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

Beginning of the Year Healthy Snack Suggestions Handout. Good nutrition is important for success. Just in time for back to school. Here is a list of healthy snacks you can handout to parents or students to help them make wise nutritional choices. Helps parents decide on what nutritious snacks they can send with their child to school. You can pass this out at Open House or Parent Night, or send it home on the first day of school. - HappyEdugator

Rebus Puzzles - a fun critical thinking activity. Figure out the word puzzles. Great to do with partners, or use as a warm up. Print and go, Works especially well for gifted and talented students who enjoy challenges, but will work with other student populations as well. Enjoy! - Happyedugator

Logical Fallacies Handout - defines logical fallacies, and helps student understand why they are important to avoid when writing an argument. Includes a list of common logical fallacies with examples of each, including Ad Hominem, Appeal to Popular Opinion, False Analogy, Attacking the Motive, Red Herring, Begging the Question, Inconsistency, Straw Person, Look Who's Talking, Slippery Slope, Hasty Generalizations, Circular Argument, and Genetic Fallacy. - HappyEdugator

Common Core Standards for Speaking/Listening PowerPoint Posters. Common core standards for speaking and listening in grade 6, 7, or 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 post in your classroom. Kid friendly language with colorful graphics. These standards are the same for 6th and 8th grades, only the level of complexity changes, so feel free to use them at all three levels. - HappyEdugator

Mother's Day - My Mom is the Best Craftivity. Make a poem and a handprint flower poster to give to mom for a great Mother's Day gift. Using extra large construction paper, students make a handprint flower and glue their photo in the center. Then they cut out the stem and leaves and glue them underneath. At the bottom of the poster, they can add their poem. Complete instructions. Materials included: the fill-in the blank poem, leaf pattern, and stem pattern. Other optional ideas also included. Happy Mother's Day! - HappyEdugator

Classroom Library Sign Out Sheet. This is a colorful classroom sign out sheet you can post in your classroom library to keep track of books checked in and out. I have a class "librarian" manage my checkouts. Students simply write in the title of the book they are borrowing, their name, and the date it was checked out. When the book is returned, they just put the date returned. I use the honor system with my class library, and most students return my books as soon as they finish with them. EDITABLE for your classroom needs. - HappyEdugator

Map Reading Worksheet. This worksheet students can use as a guide for finding important information on a map. Students should each be provided a map and then use this worksheet to learn about the title, grid, scale, legend or key, and direction of a map. - HappyEdugator

Parent Conference - 27 Tips for Good Communication. Communicating with parents is one of the most important things we do as teachers. When we can work together with a child's parents toward common goals, we improve the atmosphere for learning. Here are some tips to help make all your parent conferences productive and successful. - HappyEdugator

Reading Cereal Box Labels Activity. Have students bring an empty cereal box to school. Students can work in groups or individually to read the label and answer the questions on this worksheet. Students often need practice in real-world situations. This simple activity will make them read carefully for information about products, and then make judgments on whether or not it's right for them. Supports common core! - HappyEdugator

Brain Teasers and Riddles PowerPoint Promotes critical thinking skills. Fun five minute acitivities. If you have five minutes, you can still get those brains working and have fun, too! Brain teasers on animated slides that are sure to make everyone smile. Fun, humorous riddles that will crack you up! Enjoy these when class is not quite over, but the lesson is! You can also use as a fun filler at the end of the year! Or use them as a warm up! 27 slides. - HappyEdugator

Brain Teaser Sheet - Critical Thinking. Fun Brain Workout. Letter equations. May be challenging, but students will love trying to figure them out! A letter equation is a common combination of letters and numbers that are abbreviated. The trick is to figure out what the abbreviation means. For example, 7 d. in a w. is 7 days in a week. 22 brain teaser equations and key included. Good activity to get minds working for test prep. Exercise for the brain. Enjoy! - HappyEdugator

100 Points Research Paper Rubric. Writing a research paper? Use this detailed rubric for a research paper that is easy to grade! Specific standards based requirements for a research paper and will promote a high degree of performance. Based on a 100 points, It is easy to grade and students can self evaluate their work. Performance elements include: Purpose and Focus, Organization and Development of Ideas, References and Documentation, Formatting, and Conventions. Promotes independent reading, critical thinking, organizational skills, writing style, and citing sources without plagiarism. - HappyEdugator

Chromebooks Keyboard Shortcuts - Essential guide for using Chromebooks in the classroom. If your school is using Google Chromebooks in the classroom, you can use these quick keyboard shortcuts for using notebooks in the classroom to help your kids and yourself navigate on a Chromebook. Keep them handy...share this file with your students to keep as a handy reference tool, or project them on your SMARTBOARD or whiteboard and go over them with your kids before you begin. Useful for any subject, and especially helpful in computing classes. Hope you find it helpful! - HappyEdugator

Essay Rubric - for a Formal Essay. Based on the rigor of the common core standards. Rubric measures nine areas of assessment which are: format, understanding of literary texts, idea development, text support,organizational pattern, word choice, sentence structure, transitional devices, and language mechanics. Criteria for assessment categorized as exceeds standards, proficient, meets standards-- but not proficient, and does not meet standards. - HappyEdugator

Martin Luther King Jr. MLK Coded Words fun activity sheet. Use as a time filler that is a vocabulary or spelling builder and a fun thing to do for a Martin Luther King Jr. activity. Figure out the coded words written with webdings by using the decoder. Key included. NO PREP. Print and go.

Christmas Activity - Christmas Coded Words Activity Sheet - Webdings. Fun! Use as a time filler or as a fun thing to do for a Christmas party. Figure out the coded Christmas words written with webdings by using the decoder. Winter fun! Like a puzzle, this exercises the brain and promotes visual discrimination. Keep kids occupied even on Christmas Eve. No prep. Print and go. Key included, of course. - HappyEdugator

Halloween Spooky Synonyms PowerPoint and Writing Activity. Halloween themed PowerPoint about synonyms. Supports common core. First slides explain synonyms, give examples of synonyms, and why choosing the right words and using a thesaurus is useful when writing. Several colorful and animated slides then provide synonyms for common Halloween words such as candy, costume, scary, etc. The last slide is a writing activity where students use their new found vocabulary to write a Halloween story. A fun autumn activity to get your students writing. We had fun making this a listening and speaking activity. When a synonym slide came up, we would say the synonyms, and then I would ring a bell. They had 30 seconds to turn to their neighbor and answer the question at the bottom of the slide. After 30 seconds, I rang the bell again and they had to stop talking! Then we would repeat on the next slide. When we got to the activity slide, I let them tell their story to each other first before they had to write it. - HappyEdugator Standards: W.4.3, W.5.3d, W.6.3d, W.7.3d, W.8.3d

Rikki Tikki Tavi Vocabulary Activities. Vocabulary for the short story Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling. Includes: Study Sheet with 15 vocabulary words, their part of speech and definition; Two page Vocabulary Practice Sheet, Study Cards, Fiction Literature Terms Sheet, Hot Seat Vocabulary Review Game, Vocabulary Matching Test, and Key. - HappyEdugator

March Craftivity: Lion and Lamb Mobile. Here comes Spring! Directions on how to make a cute mobile decoration for the Month of March with a lion face made from a paper plate, and cute little lambs that hang down made from Dixie cups, cotton balls, and pipe cleaners. March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, so the saying goes. Your students can take this mobile home and hang on their porch to catch the March wind. - HappyEdugator