I have been in the field of education for 27 years. I love what I do everyday; it is truly a passion and I can not imagine doing anything else! In 2013, I retired as the gifted, special services, and elementary curriculum director for a public school district! I design curricular materials anywhere from Pre-K to 8th grade, and I must say I am partial to classroom/behavior management and English Language Arts.
I have been in the field of education for 27 years. I love what I do everyday; it is truly a passion and I can not imagine doing anything else! In 2013, I retired as the gifted, special services, and elementary curriculum director for a public school district! I design curricular materials anywhere from Pre-K to 8th grade, and I must say I am partial to classroom/behavior management and English Language Arts.
Your students are absolutely sure to be engaged in this informational text! This is an informative article written about the lighting of the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City. This article is approximately 934 words long complete with a couple of illustrations to match the text. At the conclusion of the text, there is a formative assessment that consists of an eight question quiz to include questions on vocabulary, comprehension, sequencing, context clues, inferring, etc. This text is sure to engage a room full of readers! A great read for your students!
In this training and support packet of materials, you will find a powerpoint presentation that can be used for a professional learning community session, a focused faculty meeting, and/or a professional development session. There are a total of fourteen slides which encourage teachers to shift students into "high gear" thinking. The slides focus on the point that as long as students are involved in only memory and recall then they have trouble with "low gear" thinking! The point is made to involve students in "high gear" engaging activities, and they will grasp and retain much more than when asked to simply recall. This training presentation is a "jumping off point" into constructing/creating engaging teaching and learning activities!
Your students are absolutely going to love this community building activity! In this resource, you will find many different photo props that your students will love to choose from to make the perfect “beginning of the school year” photo to cherish all year! Props include sayings such as (1) I’m a hot mess! (2) Say Cheese; (3) I’m Ready to Learn! (4) “I’m Only Here for Recess!” and many, many others (see entire list of photo props below)! There are approximately seventy-five photo props to choose from or choose multiple ones for different photo combinations. These photos can be used in conjunction with an “All About Me” activity, a poetry writing session about "Our New Classroom", and many many other classroom community building activities! Most of all, they can be used just to have simple plain fun as the school year gets cranked up and ready to go! Each photo prop is ready to go. One needs to simply download, copy on card-stock, laminate if possible for future year’s use, and glue or tape to a popsicle stick or any other type of short dowel, etc. Have an awesome time setting up your background to use these props!
List of Photo Props:
** "I Look Good and I Know It!"
** Most Likely to Succeed
** Bookworm
** 1st Day of School 2016 (each grade level from kindergarten to 6th grade
** Class Clown
** WhooHoo!
** "I'm a Hot Mess!"
** OMG!!
** Photo Bomb
** "That's What He Said!"
** "That's What She Said!"
** "Say Cheese!"
** 2LEGIT 2QUIT
** LIKE!
** DISLIKE!
** Best Hair
** Most Athletic
** #1 Finger Sign
** Books
** Bow Ties (four of these; different colors)
** Eyeglasses (four of these; different patterns)
** #backtoschool (multiple copies; different colors)
** #BFF (multiple copies; different colors)
** apple cut-outs
** "Ready to Learn!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "I'm Only Here for Recess!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "I'm a Genius!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "I Believe I Can Fly!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "The Sky is the Limit!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "I'm not fitting in when I was born to stand out!" (multiple copies; different colors)
** "Oh, the Places I'm Going!" (multiple copies; different colors)
This timeless Caldecott winner is sure to bring our the imaginations of all of your students. Students absolutely love this story of fantasy and will delight in engaging in all of the teaching and learning activities. In this literature study, you will find a total of twenty-five teaching and learning activities all connected with this great piece of literature! Activities are all correlated to Common Core State Standards. Additionally, there is a formative comprehension check with ten questions. You don't wanna miss this literature study particularly during the month of October while potentially doing a study of "wild things and monsters!"
This resource is a great icebreaker for welcoming each child back to school and it will also help to establish a community of learners in your classroom. Students will enjoy decorating these t-shirts with unique personality characteristics about them, illustrate, color, and then attach them to a clothesline already hung in the classroom. Get some really colorful clothespins to attach them to the cord serving as the clothesline! There are three different types of reproducible t-shirts included for the students to have a choice. One of the t-shirt patterns has established lines for those students who choose to write about themselves instead of draw, color, and illustrate important things about them! Kids will have a blast!
I am hoping this resource will be most helpful to all of you! This is a set of incentives and reward coupons specifically for middle and high school students. For example, some of the rewards and incentives include: (1) being able to work in the front office for one class period; (2) gaining free admission to one ballgame; (3) earning the opportunity for you, as the teacher, to write a postcard to the students parents with a positive note in regards to the student, and many, many others. Many students need that extra boost just for someone to notice that they have done the right thing. Obviously, we all strive for our students to be able to self-regulate their behavior and ultimately that is our goal in using incentives and coupons that we can get to the point where external motivators are not needed! These incentives carry a March theme; however, there are others available for other months throughout the school year! Use these these incentives and rewards to help motivate students in your classroom. They can be laminated, cut apart, and placed in a storage container for safe keeping. There are hundreds of different ways for you to establish a management system for how a student will earn one of these so that is your task! There are seventeen different pages of incentives and rewards, and each page contains approximately 6-9 coupons/incentives on each page!
For all of you beach, ocean, and fish lovers out there getting ready to start back to school, this resource is a set of thirty name plates that can be utilized for each student that follow an fish, ocean, and beach theme! Brighten your classroom with these versatile name plates that will make each one of your students feel special and important. Each name plate can be laminated to each students’ desks and lockers. They can also be used to personalize announcements and schedules! Have an awesome school year!
This set of slides contains over 200 festive Christmas lights that can be used for a multitude of reasons! There are over six different colors in the packet. They can be used to help headline the different bulletin board statements such as: (1) Let Your Light Shine Brightly!; (2) We All Shine Bright in English Class; (3) Let Your Light Shine Before Men; (4) In This Class, We Light Up Our Lives; (5) I Shine When I Am Kind; (6) Bright Students Light Up Our Classroom; (7) Our Work Shines Bright… and many, many more! These lights might also be used in December to showcase “bright” work. As well, these Christmas lights can be utilized to manage center rotation and classroom management during the month of December!
This is an awesome PowerPoint training on classroom management. This resource contains forty-seven slides and is appropriate for all teachers, administrators, and other educators. This can be used in a focused faculty meeting, a professional development session, or even a small professional learning community! This training is full of strategies that are researched and recommended by Harry and Rosemary Wong! You don't want to miss grabbing this resource for a back-to-school session with your colleagues!
For all of you sock monkey lovers out there getting ready to start back to school, this resource is a set of approximately ninety student name plates that can be utilized for each student that follow a sock monkey theme! Brighten your classroom with these versatile name plates that will make each one of your students feel special and important. Each name plate can be laminated to each students’ desks and lockers. They can also be used to personalize announcements and schedules! Have an awesome school year!
This resource is perfect for the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Enclosed you will find five pages of a short narrative story that has a certain rhyme and rhythm to it that students will enjoy! It is a story told from a young girl’s point of view about how she wishes for a horse for Christmas. She is reminded in the story that she will still have a great Christmas even if she doesn’t get a horse; however, she is convinced that one secretly hides in the barn for her. Her mom reminds her about many other children whose parents might very well be away for Christmas. This is a very old Christmas story and was published through Scholastic in 1968. Again, the students will love many teaching and learning activities associated with the story! This story lends itself to several teaching and learning endeavors such as: (1) the use of personification; (2) great vocabulary instruction; (3) sequencing; (4) point of view; (5) Descriptive Writing; (6) research and investigation of several different states discussed in the story; (7) the use of similes to make comparisons; and (8) making predictions about what will happen next in the story based on the context clues provided!
This is an awesome packet to utilize to teach opinion writing in grades, three, four, and five. This packet contains seven different sources which all have critical information in trying to formulate an opinion in whether one should buy an artificial tree or a real tree during this Christmas season. Five of the sources are articles from the web and include the following titles: (1) Real of Plastic: Many Consumers Will Be Asking Themselves That Question This Season; (2) It’s Environmentally and Traditionally Wrong to Buy and Use Plastic Products to Celebrate Christmas… Here’s Why?; (3) Dear Earth Talk: What’s Better for the Environment, a Fake or Real Christmas Tree?; (4) Buy a Real Christmas Tree and Support Our Economy?; and (5) Real vs. Fake Christmas Trees: Which is Better for the Environment? Next, there are two other sources which are graphs/charts and include: (1) China Tops in Fake Christmas Trees and (2) Tree Purchases (in millions). Students can critically read each of these sources to help them formulate an opinion. Upon much discussion and examination of each of the seven sources, students then can complete one of the two graphic organizers provided to frame their opinion writing. Both organizers allow the students to provide an opinion based on what they have read. Additionally, they are asked to give reasons and evidence for their opinion. These organizers pave the way for the writing of the opinion piece asked for in CCSS:
(W.3.a,b,c,d) (W.4.a,b,c,d) and (W.5.a,b,c,d).
You surely do not want to miss this resource! This packet is 32 pages long and focuses on argumentative/persuasive writing. The students conduct research on the different types of Christmas lights and how to “elegantly” decorate their tree using the appropriate lights. After conducting research and reading articles which are provided including the source, the students develop a “hook” statement that will allow the readers to want to read more to determine the best decision to make in terms of buying and decorating with the proper Christmas lights. Next, after developing the “hook” statement, students utilize a graphic organizer that is provided, and develop their claim and actually state it. The next part of the graphic organizer allows the students to state three reasons why their claims is the best decision to make. As well, after stating and writing each particular reason, there is also a space on the graphic organizer for students to write their evidence in the form of a sentence that supports their specific reason for the claim. Finally, at the end of the graphic organizer, the students are to provide a concluding sentence for their claim. Students will enjoy this particular activity so much during the holiday season; you can’t go wrong with this teaching and learning activity!
Show your students there is more than one way to express their words in poetry! In this packet, you will find eight mini posters each featuring a form of poetry to use when teaching each instructional format. Each poster also has an example of the type of poem explained. Students are sure to love writing these forms of poetry about their favorite topics. As well, this could be converted into a fall poetry unit utilizing the awesome fall scenes as springboards for brainstorming. Forms of poetry included are: limericks, diamantes, cinquains, haikus, couplets, acrostics, shapes, and free verse.
This resource is a mini-poster to celebrate the 100th day of school with your students. Each component of the mini-poster sets the stage for a thought-provoking response. Students must figure out what year they will be 100. They must say where they think that they will live and how they will travel. They must tell what they will be famous for as well as how they will communicate with family and friends 100 years from now. Finally, they must describe or draw a self-portrait of what they believe they will look like! Students will have a great time with this activity!
You are sure to want to use this informational text article with your students! This is an article about Abe Lincoln and his rise to the presidency. It is approximately 1,400 words long and has illustrations that match the text. As well, there is a ten question formative quiz at the conclusion of the article. Questions range from multiple choice to open ended short answers. Your students are sure to enjoy this text!
It’s the 100th day of school! In this resource, students are given $100.00 to spend with sample ad circulars. As well, there are two shopping lists provided in the packet. Students use the following ads and prepare their budget! Students are asked: "What do you think that you need to purchase on the 100th day of school? You have $100.00 to spend and you may not go over your budget! Make your list on the shopping list given to you by your teacher. Make sure that you get the most for your money! Show your work on your notebook paper!" Students will enjoy making their list, adding up their products, and doing their best not to go over $100.00.
This is an awesome list of one hundred December words to use as a springboard for writing in December. These words will aid in narrative, informative, and argumentative writing as well as poetry! This sheet can be given to each student to place in his/her Writer’s Notebook!
This is an awesome list of November words to use as a springboard for writing in November. These words will aid in narrative, informative, and argumentative writing as well as poetry! This word bank is comprehensive of the many words that come to mind during the month of November and are sure to get your students' creative juices flowing! There are approximately 50-55 words that spur your students' brains for all kinds of writing-- narrative, expository, argumentative, etc. Use this November word bank for writing, ABC order, poetry, etc. It's uses are only limited by your imagination!This sheet can be given to each student to place in his/her Writer’s Notebook!
For all of you owl lovers out there getting ready to start back to school, this resource is a set of approximately fifty name plates that can be utilized for each student that follow an owl theme! Brighten your classroom with these versatile name plates that will make each one of your students feel special and important. Each name plate can be laminated to each students’ desks and lockers. They can also be used to personalize announcements and schedules! Have an awesome school year!