Easter Egg Showdown Review Game

…jazz up any review activity with this Easter Egg Showdown game! Showdown is a cooperative learning activity in which students work first alone, and then with a team, to solve…

Field Trips – Follow Up on the Fun!

…students share with the class what they enjoyed and what they learned. Finally, I provided quiet independent work time to give everyone the opportunity to draw a memorable scene from…

5 Tips for New Teachers

…Believe me, schools are full of caring people! Who would go into a profession where you have to work so hard for so little pay if they didn’t care! There…

Weathering, Erosion, or Deposition?

…of my favorite projects is to have students work in teams to create islands from salt dough, and each island has to include specific landforms. When students share about their…

Spontaneity Brings Math to Life!

…trouble in order to avoid class work. What I needed to do was to get his attention without halting the momentum that the other students were having. At that moment,…

Favorite Read Alouds for November

…students and work well with many fall-related activities. If you need ready-to-use lessons, activities, and printables to go with these books, check out my November Activities Mini Pack on TpT….

The Power of Audio Books

…out how to connect several students via headphone adapters connected together. I assigned one student in each group the role of “Audio Captain” who would start and stop the audio…

Literary Lunch Bunches Foster Love of Reading

…meeting for the next meeting. If you use the Reading workshop approach or have independent reading time at school, students can do the reading during class. If not, they may…

Poetry: A Common Core Dilemma

…we had several of her books on our shelves. I wasn’t disappointed in her work; books like The Great Frog Race: And Other Poems and Toasting Marshmallows: Camping Poems were…

Book Character Day – Fun and Educational!

…to Laura’s Best Freebies. Book Character Parade Another activity that would work well with Book Character Day is a Book Character Parade. Here’s a snapshot that Barbara Gruener of the

12 Ways to Motivate Reluctant Readers

…dozen strategies that are often included in Reading Workshop, and none of them involve stickers, certificates, or pizza. External rewards may work in the short term, but the best way…