Are your students struggling with addition, subtraction, multiplication or division? These videos explain it in a method that may just do the trick for your confused learners:
Place Value (Number Disks With Place Value Charts) by the NY Common Core Mathematics Project
Teaching Math (Child Narrated) by Kid Snippets
For some reason, the word “antonyms” or way harder for kids to remember than “opposites.” So to teach them, I’ve made a practice game for 2 students to play. It’s like Connect Four, but kids have to supply an antonym to claim the square. Click here for the free printable worksheets:
antonyms battle
antonyms battle 2
One second grade teacher submitted this cute idea for introducing magnets and electricity:
“This is really a great way to start a unit on atoms etc. Atoms are the basics for understanding magnets and electricity. Magnets and electricity is what all our technology is based on. I’m not a scientist, but understanding that made me want to talk about atoms before we dove into magnets and electricity so that science would make sense and not just be a bunch of fun experiments, with nothing tying it all together.
This is a link for a PowerPoint story on atoms and then the song on atoms if you want to use it. The PowerPoint has the song lyrics, and then gets more detailed. I don’t use the whole thing, just parts of it.”
Here’s a super cute idea one elementary school librarian did to help encourage kids to use the library’s resources. It’s name is Zoinks the Answer Alien.
Every week, Zoinks asks a question that encourages kids to do research in the library. For example, the question might be “what year was Charlotte’s Web published?” or “what country is directly north of Moldova?” When the kids find the answer, they write it down with their source and “feed it” to Zoinks. If they’re correct, they’re entered into a weekly prize drawing. Such a cool idea! (Go to the Source for more info).
Since the Common Core requires students to know various ways to write the same number, I made another practice page. This one is for 2 students to play and deals with writing expanded forms of a number written in standard form. For example, if the page says “245,” the student should write “200 + 40 + 5.” Click here for the free printable PDFs:
Another break away from school means kids have a lot to tell you and their friends! Help them share their fun news with this free Winter Break report printable. It’s a quick, easy way to capture memories of their holidays while doing some writing! Win-win!
Click here for the free PDF: Winter Break Write Up
What do you do to add some fun to your classroom after the holidays are over? It’s to early to bring Valentines into the picture, so what now? I say continue to use winter themed stuff. Because we can! Here’s my “picture fractions” worksheet for winter. Basically, it teaches kids to focus on what they have (numerator) compared to the whole collection (denominator). Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
Click here for the free PDF: Winter Picture Fractions
Winter provides an opportunity to see the world in a completely different way than the rest of the year. Help children capture the wonder of winter with winter-themed art projects! Here are some of my favorites:
Snowflake Art Trading Cards: Uses watercolor and salt (source).
Owls in the Night: Uses tempera paint and cardboard (source).
Winter Tree Silhouette: Uses masking tape and watercolor paint (source).
Squarehead Teachers 