30 Free or Inexpensive Gift Ideas for Students

…had each student write something nice about each other student. I typed them out, cut them into strips, curled with scissors, and inserted them into glass ornaments. They loved reading…

Going Marbles for STEM Hands-on Learning

…the classroom. I loved hearing the excitement in my room as I watched how focused and engaged my students were, from high achievers to struggling students. One team discovered that…

Teaching Informational Text with Magazines

…recommendations online. The easiest place to find magazine reviews of is on Amazon.com. Even if you don’t plan to purchase your magazines there, it’s really helpful to read reviews for

A Dozen Fun Ways to Wrap Up the School Year

…it here.) Then each student wrote a letter divided into those three paragraphs. Brainstorming in this way helped them to organize their letters in a logical sequence. My students loved

How to Cure the Classroom Library Blues

…teachers responded, so I compiled the best answers and removed duplicates. I organized all of the checkout systems into two categories: technology systems and traditional systems. There’s also a third…

Valentine Candy Hearts Math Investigation

…my students, they wanted to conduct an investigation to find out. With the class divided into cooperative learning teams, we examined 10 different boxes of candy. We weighed them and…

Quiet Signals and Timers

…program in the timer to count up or count down, depending on the task you want to time. One of my favorite free websites is Online Stopwatch at www.online-stopwatch.com. They have…

Interactive Whiteboards and Web Tools

…throughout the year – great links to other websites and my favorite Smartboard files. For now, it’s a somewhat random listing of files that I’ve either created or discovered on…