Teaching with Jennifer Findley
Upper Elementary Teaching Blog
Everyone knows how important it is to have clear procedures in the classroom. So, what happens if you spend the first month of school teaching procedures, practicing them, and modeling them, but your students don't follow them? Maybe it's just a few students; maybe it's just a small section of procedures that the students don't follow. Or maybe the majority of your class … [Read more...] about You’ve Taught the Procedures…Now What?
Call me crazy, but I really love teaching order of operations to my fifth graders. It is always one of my favorite math lessons to teach, and my students always grasp it pretty easily. In this post, I will share my anchor chart, an interactive notebook template my students use in their math notebook, as well as how I introduce this skill to my students. Introducing … [Read more...] about Teaching Order of Operations {Free INB Template}
As demanding and time consuming as our curriculum is, I have found that I always need to pause my pacing and spend some of my time reviewing after a long break from school. Today, I want to share with you a fun test prep review or "after a long break" review that my students loved last year. Here is the basic rundown of this fun test prep activity review: Students … [Read more...] about Amazing Race { Fun Test Prep Review }
With the push for common core rigor, many states have included paired passages in their state assessments. Paired passages and paired texts are a tricky skill for students, especially struggling readers. I have written about how I implement rigorous paired passage instruction here. However, teaching paired passages can be so tricky and I still get lots of questions about … [Read more...] about 6 Ways to Effectively Teach Paired Texts and Paired Passages {Free Posters and Center}
Each year, I seem to go back and forth about whether or not to send a winter break packet with my students over winter break. Ultimately, I always decide to send something for a few reasons: 1.) I always have a handful of students who specifically ask for a packet and 2.) The majority of my students do not go on vacation and most don't have things to occupy their time. … [Read more...] about Winter Break Packet Ideas for Upper Elementary {Freebie Included}
Close reading is all the buzz in reading instruction these days. Did you know that you can implement close reading in science? This post will share details about close reading in science with ideas for implementation. The science close reading strategies that I am going to share would also work well with social studies. In addition to these strategies that I will share in … [Read more...] about How to Implement Close Reading in Science {Free Resource}
One of my favorite activities to use during math instruction involves math error analysis. I love having my students dig deeper into a concept or skill by analyzing, identifying, and explaining errors in example work. In this post, I will discuss a few of my favorite benefits to using math error analysis tasks and then some ideas for how to easily implement these types of … [Read more...] about Implementing Math Error Analysis in Your Classroom {Freebie Included}
Language instruction can sometimes get monotonous. However, there are ways to gamify your language instruction to make it more engaging. I want to share some practical and super simple tips to make your language instruction more engaging and "gamify it" for your students. I also have a planning present freebie that will help you try out a few of these … [Read more...] about 4 Ways to Gamify Your Language Instruction {Freebie Included}
If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know I am a huge fan of math centers. On this post, I want to share my number one tip for how I make math centers work in my classroom. If you are thinking about implementing math centers, definitely read the entire post and make sure you grab the FREE math centers for you to try out! Keep centers consistent or … [Read more...] about My #1 Tip for Making Math Centers Work {Freebie Included}
Centers are seriously my best friend. If you follow my blog, you know I love them in math and use them on a regular basis. Well, you may not know that I also really love using them in reading, too. This post will focus specifically on the reasons for doing reading centers in upper elementary (if you are still on fence about them). This post does include a FREE reading … [Read more...] about 5 Reasons to Use Reading Centers in Upper Elementary (Free Reading Center Included)
I love all things Christmas and have been fortunate to teach in schools where including Christmas in the classroom activities is permitted. We are always aware of different celebrations and incorporate other culture's traditions a lot, especially since I teach a diverse population of students. They love sharing about their holiday traditions. In addition to learning about … [Read more...] about Christmas Activities for Upper Elementary
One of my favorite parts of teaching has always been when I read aloud to my students. It doesn't matter that they are fifth graders and many have the "too cool for school" attitude, they still love to be read to on a regular basis. And I love reading to them. I have so many read alouds that I love, but I wanted to share my favorite Christmas read alouds for upper … [Read more...] about Christmas Read Alouds for Upper Elementary {Free Activities}
