Fabulous Freebies: Superhero Style Lesson

For this week's freebies I'm showcasing a fun free lesson idea I got from a former art teaching colleague. She used this Superhero Registration in a fun lesson plan that is perfect for a cross curricular lesson!

The Superhero Registration form would be a fun start to a fictional story or interview for a literacy project. My former colleague combined it with a lego person template as the base of their superhero and had them draw their own hero by adding key details onto the example. The finished examples looked great and I think her students had a lot of fun with it!

If you wanted to add a science element to it you could always do a science experiment to test out super powers like making invisible ink!

Wednesday Website: Cool Tool for Word Study

Online Etymology Dictionary is an online source for looking up words and their origins.  There is a page orienting you to what information you will find there.  Then you are invited to search for words and scroll through alphabetically.  There are so many ways you could use this.  Here are just a few:

1) Have students look up the origins and meanings of content vocabulary with Greek or Latin roots.
2) Have students create words maps for vocabulary with a section for etymology.
3) Have students create a dictionary of made up words using real word parts.

Fabulous Freebies: Etc's new items!

My partner in blogging crime has recently come out with two new freebies at her store. Check them out and please remember to rate freebies!

• Database of Children's Literature

Find databases of high quality children's literature with this easy to use freebie!

• Spanish Checkers

Etc is a wonderful teacher known for her use of games in the classroom to help make learning fun. I've learned  many games from her that I used for years in my classroom and became some of my favorite activities. Even if you don't teach Spanish this freebie can still come in handy as a way of learning a new game that you can use in your classroom. Having games in your repetoire is very handy when lessons don't go as planned or when you have unexpected time left at the end of a lesson.


Have fun checking out Etc's newest freebies!

Fabulous Friday Freebie: The Ultimate

I am posting one freebie---just one.  Rockin Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) has put together one free pdf with hundreds of links to other freebies on TPT.  There are math and literacy freebies for PreK through 12th grade.  Note: a few of the links don't work or link to resources that are no longer free, but based on my experiences, that is true of less than 10% of the links.  This is definitely worth bookmarking and going through when you have a spare minute this summer.  Enjoy.  It is the ultimate collection of TPT freebies!

Wednesday Website: A Site Every Teacher Should Check Out

The Florida Center for Reading Research  has put together a site with a plethora of activities, all available for free.  There is no login required.  You can go on and find literacy research, activities and assessments.

Teachers who are using the site to plan lessons can search by grade and skill for the materials they want.  It breaks down phonological awareness components for younger students and comprehension for older students with everything in between.  It also has materials on differentiating instruction.

For principals, there are simple overviews of literacy instruction and learning.  There are also materials for conducting walk throughs of classrooms.

Finally, there is a link to What Works Clearinghouse, a site that shares the latest research on instructional approaches.

Take a few minutes to click around and you'll find a treasure chest of quality materials.

Super-Sized Friday Freebies

The Fourth of July is almost upon us.  So, this week I'm rolling the Wednesday Website and Friday Freebies post into one super sized post on free apps to check out.  Most of them are geared towards elementary students, but don't click off just yet if you teach older students.  Numbers 2, 6, 7 and 8 are really for everyone! Here they are:

1) Rhyming Bee is great for having students work on rhyme.  There is a cute little bee holding a word.  The child has to decide which flower has petals with rhyming words that match the bee's word.

2) Sleep Pillow plays loops of soothing sounds like rain and crackling fires for rest time in Kindergarten or background white noise while they work independently.

3) I Say helps students with their listening skills and auditory memory.  It looks a lot like the old game, Simon Says.

4) Simoo is a lot like I Say, but with cows.

5) Spelling City is a free app that allows teachers to create assignments for students based on customized spelling lists.  Students enjoy playing games with the word and completing the assignments online.

6) Class Dojo allows teachers to encourage behaviors by giving students points for meeting expectations.  Parents can login to check out their child's weekly progress.

7) Remind  is an app that allows teachers to send out text reminders to parents and students.  The receiver cannot respond, so it cuts down on group messages that blossom out of control when everyone writes back.

8)  Turboscan is a free app that allows you to take a picture of a document and convert it to a pdf.  Before it converts the image, it will clean the picture up so you don't see shadows.

9) Profs' Phonics Smar-test has activities to work on the phonological skills that are the first foundations of reading.

10) Kidsdoodle  is a fun app that allows students to draw and write on a black backdrop.  What they create shows up in bright neon rainbow lights.

Stay tuned!  I will be posting the rest of my fav summer finds in the next few weeks.  If you have favorites, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Happy Fourth of July!



  

Fabulous Freebies: Teaching Poetry

One genre that has always been challenging, yet rewarding for me to teach is poetry.  The Common Core expects students to dig into the nuances of language.  Poetry slow students down, requiring them to think through punctuation, word choice, tone, mood, etc.  So, I've been adding to my folder of resources for next year.  Here are a few of my new favorites...

Poem Hunter is a website that I have used many times.  You can search for free for just about any poem by just about any renowned poet.  There are biographies and videos available to accompany lessons.  This site can be used to access the texts or do a biography study of favorite poets.

This is one Limerick Writing lesson available for free on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT).  The packet has examples, notes on what a limerick is and student friendly handouts so your students can write their own.  This would make a great writing lesson, introduction of limericks, extension lesson after students have read limericks or even a simple sub plan.

This is one of many Haiku Writing lessons available for free on TPT.  Like the limerick packet, this lesson comes with examples, notes on what a haiku is and handouts so your students can write their own.  It would be a great lesson to couple with a unit on Japan, poetry, and/or nature.

This Poetry Packet is another lesson I'm filing away for next year.  It is another TPT freebie.  It has descriptions of the following poem types: Acrostic, Cinquain, Couplet, Diamante, and Haiku.  There is a template so students can write their own book of poems.  It would be a good project idea to summarize a poetry unit.

Auto Rap is a new free app.  Students record their poems and the recording is automatically synched with a rhythm and turned into a rap.  I can't wait to try this with my students and let them hear their voices rapping the poems they write!

Weekly Website: Newspaper Generator

If you are looking for a fun way for your students to create nonfiction pieces, check out Foley's newspaper generator. It creates a mock clip of a newspaper clip and story. I love the look of the newspaper and it's very easy to create. Students can even have fun selecting a name for their newspaper as well.

You could even alter the article to make it an opinion piece as well for a different twist.

Free Summer Reading Programs for 2015!

Here are some great nationwide summer reading programs to help your students continue their learning throughout the summer!

Scholastic Summer Challenge 

Students can help to break a world record and earn digital rewards by logging on and recording their reading minutes. Teachers can preregister your students and compete with classes from around the world!

Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program

Get a free book after filling out a reading journal available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Half Price Books Feed Your Brain

Students of all ages can earn Bookworm Bucks for Half Price Books for logging their summer reading program this year. Students only have to read a minimum of about 15 minutes a day with a minimum of 300 minutes total to earn this reward and students up to age 14 are included in this easy program. High school students can earn Bookworm Bucks by reading two books and leaving a short review of each.

Sylvan's Book Adventure

Students read and take comprehension quizzes to participate in this summer program. Points are earned based on the books read and students can select their prizes accordingly.

TD Bank's Summer Reading Program 

TD Bank will deposit $10 into a young saver's account after they have read 10 books this summer. Students simply read 10 books, record those books onto TD Bank's sheet and bring it into any local branch. This could be a great way to encourage reading and help students learn how to save money. This program is for kids in grades K-5.

Chuck E Cheese Reward Your Kids

Students record their daily reading on a printable calendar and turn in into their local Chuck E Cheese. Two weeks of daily reading results in 10 free tokens. There is a catch: food must be purchased for free token redemption.

Your Local Library 

Almost all local libraries have summer reading programs for kids. My local library even has a summer reading program for adults! It's always worth it to participate.



 

Fabulous Freebies: Free Writing Prompts for Spring!

Here are some places to get over 100 fun and free spring themed writing prompts!

• Writing Forward - Writing forward has writing prompt for every season, but scroll down for a few good spring ones.  Then check out the others and tuck some away for use next year.

• Minds In Bloom has a list of 20 spring writing prompts.  There are prompts for different types of writing from persuasive to narrative.  You're sure to find something you can use on this list.

• Journal Buddies has a list of over 50 spring journal prompts, many of them appropriate for older students.  

• The Teacher's Corner has a list of writing prompts for each day in May.  Many of them are tied to special days in the month and will prompt you to think thematically as you wrap up the school year.

Fabulous Freebies: Common Core Reading Activities

Common core is the educational buzz phrase.  This week I'm posting some fabulous freebies that correlate with the reading standards: reading (I'm combining reading literature and informational texts into one), writing, speaking and language.  These can be used by parents out there looking for activities or teachers looking for something to send along to parents.  Or, it can just get tucked away in a folder to be pulled out at a later date.  But, without further ado, here they are....

#1-Reading: Check out this reading contract and log.  It is simple and attractive.  It is a great resource to use with parents and students because it provides an explanation of the importance of reading, a contract that lays out the logistics and a log to track their reading.  There are several ways it can be used:

a) Send it home to be used by your students.

b) Keep for next year.  (You are probably already on summer mode and not thinking about work.)

c) Start a summer reading club.  This can even be a neighborhood thing or a once-a-week get together at school to promote reading.  There are a number of free reading incentive programs that promote summer reading.  Check out one of our previous blogs about free summer reading programs.

#2-Language: Check out this antonyms puzzle.  It is a fun way to go over vocabulary and opposites.  Once kids/students have put it together, they can create their own puzzle using more difficult vocabulary, synonyms, word analogies, etc.

#3-Writing: This is essentially summer stationary.  It can be used several ways.  Here are a few ideas:

a) Have kids use it to write about your family vacations.  They can add some color and you can put it in a scrapbook.

b) Visiting the grandparents in another state this summer?  Have the kids write about the visit and send it in the thank you note.

c) Have your kids write to pen pals using the stationary.

#4-Listening & Speaking: This is a simple question and answer activity with vocabulary.  It practices the 5 W questions.  Going through it orally helps students with their listening skills.  It can be made more fun if played as a game.  Take out the oral piece and it can become memory.  Just cut the cards apart, place them face down and match the picture and corresponding question.  Keep the oral piece and it can be a version of go fish where students draw rectangular cards that are made up of the picture and question.  When it is their turn they have to ask the question to see if one of the other players has the item.  This is great for early elementary, but the idea can be adapted and used with more difficult vocabulary.

Wednesday Websites: Site for English Teachers

I have a pinterest board dedicated to useful teaching websites.  Here is a list of my favorite ones to use with my English classes...

Poem Hunter will provide you with the poems from any number of poets.  I use it all the time.  Whenever I need to find a poem it is the first place I look.  It has short bios on a ton of well known poets along with online texts of their writings.  It is very handy.  The site is super user friendly and comprehensive.  

Prezi.com is a website that allows students to make cooler versions of power points.  It takes them a class period or so to play around with it and figure out how to use all of the tools, but once they know how, they love it.  They can add videos, pictures, objects, colors, themes and pretty much everything else that they can do with powerpoint.  But, the visual effects are unique and fun to play around with.  They can save them online and share them with anyone who has an email address.  It is definitely worth checking out.

Purdue Owl is a great resource with a wide variety of writing tips.  The material is most appropriate for  students in middle school through college age students.  I use it all the time as a reference for how to create bibliographies and citations using MLA formatting rules.  Once my students have shown me they know how to format their bibliographic entries, I let them cheat by using easybib.com.

6 + 1 Writing Traits  is a well known writing, teaching and assessment framework.  The title refers to the traits in writing that we want all of our students to develop over time: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation.  The common language is useful in aligning teachers across contents and grade levels to provide united expectations of students.

Writing Fix and English Companion are websites that have a ton of resources for teaching writing and reading.  They include strategies, graphic organizers, etc.  They have a wealth of information and are worth perusing.

Finally, Grammar Bytes  has a wealth of grammar activities to help reinforce grammar rules with yours students.  The sentences are fun and contemporary.

Fabulous Freebies: Language Arts Freebies for Spring

I think that just about everyone is excited for spring after the cold weather most of the country experienced! Here are some language arts freebies for spring to help you thaw out.

Spring Writing Prompts

     - There are 15 spring themed writing prompts from last year at One Less Headache
     -  Journal Buddies has 53 spring journal topics for elementary and middle school students
     - Minds in Bloom has a list of 20 fun topics.

Spring Poems

     - 11 Spring poem ideas
     - See an extensive list of spring themed poems
     - Print an easy to use spring acrostic poem sheet

Other Spring Language Arts Activities

     - Check out some spring vocabulary puzzles, flash cards and more here. Click to download.
     - Here are some spring themed vocab exercises for online work.
     - More elementary spring worksheets are here and easy to download.

Wednesday Website: News ELA

News ELA is one on my new favorite websites.  If you teach grammar school it is one free subscription you should sign up for.  The website has a plethora of nonfiction articles to choose from.  There are articles on: war & peace, science, money, law, health, arts and sports.  When you go in you can search by grade level and/or reading goal.  The current events are on topics that are high interest for kids.  For example, I've recently found articles on whether or not whales held in captivity should be released, on whether or not video games are good or bad, and whether or not chimpanzees have their own language.

If you are looking for materials to supplement any unit, this is definitely a site worth mining.  Creating an account is simple and once you have it you will receive regular email updates on their most recent articles.  Check it out today!

Fabulous Freebies: High School Interventions

There is so much focus on teaching students the basics at the elementary level.  Sadly, there are so many high school students who have missed some of the basics.  Here are some of the common misunderstandings that I've seen high school students repeatedly struggle with, along with some intervention resources.

#1: Fractions...So many students who struggle with math are not able to visualize or conceptualize what it means that there are wholes and parts of a whole.  Therefore, being able to use fractions--or decimals and percents--to manipulate and calculate is a struggle.  Here are a few resources that I've seen used that do not appear babyish to high schoolers...

Common Core practice worksheets that are leveled and come with answer keys.

Skittles Lab that practices fractions, ratios, percents, and decimals.

Free online lessons and activities that are connected to various math skills

#2: Comprehending nonfiction....One of the skills that students struggle with is pulling the main idea and details out of nonfiction texts.  Unlike fiction, struggling readers often do not realize that nonfiction texts use a variety of structures (spatial, compare & contrast, cause & effect, etc.).  If they did, they would become more strategic readers and successful at comprehension.  Here are a few resources I've used...

Text structure printable worksheets and answer keys

Guides to reading in the content areas

Fabulous Friday Freebies: Finding Texts Students Can Read

Recently I was asked for tips on helping find appropriate texts for students.  So, I've compiled a list of resources that  are free and accessible.  These resources offer suggestions for how to assess a students' independent level along with how to find texts on a variety of levels and topics.  

#1: Unite For Literacy  is a site that has a collection of picture books.  Students can flip through the books online, read the text themselves and then listen to the audio recording of the page being read aloud.  Students can search according by content area.  Two new books are added to this site each week. 

#2: Reading A to Z is a resource that costs about $100, but they do have free leveled sample texts online to download.  They also have programs and apps that they offer two week free trials on.

#3: While this is not a free resource, it is a bit of free advice for quickly assessing students' reading level.  The formula for testing whether or not a book is a good fit for the child is pretty simple.  Listen to a child read aloud.  If they make more than 5 uncorrected errors in a 100 word passage, the book is not at their independent level.  If the child shows an interest in a book that is beyond their independent level, don't discourage the child from reading it.  Instead make that a book they read with a buddy reader. 

#4: Scholastic has a book wizard where parents can go and search for titles and cross check the levels.  If there is a series that the kids like, I'd encourage them to go through all of the books in that series, as they will all be at approximately the same level.  (For example, the Henry and Mudge books are all listed at level 16.)

#5: Project Gutenberg  has an online collection of children's literature whose copyright has expired.

#6: There is a collection of audio books at: http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library-audio.htm

#7: Students can listen to books read aloud to them at: http://www.readtomelv.com/

Wednesday's Websites: Featuring Top Sites for Teaching English

I have a pinterest board dedicated to useful teaching websites.  Here is a list of my favorite ones to use with my English classes...

Poem Hunter will provide you with the poems from any number of poets.  I use it all the time.  Whenever I need to find a poem it is the first place I look.  It has short bios on a ton of well known poets along with online texts of their writings.  It is very handy.  The site is super user friendly and comprehensive.  

Prezi.com is a website that allows students to make cooler versions of power points.  It takes them a class period or so to play around with it and figure out how to use all of the tools, but once they know how, they love it.  They can add videos, pictures, objects, colors, themes and pretty much everything else that they can do with powerpoint.  But, the visual effects are unique and fun to play around with.  They can save them online and share them with anyone who has an email address.  It is definitely worth checking out.

Purdue Owl is a great resource with a wide variety of writing tips.  The material is most appropriate for  students in middle school through college age students.  I use it all the time as a reference for how to create bibliographies and citations using MLA formatting rules.  Once my students have shown me they know how to format their bibliographic entries, I let them cheat by using easybib.com.

6 + 1 Writing Traits  is a well known writing, teaching and assessment framework.  The title refers to the traits in writing that we want all of our students to develop over time: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation.  The common language is useful in aligning teachers across contents and grade levels to provide united expectations of students.

Writing Fix and English Companion are websites that have a ton of resources for teaching writing and reading.  They include strategies, graphic organizers, etc.  They have a wealth of information and are worth perusing.

Finally, Grammar Bytes  has a wealth of grammar activities to help reinforce grammar rules with yours students.  The sentences are fun and contemporary.

Word of Affirmation for Students

Brian Tracy, a motivational speaker and author, says, "Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy."  In other words, what we think will happen too often directs our path and becomes a reality, even if it needn't be.  Tied to the development of beliefs is the act of listening.  What we hear, we tend to believe, particularly if it is coming from someone we consider to be a reliable source.  If someone who knows and is supposed to care about us tells us we are going to go to college, we start to believe it.  If that same person says that we are never going to be anything in life, the same is true.  We start to believe that too.

As teachers who spend a significant amount of time with our students throughout the school year, we have the opportunity to speak life into them.  So, I've written an ABC's of compliments.  I'm sure you can think of your own, but this is a good place to start...

Amiable, amazing, adorable, athletic, artistic, ambitious

Beautiful, bubbly, blossoming

Cool, charming, confident, collegiate, compassionate, charismatic, caring

Diligent, dependable, deep

Excellent, enchanting, energetic, empathetic

Fabulous, fun, funny, fashionable, friendly, faithful, focused

Generous, giving, good, great, gentle

Honest, honorable, hard working

Intelligent, independent

Jolly, jazzy

Keen, kind

Lovable, loyal, likable

Magnificent, marvelous, merry

Neat, nice

Outstanding

Perfect, practical, profound, precious, priceless

Quality

Resilient, receptive, respectful

Studious, smart, super

Terrific, talented

Unbelievable

Vivacious

Witty

Xtra special

Youthful

Zany

Fabulous Freebies: Comprehension Tools

So, it's not Friday anymore, but if you've had a fall like mine I'm sure you're willing to overlook that small detail.  I wanted to share one of the best, most succinct sites for comprehensive teaching strategies across the curriculum.  It is located at: www.achievementstrategies.org. This website has a variety of free resources for you to use and share.

There are graphic organizers and frame paragraphs for teaching reading and writing skills and strategies. They include text structures for fiction and nonfiction passages along with guides to help students write concise summaries.

There are quick reference lists of high frequency vocabulary to teach in a variety of content areas.

There are professional development tools, templates for long term planning, information on Response to Intervention and so much more!

Fabulous Freebies: Free Online Scripts for Readers Theater

One great way to encourage your students in the upper primary grades to read fluently and closely for more in depth comprehension is to have them participate in a readers theater.  If you do the Daily 5 in your classroom, you probably have students reading with someone.  A fun way to encourage that and hold them accountable is to have them practice reading scripts together that they can then perform in front of the class.  There are a lot of great resources online to choose from.  Here are a few of my favorites...

TeachingHeart is a website with links to well over 50 scripts for transitional readers.  There are some well known classics such as "Casey at Bat" and Rumplestiltskin.  But, there are also many, many more to explore that relate to a range of topic and themes.  There are scripts for Christmas, Earth day, animals and more.  This site is definitely worth checking out!

Readers Theater All Year has scripts for just about every holiday.  Most of the scripts come with approximate grade levels so you can quickly search based on theme and readability.  

Finally, don't forget about TeachersPayTeachers.  If you do a search for free plays and scripts, you will find a number of quality resources to download.  

The plays the thing to catch the interest of your students!!  Check these sites out today.