Mystery Writing PowerPoint. How to write a mystery story. Do your students like detective stories? Have your students write a mystery story using the strategies presented in this PowerPoint presentation with animated graphics. How to write a good beginning, middle, and end, and use clues and a red herring to engage the reader. Start a class detective agency, where students can become detectives and solve the mysteries. Supports common core state standards. Animations and sounds. 24 slides.

The Cay - Multiple Meaning Vocabulary Game. Play this game before, during, or after reading the novel The Cay, by Theodore Taylor. Using multiple meaning vocabulary words from the novel The Cay, students play a fun card game that makes them read and practice vocabulary words with multiple meanings. - HappyEdugator Directions: 1. Cut out the Blue Vocabulary Cards and print out on cardstock. Laminate. 2. Cut out the individual sentence strips for each vocabulary word. Print out on cardstock and laminate. 3. Game play: 2-4 players. Shuffle cards. Turn over Blue Vocabulary cards so they are upside down in the center of the table. Deal out the sentence strips. The youngest person turns over one of the Blue vocabulary cards. The player who first realizes he has the sentence strip for that card must call out the word and then read the sentence strip out loud. He may then discard his sentence strip, and turn over the next card. Play continues until all the vocabulary cards have been played. The player with the fewest sentence strips left in his hand wins! - HappyEdugator

Back to School Language Arts Survey. Get to know your students when you go back to school. This is a beginning of the year activity to do with your students to learn more about them and their attitutes toward reading and language arts. It's like an anticipation guide for the year! Have them respond to the statements as either true or false or sometimes. This will help you get to know your students better. - HappyEdugator

Hard G or Soft G Word Sort. Is it hard or is it soft? Print out these cards, laminate, and students can sort them into words that begin with hard or soft G. 28 cards - 14 colorful and bright cards of each sound. Includes Center sign, Sorting Mat, and Answer Key and Directions for Teacher. Choose color or white background to save ink. English can be difficult for a young child because some of the letters make a variety of different sounds. It is important that children be exposed to them. The purpose of this activity is for the student to divide these cards into two groups: those with a hard G sound, as in garbage, and ones with a soft G sound, as in giraffe. - HappyEdugator CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3a Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.

Spectacular Word Choice Vocabulary Builder - Fall Theme. A Writing Assignment that builds vocabulary on each handout. When you go back to school, these 4 word lists will have students thinking and writing. On each handout, students are challenged with some "spectacular" vocabulary which they will need to define and then produce some original writing using their new found words.- HappyEdugator

The Cay by Theodore Taylor - Hurricane Brochure Research Project. After reading the novel, students will choose an island or region to research and write a hurricane safety brochure for the residents of their selected region. They must include a graph showing the costliest and deadlest hurricanes in history, a paragraph describing the region's history with hurricanes, a resident preparedness list, a checklist for items and supplies needed, a map with an evacuation route, a what to do and what not to do list, and a list of agencies or shelters where residents can find assistance. Includes project assignment handout, grading sheets, peer rubric, tri-fold template, and teacher directions. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Writing an Advice Column - Writing Assignment and Rubric. This is a writing assignment where the student has to pretend to be a newspaper advice columnist and respond to a reader's question. A word bank of suggested words will help the writer get started on offering ideas and advice to the reader to help solve their problem. You will get two pages. The first is the student assignment sheet and the second is a rubric for grading guidelines. - HappyEdugator

Reading - Activating Thinking Strategies for Reading. Includes posters for SLANT and SETTING. Twelve simple ideas to help you engage your readers by activating their thinking, connecting to their world, stimulating schema or background knowledge and grabbing their interest. Reading strategies you can really use! These are especially useful for lesson planning in Learning Focused classrooms. - Happyedugator

Common Core Standards for ELA Writing PowerPoint Posters. Common core standards for ELA Writing 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 use as a poster in your classroom. Kid friendly language with colorful graphics. The CCSS ( common core state standards ) are the same for 6th and 8th grade, only the level of complexity changes, so feel free to use them for all three levels. - HappyEdugator

Columbus Day Fun Activity Pack. Columbus Acrostic Poem, Writing Prompt, Word Search. Poem Handout, Mak-a-Word, and Fill-in Activity included. Twenty-six Columbus Day related words in wordsearch. October is a fun Fall month, and this is an engaging activity for building vocabulary and spelling skills. Also includes a reading handout of the traditional poem "In 1492" and a Christopher Columbus Fill-In the Blank Activity sheet. You can also use these as time fillers or as a substitute activity. - HappyEdugator

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!.

Middle School Writing Rubric. This rubric has four categories...ideas, organization, style, and conventions. There are five possible points in each category, and students and teachers can easily understand what is required. A 20 point scale is easy to translate into a percentage. The rubric can be used for both creative and expository writing. There is a place for students to write their name and teacher's name, and then students can evaluate themselves and turn in the rubric with their work. The bottom of the rubric has room for comments and teacher feedback and grade. Left in editable format for you to adapt to your classroom needs. - HappyEdugator

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!

Halloween Writing Activity for Smartboard. Halloween writing motivator. Five different Halloween characters...vampire, ghost, scarecrow, skeleton, and witch. Students drag the character traits they want for their chosen Halloween character into the box. They then can name their character and in their journal show, not tell, how their character demonstrates the traits they chose. Good Halloween Smartboard activity for the whole group or class, or use as enrichment for a center. You can choose to make one character a day for a whole week. Many character traits to choose from, some will build vocabulary by having to look up unknown words. Supports common core standards in writing. Happy Halloween!

Character Traits Rating Continuum Graphic Organizer. Supports common core. This graphic organizer will have students doing some higher level thinking! Students analyze a character trait as they read a book by placing specific examples or text evidence of that trait from the book on a continuum. For instance, they could rate Brian's survival skills in Hatchet, or Billy's maturity in Where the Red Fern Grows. As they find examples of the trait in the book, they write the page number, a description, and evaluate it. This can be done with a book the whole class is reading with teacher guidance, and then with their independent reading books as well. Supports common core! - HappyEdugator

Easter Activity Pack - Literacy and Math Fun. Spring into spring with a 27 page packet. Includes an Easter writing prompt and coloring sheet, Easter writing paper, an Easter crossword, an Easter word search, an Easter acrostic poem sheet, an Easter poem writing sheet, Easter Syllables, Easter shopping math activities, Easter Fractions and Easter Decimals sheets, a Bunny Hop Search for Numbers divisible by 4, an Easter math puzzle, an Easter puppet template, an Easter bookmark, and Easter ABC order. Answer Keys included. Lots of fun for April!- HappyEdugator

Middle School Technical Writing Rubric. Standards based rubric for use with technical writing, such as letters, thank-you notes, formula poems, instructions, web pages, procedures, business correspondence, resumes, job applications, and application essays. The purpose of technical writing is to inform, explain, interpret, evaluate, and/or recommend in order to transmit specialized information to a specific audience. This rubric will help middle school students focus on what they need to acheive in order to meet state standards. The rubric has four categories -conventions of language and style, purpose, 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.

Easter Activity Pack - Literacy and Math Fun. Print and go. Four different sheets of math word problems, (two addition and two subtraction), ten count the eggs and trace the number word sheets, make an Easter card sheet, an original Easter poem to read, a create a word activity, an Easter word scramble, a jelly bean sort and graphing activity, an Easter maze, a history of Easter (the resurrection) and a history of Easter (bunnies and eggs). Lots of fun for April!- HappyEdugator

Writing to An Audience Project. How To Project. A writing assignment or writing project that teaches author's purpose and writing for different audiences. Student (and partner) will draw an audience from the basket. They are to choose their own how-to topic amd create a brochure for their audience. The purpose of this brochure is to tell a specific audience how to do something. Here are some examples: First graders - How to Convince Your Parents to Make Your Bedtime Later Parents - How to Get Along With Your Seventh-Grade Son or Daughter Teachers - How to Win Respect from Students Students will use creativity and their imagination to complete this writing activity. Complete project rubric included. - HappyEdugator

Context Clues - Analyzing Context Clues PowerPoint. Help students figure out unknown words in text. Build vocabulary and reading comprehension by teaching common context clues. This PowerPoint has explains five different context clues: definition, synonym, antonym, example, and inference. Practice activity at the end with answers. 15 slides. Updated August 2015. Good for test prep! -