Character Project and Adjectives List. Students create a fiction character for a new story. They must use 10+ adjectives from the provided list to create traits and an interesting personality for their character, and write detailed sentences to describe. Students will also make a drawing to describe what their character looks like. Included is the project handout with directions, an adjective list, and a writing checklist. The adjective list and writing checklist are also useful for any creative writing activity. Great to help students develop a character which they later introduce in a narrative. Supports common core! - HappyEdugator

Apples! Apples! PowerPoint. Fall fun! All about apples and Johnny Appleseed. common types of apples, fun facts, the role of apples in our culture, health benefits of eating apples. Includes the story of Johnny Appleseed, and separates legend from fact. Fun fall activity for back to school. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

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

Panama Canal Study Questions Webquest, Asks students to answer 10 basic questions about the Panama Canal. Questions are about location, climate, demographics, resources, etc. Students can complete as a webquest or do their own research to find the answers.Recommended sites included. Answer key is included, which can be used as a guide for class discussion as well. 2014 is the hundredth birthday of the Panama Canal! - HappyEdugator

Suffixes for Parts of Speech Posters. These are posters ( or you may project overhead) that can be used to teach suffixes that are associated with parts of speech. In order to build a better vocabulary, students should have some sort of sense that a word that ends in MENT is a noun, whereas a word that ends IZE is a verb. Learning these suffixes will greatly expand a student's understanding of how words work in context and aid in reading comprehension as well. Includes full color version and color on white background to save ink. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Ancient Egypt Fun Activities - includes Ancient Egypt word search with key, mummy writing prompt, ancient Egypt pharoah writing paper, ancient Egypt True/False quiz, and an ancient Egypt coder breaker activity. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Christmas Holiday Sensory Writing Practice Worksheet. A Christmas or winter holiday writing worksheet. Ten different Christmas writing prompts for sensory writing, to create imagery with a holiday twist. Students will need to show, not tell, using words that utilize the five senses. You may use the worksheet in centers. group work, or individual instruction. You may wish to have them complete all the exercises, choose some, or assign them individually. Includes three pages of sensory words for students to use if needed. - HappyEdugator

The River by Gary Paulsen Word Search. This is a word search puzzle based on the novel The River by Gary Paulsen. It has 31 words embedded vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. It is a fun activity to complete after reading the novel. - HappyEdugator

Reading Strategies PowerPoint - How to Attack Unknown Words. Reading strategies that can really help. Word attack skills for beginning readers. You can use this PowerPoint as a minilesson projected on your whiteboard, or you can print the slides out on index cards or 4 X 6 cards and laminate to place in literacy centers, or make posters out of them. Also good for test prep. - HappyEdugator

Snow Activities for Fun! Need some fun things to do this winter? Here are some activities your students can do! Includes a sheet to go with the story There Was a Cold Woman Who Swallowed Some Snow, and also a maze, a snowflake creative writing sheet, a snowman acrostic, directions for an art activity with soap flakes, a dot to dot snowman, a snow globe coloring sheet, Snow Word Family sheet, and even a snowman Venn Diagram. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Recommended Novel Reading Lists for Grades 7 - 12 with Lexile Levels. Useful when planning novel studies. Includes an alphabetical list of 180 novels and authors, along with their grade level recommendations and lexile reading levels, a list for high school, and a list for middle school. Useful for planning appropriate text complexity with the new common core standards. Can also be used as a suggested summer reading list - HappyEdugator

Biomes of the World PowerPoint. An overview of the different biomes of the world. Includes rain forest, temperate grassland, savanna, tundra, taiga, temperate forest, mountain, desert, and three major aquatic biomes- freshwater, saltwater, and estuaries. Average temperatures, rainfall, and interesting facts about the diversity of life in each. 34 slides. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

Writing Paper - Seasonal Packet. Handy to have at the beginning of the year or at the end of the year. 25 different styles of lined writing paper for different times of the year. Dashed lines help develop handwriting. Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's, St. Patrick's, Spring, Birthday, and more. Students will love writing poems and stories on these decorative papers. - HappyEdugator

Drama Playbill Project. A printable activity -This assignment gives instructions to students on how to write a playbill (an advertisement for a play) that includes the following: an illustrated cover with information about the performance and a picture illustrating the play's content,a summary of the play written to promote the play, an illustration of the setting, an explanation of the the theme, and a description of the main character. A rubric for evaluation is included. - HappyEdugator

Halloween PowerPoint! A fun Halloween Mad-Lib activity! Use this Halloween Mad Lib to practice parts of speech...project it on your whiteboard. Students can number one through twelve on their own paper and come up with names, nouns, and other parts of speech as per the directions, and then volunteers read the following slide with their substitutions to make silly Halloween stories. Lots of fun, and students get to use their knowledge of parts of speech as well! Happy Halloween!- HappyEdugator

Back to School - Write a Classmate's Biography Assignment. Good beginning of the year back to school writing assignment. Students have to interview a classmate, and then write their biography. Includes assignment sheet with interview questions, Explanation and ideas for writing a good introduction, and rubric for grading. --HappyEdugator

Back to School Parent Letter from Reading Teacher. Give out at Open House, on the first day of school, Back to School Night, or Parent Night. An editable letter to middle school parents for back to school from a reading teacher, encouraging parents to participate in helping their children enjoy reading, and offers parents tips and ideas on how they can help. May be used for upper elementary asa well. Just fill in date, your name, and your contact information, and sign it. Ready to go with great tips for parents. 2 pages - Happyedugator

Sentences: Identifying Sentence Structure PowerPoint. This interactive PowerPoint presentation has 20 practice questions on simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence structures. Students need to identify the correct sentence structure of the sentence. Click forward to check. Can be used for standardized test review. Includes a quick review of the four types of sentence structure.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins Vocabulary List and Activities. Complete Vocabulary List and Activity sheets for the Hunger Games book Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. The first page is a word list with definitions of 47 important words to know from the novel. There are four pages of vocabulary activities: two different fill-ins, a crossword puzzle, and a synonym match. Key included. - HappyEdugator

Literature Terms - Strategies Authors Use to Engage the Reader PowerPoint. Literary terms and elements of fiction literature that can be used as an introduction or review of literary devices and commonly used literature terms on state tests. Slides are in alphabetical order with colorful pictures to keep your students engaged. Terms included: allegory, alliteration, allusion, analogy, characterization, conflict, diction, foreshadowing, figurative language, hyperbole, imagery, irony, metaphor, metonymy, motif, mood, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, paradox, pastiche, personification, point of view, satire, setting, simile, stream of consciousness, symbolism, theme, tone, vernacular. 34 slides. - HappyEdugator