay tests. Animated PowerPoint gives students strategies they can use to prepare for and take writing tests and essay exams. How to study and what to study to make a great grade when writing an essay test. 18 slides. - HappyEdugator

The Red Scarf Girl Discussion Questions Handout. This handout has twelve discussion questions for students on the book The Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang. This is the true story of a girl living through the Chinese Revolution and the difficulties she and her family faced. Many questions require higher level thinking. Useful for a literature circle, whole class discussion, or even as an individual assignment.

Halloween Quiz. This simple and fun quiz about Halloween will test your students knowledge of some basic Halloween vocabulary and traditions. Students can fill in the blanks from the word bank. Pair and share, write a story with the words from the word bank, and color the Jack O Lantern afterwards. You can also cut out the word bank if you wish, and make a game for kids to "win" it! Included are word bank cards, a monster for early finishers to color, a key and a reward cut out for completing it correctly! - HappyEdugator

Research Process & Expository Writing Formative Assessment. This test or CRCT study guide is a 14 page multiple choice formative assessment on the research process and expository writing, aligned to the Georgia Performance Standards. Created as a study guide for 7th Grade English Language Arts CRCT, but may be used for grades 6 - 8 for practice. (standards are the same, just level of complexity changes) Includes 30 questions on reading charts and tables, writing paragraphs with correct topic sentences, staying on topic, persuasive arguments, note cards, etc. Good for preparing for any state tests and other standardized tests like the Georgia CRCT. Answer key included. GPS, and also supports common core. - HappyEdugator

Noun Clauses PowerPoint. What is a noun clause? What is the differentce between a phrase and a clause? This is a short 8 slide practice Powerpoint on noun clauses. Students will learn how noun clauses are dependent or subordinate clauses, and signal words to look for when identifying noun clauses. Explains how noun clauses can act as a subject in a sentence, or as a direct object. Practice sentences for students to work with. Key is on the last slide. Updated July 2015. - HappyEdugator

Homophones in Pictures PowerPoint. Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spelling. They can be easily confused. Illustrated homophones will help students remember which ones are which! Slide show has homophones and pictures to help students remember. Slides can be printed out to make a great bulletin board, too. Supports common core standards. - HappyEdugator

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Short Story Unit. Includes Vocabulary, Plot Summary, Use Your Vocabulary sheet with key, About the Author- Mark Twain, Comprehension Quiz with key, and Essay Questions that require students to use evidence from the text in their answers to support common core. - HappyEdugator

Short i Sound - Sounding Out Words PowerPoint. CVC words. Teach reading with phonics and decoding using word families! Short i Word Family. Slides introduce the sound of short i and have students practice blending short i sound with consonants to form one syllable CVC words. Students read the slides and get rewarded with fun shouts and cheers. This is the next step to reading after students learn consonant sounds and the sound of short e. This animated PowerPoint has 17 slides of practice, with a slide of nonsense words and a slide of real words at the end of the presentation for teacher assessment. Good supplement for CVC word work!

Critical Thinking - Brain Teaser Sheet. Words That Go Together. A challenging word game for gifted and talented students, or anyone who wants to think! Find another word that starts with the same two letters as the given word. The right answer will create a familiar compound word or two-word phrase. Key included.

Much Ado About Nothing! William Shakespeare. This test includes 10 multiple choice, 5 matching, and an essay question about Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The matching section has students matching characters with quotes describing them. An answer key is included. A great play if you are studying British literature. - HappyEdugator

Need a video guide? This movie guide is for any fiction video. Students will have to identify characters and other elements of fiction as they watch the story. Have you ever wished your students would pay more attention when they watched a video or film in class? This handout can be passed out to students before they watch a fictional movie or a video in class. This form can be used with almost any movie. They will need to fill in the character chart as they watch, determine the problem or conflict of the story, identify the climax and the resolution, and rank the video with an explanation. - HappyEdugator

TEST PREP 7th Grade Language Arts Standards Review #2 Interactive PowerPoint is helpful for preparing for state standardized tests. Aligned with Common Core! 6th and 8th graders may find it useful as a review as well. 30 questions, 64 slides in all. Slides are set up so that students can answer the questions and then check their answers and discuss. Besides grammar, there are reading selections with questions about the selection as well. - HappyEdugator

George Washington's Breakfast by Jean Fritz PowerPoint Activities. Use this PowerPoint to go along with the book. Great for President's Day, or when introducing research. The book is about a boy who is on a quest to find out what his namesake had for breakfast. Includes information and links about the author, vocabulary, comprehension questions, photos from the Smithsonian and Mt. Vernon, and activities, including a recipe for hoecakes. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Mother's Day Activity Pack - Mother's Day activities. Print and go. Includes an original Mother's Day song to learn, an original poem, a card, slides to print out to make pictures, poems, and handprints for Mom, a slide picture frame, a recipe for a sweet treat, and suggestions for crafts and ideas for gifts and easy things to do for Mom on her special day. For example, make butterflies with clothespins, clip them on twigs and make her a butterfly tree. Happy Mother's Day! 18 pages. - HappyEdugator

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant Short Story Unit. What you need to teach The Necklace: Vocabulary, Comprehension Questions, Cause and Effect, Observing Details, Making Inferences, Dialogue, Word Scramble and Fill-in, Essay Questions. Answer key included. -

Mother's Day Proverbs - What Did Your Mother Tell You? Mother's Day PowerPoint. Wise Old Sayings or Proverbs from A - Z. Advice you probably heard from your mother, your mom, or your mum! Fun to share and advance and develop cultural literacy. Animated butterflies walk you through an alphabetical list of different proverbs and their meanings or origins, written like Mom wrote it on stationary! Share with your students, or at a Mother's Day event to remember and honor Mom and her wisdom. Slides can be printed out to make a booklet as well. Students can also be challenged to write their own proverbs using the first letter of their mother's name, or make acrostic poems with the proverbs using their mother's names (great center activity), which can be given to mom as a gift. Enjoy! Added sounds and animations.

Collective Nouns of Animal Groups PowerPoint. Lists the collective noun names for different animal groups. For example, a congregation of alligators, a sleuth of bears, and a murder of crows are just a few of the unusual group animal names found in the English language. Useful when introducing subject-verb agreement with collective nouns. Discuss whether they are singular or plural. Students are also challenged and encouraged to try to come up with their own collective nouns at the conclusion of the slide show. 20 Informative slides. Fun addition to a parts of speech unit. Supports common core!