There's nothing like a wrapped gift to capture the attention of students! Would you like to know how I use this wrapped gift as an  anticipatory set  activity for a writing lesson that focused on dialogue ? Just keep on reading! When my students enter the classroom on the day of this lesson, they always spot the gift right away, because I display it in a prominent location. Curious students immediately ask me why it's there, and I tell them that they will learn the answer to that question during writing. That usually isn't the answer they want to hear, but I keep them in suspense anyway. Introduction/Anticipatory Set: When writing finally begins, I ask students if they have any predictions as to why I brought a gift to school, and how it might be related to today's writing lesson. (I love hearing their creative answers!) Eventually, I point out the gift tag, and tell them that this little tag is the vital piece of this activity. We discuss the purpose of any...
Financial literacy skills are very important, but we rarely have time to teach them. I hope that these creative ways to "sneak" financial literacy into your lessons will help you better incorporate these important skills into your classroom! Read books that talk about financial literacy. Most teachers have a lot of decision-making power when it comes to what literature they use in their classrooms. Choose books wisely to meet your ELA standards while touching on financial literacy topics. Choose a book with a financial literacy topic as your next real-aloud. Use the book in your next novel study. Read a chapter and ask students questions related to your standards. Use passages from the book to model the skills or standard. Click to view the book list. Relate everyday math standards to financial literacy. Your math standards are going to be your best connection to financial literacy instruction. When you can relate your standards to financial lit...
Looking closely at the Common Core Standards, there is a big emphasis on text evidence.  For example, fourth grade Common Core State Standard- CCSS RI 4.1 states, "Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text."  To take a step further, the standards require students to dig deeper to analyze the text.   In fourth grade CCSS RI.4.8, it states, "Explain how the author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text." Digging deeper into the text, finding evidence, and analyzing the author's intentions, can be quite challenging for elementary students.  Here are a few strategies to help your students analyze text effectively: 1.  TEXT DEPENDENT ANALYSIS QUESTIONS Use a list of Text Dependent Analysis Questions not only when you are creating prompts for your students, but also for student reference.  Review the questions with your students to get them familia...
Are you a fan of the "Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR)" model?  Our district works this "I do it, we do it, you do it" method into all our unit plans.  Not quite sure what this is?  There are a TON of videos out there to showcase it...just search for "Gradual Release Lesson Modeling" or something similar. The one thing that I have heard many teachers discuss is the LINEAR nature of the model...it always reminds me a little of my high school trigonometry class.  First, the teacher would show us a problem on the board.  Then he would call students up to the board to do it with coaching while the rest of us watched.  Finally, he assigned us all the "odds" to do for the next day and we worked on them for the rest of class and he sat at his desk in case we wanted to go up there to ask questions. This is not what the gradual release was ever intended to be! I am a firm believer in setting clear learning targets for students--and ma...
There are pros and cons to the end of the school year. Teachers find themselves swamped with all the tasks related to closing out their classrooms including packing and organizing, assessing students and 8,365,239 other things that make an already long "to do" list more like a to do scroll. You'll find your schedule changes as a result of field trips, field days, assemblies and other special programs. You'll notice student behaviors begin to change as the normal procedures and routines start to fade even a little bit. The good news though is that the final weeks of school are the time when your students are the most capable they have been all year. They possess all the new skills you worked so hard to teach them. What better way to make the most of the final days together, keep them engaged and motivated and allow them to showcase their abilities than by completing independent projects. Projects allow students to explore their own interests.   It is n...
With the rise of technology, standardized testing is not the same today as it used to be. The biggest hurdle is familiarizing students with the tools that they need to be able to use within the test itself.   After reviewing and dissecting test questions and scores from last year, my teaching partner and I came to the conclusion that our largest pitfall was our students' ability to manipulate the technology enhanced questions.   So, how do we overcome this hurdle?  Provide opportunity for practice and expose students to the type of questions that they may encounter.   Five of the most common type of questions I have found to occur on the computerized standardized tests are the follow: Drag and Drop Students are required to drag an item from one part of the screen to another.   Multiple Select These types of questions are similar to multiple choice with one major exception, students select more than one answer.   Text Selection/Highlighting Stu...
Teaching with Biographies and Ben Franklin With all of the fabulous biographies available today for children, teaching about and with biographies can be such fun for your students. It hasn't always been this way. When I was a little girl (many, many years ago...) I remember biographies being boring, fact-filled chapter books. They were definitely not the books that I chose when I went to the library. The only biographies I remember reading were those assigned to me by my teachers. Today's biographies for children are very different. Biographies for children are now colorful picture books full of interesting information that grab the reader's attention and are enjoyable to read.  I recently gathered a variety of biographies for my students on Benjamin Franklin. My school library has several wonderful biographies about Mr. Franklin. We combined learning about the characteristics of biographies with learning more about this U.S. founding father.  Some great ...