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

Rikki Tikki Tavi Constructed Response Based on Common Core Standards. Writing assignment based on the short story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling. Emphasis on using text evidence for support a response to literature. Students must analyze the theme of the short story. Includes writing prompt with instructions for writing an argument that uses textual support for claims, a sample essay for students to use as a model for their writing that demonstrates how to use evidence from the text, and a writing rubric. Created to support writing that is highly rigorous as required by the new common core standards. - HappyEdugator

Evaluating an Argument - Supports Common Core! Use around Earth Day, or any time you study nonfiction. PowerPoint slides helps students understand how to evaluate an argument, a critical reading skill. Students learn that evaluate means to judge a selection by looking for the author's main point, whether it is supported by evidence and facts, and whether the author argues against opposing arguments. Practice exercise with informational text included. Students will read and evaluate the argument from an excerpt of the book Green Planet Rescue by Robert Halpern. Good practice of common core standards and appropriate for Earth Day, too. Background vocabulary is endangered, species, and habitat. - HappyEdugator Aligned to Common Core Standards RI 7.1, RI 7.2, RI 7.3, RI 7.5, 7.6, 7.8, RI 8.1, 8.2, 8.5, 8.6, 8.8 Supports College and Career Readiness Standards grades 6-12 for drawing evidence from informational text to support analysis and reflection

Christmas Writing Activity - Revising the lyrics of Christmas Songs. Get students engaged in some creative writing before the holidays. Fun! Students can rewrite some of their favorite Christmas songs, such as White Christmas, Jingle Bells, and The Grinch. Three writing templates to get them started. Fun practice for expanding vocabulary...finding synonyms in a thesaurus, experinmenting with words. Photographs of projects done in class. Have fun! - HappyEdugator

Middle School Language Arts Essential Study Guide. Practice questions on author's purpose, principal parts of verbs, subject-verb agreement, context clues, idioms and prepositions. This four page study guide or practice sheet reviews several areas of concern many middle school students have trouble with in Language Arts. Key included. Good for test preparation! - HappyEdugator

End of Year Memory Book for Any Elementary Grade. An end of the year memory book or end of the year scrapbook that is easy to print out on standard copy paper and put together. Start the summer right! A memory book is a fun way to end the school year. Each memory book page is bordered in palm trees. Title page has an ABC background. Includes a place for a class picture, pages for school, teacher, friends, lunch, favorite things, etc. Like a scrapbook, each page has lots of space for drawings, stickers, photos, and personal mementos. Includes a farewell poem from the teacher and a page for autographs. Memory book can be used for any elementary grade, and can be adapted for middle grades as well. Also, if you want a smaller and sturdier book, go to print set up and set up your printer to print out on index cards. Then you can hole punch the pages and tie together with ribbon. 14 pages. - HappyEdugator

Common Root Words Handout. Common Greek and Latin roots, root words or stems, prefixes, suffixes, and math and science affixes and roots on a comprehensive printable handout. Includes reasons why learning roots and affixes are important. Good to review before standardized testing. 8 pages. Supports common core. - HappyEdugator CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., photograph, photosynthesis) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., audience, auditory, audible). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., belligerent, bellicose, rebel). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.4b Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., precede, recede, secede).

Independent Clauses and Subordinate Clauses. Worksheet or Quiz. Sentence structure practice, review, or assessment. Students will identify whether the underlined clauses are either independent clauses or dependent clauses (subordinate). Ten sentences with key. Supports common core. . - HappyEdugator CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.1.a Explain the function of phrases and clauses in general and their function in specific sentences.

What is Poetry - an introduction to any Poetry Unit. Start off your poetry unit by asking What is Poetry? and What is a Poet? On the handout provided, students will read what T.S. Eliot had to say about it, and then come up with their own answers. Also included in this file are several pages of introductory materials a teacher can use to start students thinking about poetry. - HappyEdugator

Coordinate Adjectives Handout and Practice Worksheet. Explains using commas and how to tell the difference between coordinate adjectives and cumulative adjectives. Coordinating adjectives are adjectives that must have a comma because they can have the word "and" put between them or their order can be reversed. Cumulative adjectives must stay in the order in which they are presented or they do not make sense, so therefore they do not need a comma. Handout will give students a reference to use, and worksheet has 18 practice sentences where students must determine if the adjectives are coordinate or cumulative, and place commas accordingly. Supports the common core standards. L.7.2a . No prep. Print and go.

The Hunger Games Survival Challenge Smartboard Game will engage your students! FUN! INTERACTIVE! 12 Different Smart board activities! Hunger Games Directions: This is a Smartboard game for up to twelve players or teams based on the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. A scorekeeper may be needed to keep track of team scores. BEWARE Only one player can survive! Will it be you? You may choose up to 12 teams or individual players. Click on the dice to find out your district and see how many points you will start with. There can be two players from each district. If a district has already been claimed, roll again. It is not necessary to have all Districts in play for the game to continue. There will be 12 Challenges. A District will be randomly selected to complete the Challenge. You may win or lose points depending on your performance on the Challenge. The INDIVIDUAL with the most points at the end wins. The password for editing purposes is hunger, in case you wish to change the game. I have the password set up so students can't change it. Some teachers may wish to vary the game and play the challenges as separate games instead of playing the game with all 12 challenges for a victor. You may adapt how you play it for your class. Just move through the slides and have loads of fun! 25 slides in all. This activity can also be used in math for the practice of adding and subtracting points. - HappyEdugator

Biography Project Rubric. This rubric is for a student written biography project. Includes assessment of: Focus on Assigned Topic Organization Spelling and Punctuation Accuracy of Facts Creativity Neatness Illustrations - HappyEdugator

End of the Year Superlative Questions: Most Likely To Succeed as ... Printable ballot with 32 great "Most Likely to" questions for end of the year activities - perhaps a classroom fun filler, an assembly, or to use when creating a yearbook. - HappyEdugator

TEST PREP Test Practice - Language Arts and Reading. Test Preparation practice for state testing. Several nonfiction reading selections, and questions based on standards. Helps students practice answering questions similar to ones that they could have on the state assessment. Can be used for 6th, 7th, and 8th grades as practice. Useful for preparing for any state test. Use a bubble sheet or scan-tron to make it more like the real thing. Supports common core. 33 multiple choice questions. Key included.

End of the Year Poems. PowerPoint or Printables. Five original poems and photos to help you say good-bye to your students at the end of the year. Project on a whiteboard on the last day, or print them out on index cards to make inexpensive good-bye gifts. On PowerPoint, not PDF, so you can adjust your formatting to meet your needs. In color and plain black and white. Editing allowed for your classroom use only. Happy summer! - HappyEdugator

Back to School Words of Wisdom Handout. Use at Open House! Beginning of the year inspirational quotes. Give this handout of important life lessons to your students on the first day of school, to parents and students at back to school parent night or open house, or use it as a send off for the end of the year. Twenty-one important thoughts and inspirational quotes about how to live life to the fullest. A good character building tool to foster respect and responsibility. Parents will enjoy it on parent night as well. You can also use it during parent conferences to start off with a positive note. You can also have students select a quote to write about as a beginning of the year writing activity. - HappyEdugator

MLA Format Handout. This printable handout is a guide for students when making citations in essays using Modern Language Association (MLA) format. Includes general guidelines for margins, font and spacing, how the heading, title and page numbers should be formatted, and how to make citations for both long and short quotations, which are defined. An example included. - HappyEdugator

EST PREP Common Core Vocabulary for Middle Grades PowerPoint. Test prep for middle grades Language Arts. Academic vocabulary. Vocabulary words that may be tested on the new common core assessments for middle school Language Arts. Each slide has a word, a definition, and an illustration or animated graphic to help students remember. Can also be printed out on index cards and used for a word wall or as flash cards. Now updated with even more words! Helpful for test preparation. Includes Sprenger's words - essential and critical vocabulary for common core- HappyEdugator

Thanksgiving Smartboard activity - Thanksgiving Now and Then. Venn diagram comparing the food of the first Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving today. Add to your Thanksgiving activities. Students drag the Thanksgiving foods to where they think they should go on the diagram. Then they can check the key to see if they are right on the next page, and link to an interesting informational article to read about the first Thanksgiving! Fun November activity! -HappyEdugator key words: Thanksgiving, Smartboard, Thanksgiving Venn Diagram, Thanksgiving activities, Thanksgiving interactive whiteboard, Thanksgiving critcal thinking, Thanksgiving history, Thanksgiving research, Thanksgiving food, Thanksgiving common core Standards RI.4.1, RI.4.2, RI.4.3, RI.5.1, RI.5.2, RI.5.3

Complete Subject and Simple Subject Worksheet. Understanding basic sentences. The first step in finding subjects and predicates is to be able to find the simple subject and complete subject. This worksheet explains simple and complete subjects in simple, easy to understand terms and then give students fifteen sentences for practice. Students like using highlighters instead of circling the simple subject. Answer key included. - HappyEdugator