Another freebie for you over at We Are Teachers! This one’s all about figuring out how your students learn best. Click here to visit my post and download the page!
Learning Survey Printable
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Tag Archives: Education
New Printable Timeline on TpT!
Check out this printable graphic organizer/blank timeline I added on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Yes, it’s still FREE! Perfect for history lessons, summarizing stories, or describing science observations!
Online Teaching Conference 2015
I recently attended another conference, the Online Teaching Conference. Held at the San Diego Convention Center, it covered a wide variety of topics from increasing participation in online classes to free tech tools to group work in distance education classes. I’m assuming that most teachers in America (of the world, for that matter) don’t teach courses exclusively online. However, many of the ideas presented there are applicable to any teaching arena.
The topic I found the most interesting was the conversation about group work. One of the suggestions was to encourage the group to not only do an “ice breaker” at the start of their team experience, but to also explore what roles each member would have in the group. After the students discuss roles, teachers can have the group decide on group rules and expectations. This is especially important for a long-term project.
One of the teachers presenting talked about how they have their students turn in a “group expectations” page detailing what the group expected of its members. The presenter said that while they give the group a grade for turning in the page, they don’t necessarily grade the group on how closely they actually stick to their original expectations. This is often because the students set unrealistic expectations for the group. On a number of assignments, the presenter said he asks his students to revise their expectations document part-way through the project so they can make their guidelines more realistic. The presenter indicated that the times when he provides this kind of group support to his students, the groups usually do better, produce higher quality projects and get along better.
This idea makes so much sense! But, I had never thought of it! Learning how to function in a group (that you can’t always choose) is an essential skill in today’s world, and we as teachers can do a lot to help teach our students how to be a good group members.
What have you learned about working with groups (in your experience as a student or as a teacher)? Comment below!
Fourth of July Words Freebie
I just posted a new worksheet over at my TpT store! It’s perfect for summer school and year-round schools. Be sure to check it out!
I’m on Teachers Pay Teachers!
Hello friends! I hope you’ve been enjoying all the ideas and freebies I post here on my blog! I feel great that I’ve been able to help so many hard-working teachers and parents. I am ready for a new challenge! I’m going to start adding new materials to my store over at Teachers Pay Teachers.
Of course, I’ll still continue to add things to this blog, but I hope you’ll poke around on my TpT store as well! (There’s already a new freebie waiting for you!) Thank you!
Firework Letters Sort Activity
Tomorrow’s Fourth of July! Yay, America! Check out this free printable page all about sorting letters (consonant vs vowel). It’s simple: color the letters based on the type of letter. Then enjoy a hot dog and the fireworks!
Click here for the free printable PDF: Firework Letters
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Pirate Treasure 2 (Counting Coins)
Another pirate treasure page for you (click here to see the first one)! Here’s another simple printable PDF to help kids practice counting coins and learn some money basics. I was organized again and made you an answer key. 🙂
Click here for the free printable PDFs: Pirate Treasure 2 and Pirate Treasure 2 – Answer Key
If you’re looking for activities to do on “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” try this worksheet!
10 Tips for Keepin’ up on Math Skills over Winter or Summer Break
Here’s a fun list of ideas to encourage math during the Christmas or Summer Break:
- Challenge others or challenge yourself. Online math strategy games at Calculation Nation provide a safe environment for elementary and middle school students to challenge themselves and challenge others. Games involve fractions, factoring, symmetry and comparing perimeter and area! Give your kids graph paper and tell them to create a dream house up to X square feet. To be extra challenging, limit the square footage of a single room.
- Play strategy games with friends and family. A great way to spend quality time. Games such as Contig, and other free board games. Play as teams while learning so you can talk about strategy and then move playing individually. Try something like Scrabble, but skip the calculator when totaling each player’s score.
- Talk to your children’s teachers before the break. Ask questions that show you are concerned about their development and maintenance of mathematics skills and fluency. For example, ask, “What do you see as my child’s strengths and weaknesses in math? What could we do while at home to develop or improve his/her weakest areas?” There are probably fun class activities or games that you could replicate a home.
- Read books that contain mathematics content with your children. There are books at every grade level that can engage students in thinking about math! Some suggestions include Ten Apples Up On Top! (elementary) or The Great Number Rumble: A Story of Math in Surprising Places (middle grades). Want classroom activities to support math and literature? Check out Exploring Mathematics through Literature: Articles and Lessons for Prekindergarten through Grade 8. Head to your local public library and challenge your kids to find 3 or 4 books with math concepts (and ask them to defend their choices).
- Create a number book with your child. Use this template with your preschooler or kindergartner and have them decorate each page with pictures, stickers or stamps (or even glue beads or macaroni) that show the number on the page. For more advanced students, ask them to write expressions that equal the target number. For example, for the number 6, they could write 3X2, 10-4 and 2+2+1+1. Also consider having them write and illustrate a story that deals with math or numbers.
- Do projects with your child. Bake cookies or work on a home improvement project. Real-world applications of mathematical ideas, especially measurement, are everywhere! If you are stringing up lights, work with them to estimate how many sets you will need and calculate the total number of lights used. If you are baking cookies, have them figure out what is needed to make a double batch. Asking your child what they’d like to cook or build; they’ll have more buy-in on the activity that way.
- Exercise your body; MATHercise your mind! Take in a sporting event, even if it’s only on TV. Keep track of yards gained and lost from running versus passing plays of their favorite football team or the shooting percentage of their favorite basketball player. Work with them to make comparisons between two of their favorite players and display it graphically. Check out the lesson connecting rate of movement to football on Illuminations, appropriate for middle and high school students. If you’ve got kids playing on a sports team, consider having siblings keep the stats on their sibling or sibling’s team.
- Have a problem of the day. Work through one new problem before or after dinner each night. Figure This! has an awesome assortment of interesting problems with hints and solutions, so you don’t have to be a math wizard to facilitate! Let older siblings write the problem of the day for younger siblings. Be sure to have them teach their younger siblings how to find the answer.
- As a family, track your calorie intake or your finances. Are you consuming more food during the holiday season than you would otherwise? Are you spending money on gifts? Becoming aware is important in establishing control. You may also consider how much time each day you spend on each activity such as watching television, eating, sleeping. Ask your kids to predict how much time is spent on each activity. Make a graph. Ask neighbors or cousins to track their time on each activity as well. Then compare both family’s experiences. Finally, brainstorm how you can manage to fit in alternative activities to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
- Seek out a volunteer opportunity that appeals to both you and your child. From cooking for a shelter, to collecting food for a food drive, to collecting coats for the needy, there are lots of opportunities to estimate and use math to project how much your efforts mean to others. Ask your child to look for math in the activity. Write about it in a journal or draw a picture.
(Many ideas in this article from are from NCTM) Share your ideas by commenting below!
Squarehead Teachers 