Teaching elementary school kids a dance lesson can be painful. It can be super fun, but it can also be painful. Here are some online resources to help make your dance lesson a little more fun:Here’s a free grammar worksheet that’s aligned with the Common Core (for example, grades 3 and up work on punctuation, correct verb usage and spelling). Enjoy!
As far as educational worksheets go, I’m really picky with what I’ll spend money on. I searched and searched for a number of the day packet I liked, but I couldn’t find any that I was completely jazzed about (or was willing to pay the listed price). So I made my own. They’re aligned with the Common Core (for example, 2nd grade works on “100 more than” and “100 less than”) and best of all, they’re FREE!
Click here for the collection: number of the day collection
4th worksheet in the collection
* Be sure you know what’s on each worksheet before choosing a number for the day. Some worksheets ask for “100 less than” and it would confuse younger grades if the number of the day was 17.
* The PDF presents the pages in order of difficulty, starting with the easiest. I didn’t number them, because I was afraid a student would think the worksheet number was the number of the day. I suggest printing them all off and labeling them with a sticky tab so you know what order they go in.
*Number 6 and 7 aren’t all that different. The only difference is one question clearly asks for multiplication, where as the previous 5 worksheets allow the option for repeated addition (double or triple the number).
I’ve also seen teachers do a number of the day on the whiteboard to help reinforce it even more:
Teaching kids to use “good words” in their writing is hard. It’s not always easy to find a good synonym for “red” but this activity should help broaden their diction horizons. Divide your class into 10 groups. Pass out one color synonym sheet and a thesaurus to each group. Instruct each group to find as many synonyms for their color as possible. Then have them draw a border around their sheet using the color they searched. Post these somewhere in the room for a few days so students can browse the synonyms.
Click here for the PDF: synonyms- color collection
This same idea can be done with common nouns and adjectives such as “big,” “said,” “like,” “fast,” etc. Here are some photos of this idea being used in a classroom…
New teachers are often overwhelmed at the insane amount of things to balance and teach effectively. Here’s an article by Catherine Wilcoxson, Ph.D. of Northern Arizona University that helps new teachers stay focused on the important things.
Here are the main ideas:
The whole article is a good read. It’ll take you 10 minutes or less to read, but it’s worth the time. Dr. Wilcoxson’s conclusion is that, “Effective teachers are constantly learning from their successes and failures. To be effective, teachers must look back on their practices and assess what works well, what doesn’t, and how they might improve as teachers. Keeping a journal is an excellent means of keeping track of your performance, and it can provide valuable information for your own professional development.”
I recently saw this picture on Pinterest. I couldn’t follow the link very far, because I wasn’t a member of acvitityconnection.com, but I was inspired. Here’s my idea:
Set up: Make a box like this, with varying sized holes in the front. Smaller holes are worth more points. Then set it up in your classroom, with masking tape line on the ground, denoting where students should stand before they putt.
Game play: Group students for the review. Ask a review question, and have each team write down their answer. At the same time, have all groups reveal their answer. Any team who gets the answer right, gets to send 1 person to putt once to try to earn points. At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins!
I’ve tried numerous games like this with my 6h graders and they loved them! It disguised reviewing for the end of the year tests so the kids had a blast and we got through tons of math and science review questions!
I don’t know about you, but I love using graphic organizers. I’m a visual learner, so maybe that’s why. But anyway, this anchor chart I saw in an elementary school classroom seemed to be an effective way to study animals (spiders, in this case). It focuses on characteristics, sorted according to 3 verbs: are, can and have. It’s a very basic idea, but works well because students can just finish the sentence “Spiders have…” or “Spiders can…” to help them sort out and analyze characteristics. This same idea could be used for a variety of topics, simply by changing the 3 verbs used.
I recently saw this in a lower grade classroom. It seemed like a good math poster to have up for use when discussing whether a word problem requires addition or subtraction.
So I decided to make my own free math posters for you to use in your elementary school classroom! Enjoy!
Squarehead Teachers 