Punctuation - Hyphens, Dashes, and Semicolons PowerPoint. Interactive PowerPoint presentation with animation and sound. Explains the usage of hyphens, dashes, and semicolons, and then students can practice punctuating the sentences that follow, and checking their answers. At the end there is an answer key to check their work. This can also be played as a game by dividing the class into teams and teams submit their answers-the team with them most correct answers wins! 53 slides. -HappyEdugator

100 Points Book Report Rubric for Nonfiction. A detailed nonfiction book report guide that is easy to grade! This is a book report or book review rubric that very specifically sets the requirements for a book project on a nonfiction book. Based on a 100 points, it is easy to grade and students can self evaluate their work. It is similar in format to my 100 points fiction book report or book review rubric. Promote independent reading, critical thinking, and organizational skills all at the same time. Use the photo and caption on the cover sheet as a poster for your room, too. - 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

Middle School Expository Writing Rubric. Use with expository essays, and help middle school students focus on what they need to acheive in order to meet state standards. The standards based rubric has four categories: conventions of language, purpose and style, organization, and development and support of content. Standards-based grade: students will exceed, meet, approach, or fall below standard in each category. Students can self-evaluate their work. Editable for your classroom use. -Happyedugator

Rikki Tikki Tavi Six Sentence Summary Format and Grammar Practice Sheet. Students can learn to write a brief summary, but they often need scaffolding to get started. Here is a strategy to help your reluctant writers or your students who have trouble organizing their ideas. Use the format to have students write a better summary of a fiction text. The example given is based on Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, but the format can be used with other short stories, too. Included is a grammar practice sheet on punctuation and capitalization based also on the short story Rikki Tikki Tavi Use as a quick activity or warm up to review skills. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Correct Verb Form Worksheet. This test prep grammar worksheet has twenty sentences for practicing usage of irregular verbs. Students need to determine whether the past or the past participle form of the verb should be used. This could also be used as an assessment as well. Answer key is included. Supports Common Core! - HappyEdugator

Mother's Day Verb Poem. Mothers are always doing things! They are very busy. Students can let their mom know they notice by writing a Mother’s Day Verb Poem. They can pay attention to what their mom does, and collect the verbs! Use the verbs in the poem to make a special poem about mom. If students can’t think of any verbs, there is a verb bank for ideas. Includes directions and a list of verbs, and a template to fill in with verbs. Write a verb poem for mom to let her know you notice how much she does. - HappyEdugator

Research Skills Vocabulary Practice Sheet. This worksheet is an introduction to research vocabulary. Students will need to understand the basic vocabulary they will need when conducting research in a library or media center. This short fill-in-the-blank activity will give them practice with some of the terms they will encounter when writng a report or on state tests. - HappyEdugator

Drama - The Emperor's New Clothes. This PowerPoint is a fun reader's theater or classroom play based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale that can be performed by students on short notice with limited space and props. Cast of characters, props, and stage directions make it easy and entertaining. Vocabulary can be discussed during a preview. Print the slides out as handouts (Print-Settings-Outline - to print out like a script in black and white) for your students and project the play as it is being performed.You can also just project it to save copies. I have students read their handouts silently first and look for words that are unfamiliar. Some possible words are highlighted on the slide show. Then discuss the unknown words and use them in a performance! I used this fairy tale theater as a bridge between a drama unit and a fairy tale and folk tale unit. And don't worry...no one has to get undressed! :-) - HappyEdugator

Literary Elements of a Short Story PowerPoint. Literary terms and elements include characters, plot, conflict, setting, theme, resolution, denouement. Explains the critical parts of a short story that students need to be able to identify when they read, as well as incorporate into their own writing. Quiz at the end. Good for test prep Supports common core standards. 16 slides - HappyEdugator

Context Clues Practice Sheet. Several different context clue activities for students to do on this sheet that is a great review or quick substitute worksheet. Students have to define context clues, determine meanings of words in context, and write sentences using context clues.- HappyEdugator

Awards Certificates - Twenty Unique Awards for All Occasions. Includes a cute Good Earth Day Award! End of the year awards! These end of the year award certificates (or use them anytime) are designed to help you show your students that you appreciate them in many ways. Rewards for Volunteers and Helpers, Outstanding work, Organization and Neatness, Earth Day, Birthday, etc. Reward good behavior or give rewards for academic success. From academic growth to the smallest act of kindness, you will have some positive reinforcement ready! Awards are useful to give to teachers, parents, and custodians, too. Great for the end of the school year! Includes a total of twenty different and unique awards.Suggestions for their use is included in the slide notes. Editable for your classroom use. Enjoy.

Multiple Intelligence Tic Tac Toe Assignment Template. This is a differentiated assignment... a tic tac toe or menu activity that uses multiple intelligences for each section. Write in the theme or unit you are teaching. Teachers can customize the tic tac toe to fit what they are teaching and makes differentiation easy. There are nine boxes for different types of learners and learning styles, with choices for Verbal or Linguistic, Mathematical or Logical, Visual or Spatial,Bodily or Kinesthetic, Musical or Auditory, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Naturalistic, and a box for student-teacher choice. Just fill in the blanks for what you want students to learn in your unit of study. Adaptable to any subject. - HappyEdugator

Using an Almanac Scavenger Hunt. A worksheet activity with ten interesting questions that students should be able to find the answer to in most almanacs. Have students work in pairs, partners, or cooperative groups with a class set of almanacs and look up the information. This is good hands-on practice of research skills. They need to be familiar with how to find information in an almanac. If they can't find the information, of course, a key is included. :-) - HappyEdugator

TEST PREP Language Arts Standards Practice Test is a 30 multiple choice question practice test or study guide presented in the style of a state standardized test. Test prep questions cover a variety of standards, including research, word roots, combining sentences and figurative language. Useful for preparing for any state test. Students can get ready for taking a standardized test by practicing. Use a bubble sheet or scan-tron to make it more like the real thing. Supports common core. - 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