3 Websites Every Teacher Should Browse

3 websites to browseTeaching is much easier when you know where you can look for help. So this summer, spend a few minutes each day browsing teacher resource sites. Anything you see that you like should be bookmarked on your browser (make a folder called “teaching resources”), or written down in an organized way so you can find it later. Here are some websites to start with:

1. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/– Tons of stuff (including videos) for teachers

2. http://free.ed.gov/– Free teaching & learning resources from federal agencies

3. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/– Smithsonian… need I say more?

There. Those 3 links should lead you to enough discovery to last you a looong time! 😉  But if you’ve still got “extra” time, here’s a huge list to browse (collection of links posted by a fabulous home school mom): Huge list of links

How to Have a Great Summer Break

My kids can’t stop talking about summer break (even though we’re pretty far away from it). So I decided to put this energy to good use in a writing project, which I did as a warm up one day. Enjoy!

How to have a great summer break

Spring Story Starters (free!)

More story starters (can you tell I’ve enjoyed having these in my classroom?)! What’s not to love about easy, self-explanatory writing projects?! I often add extra requirements to the story (use spelling/vocab words, figurative languages, underline adjectives, etc.) to make it even more educational. Right click on the page, choose “save image as” and save it to your computer so you can print it later. Yay for writing!

Spring Story Starter- 1 Spring Story Starter- 2

Flower Paragraph Planner/Graphic Organizer

Flower Paragraph Planner sticker

Here’s a paragraph writing planner that will help your students understand the parts of a paragraph. After they fill in the flower side, have them write their rough draft paragraph using the provided lines. Often I find lots of cute graphic organizers for kids, but kids don’t quite understand how to go from the cute picture to a paragraph of sentences. So this one’s very simple: plan and then write downs the ideas on the flower (from the top to the bottom) and they’ll have a complete paragraph. Click here for the PDF: Flower Paragraph Planner Enjoy!

How to Have a Fun Vacation

Whenever one of my kids gets back from a vacation, they always want to talk about it. The other day, I used this opportunity to write about what makes a fun vacation. This free writing project worked out well since it allowed everyone to be creative and share vacation stories through their writing. Some kids took this further and made entire essays about a specific vacation and dedicated a whole paragraph to each idea if what made the vacation fun. How to have a fun vacation

Keeping Track of Students’ Writing Progress

keep track of student writing

 

One of the most important parts of school is teaching kids to monitor their own progress. Here’s one way to help kids keep track of their own writing progress. We made a giant pencil with different sections (one for each step of the writing process) and laminated it. Then we added velcro strips down the side and to little tags that had each student’s classroom number on it. When kids finish one step of the process, they move their number tag down to the next step. This also helps kids know when they can get up from their seats… I’ve also seen charts where kids move a numbered popsicle stick from pocket to pocket to indicate progress through the writing steps. How have you helped your students keep track of their writing progress?

Finish the Alien (Writing/Drawing Project)

Kids love aliens. I catch kids drawing them all the time when they’re supposed to be doing something else. So why not turn the idea around and make it an assignment to doodle an alien… and write about it! This writing project could turn into a story, a persuasive essay (convince your parents to let an alien stay at your house, etc…), a poem, etc. Do this activity as a fast finisher, as a seat work assignment (10 times!),  or give different versions to different kids in your class so there’s even more variety!

Click here to download the PDF set: Finish the Alien pages – complete set

Finish the alien 2 Finish the Alien 3 Finish the Alien 4 Finish the Alien 6 Finish the Alien 7

Click here to download the PDF set: Finish the Alien pages – complete set

Finish the Alien 8 Finish the Alien 9 Finish the Alien 10 Finish the Alien 11

Finish the Alien 1Click here to download the PDF set: Finish the Alien pages – complete set

Halloween Writing Activity: How To Get Lots of Halloween Candy

The point of Halloween is to get tons of candy… or at least that’s what my kids think. So here’s a writing project (that you could use to practice sequencing, transitions, or standard paragraph structure) to tie in kids plans for scoring loads of candy! Some of my kids have it figured out! They say to bring a little kid with you, preferably one who’s really adorable. They also told me to smile really big, so people want to give you more. Anyway, see what your kids come up with! Fun free Halloween writing project: How to get lots of Halloween Candy PDF  Enjoy!

How to get lots of Halloween Candy