Since blogging about my 6 Traits writing board earlier this year, I have gotten a few emails from teachers wanting to see how it looks in action. This post will share a look at how the 6 traits writing board looks now and how I display my mini-lesson statements. Remember that you can grab the FREE 6 traits writing checklist to help you come up with writing mini-lessons by ... Read More
A Behavior Management Tip to Keeping Your Sanity During the Holidays
December can be one of the looongest months for teaching because of the antsy students (and teachers). I often have to mix things up a little when my students are excited and ready for a break from school. This excitement definitely affects their behavior and attention span. So, here is my behavior management tip that has been keeping me sane! We do colors at my ... Read More
Reading Strategies: “Work” the Text
"Your students are not engaged with the texts they are reading." I will never forget when my administration said that to me after an observation my first year teaching. I remember thinking "They were reading the text. That is enough, right?" However, it wasn't and my students' comprehension suffered because they were not actively engaged with the texts they were ... Read More
Interpreting Remainders {Anchor Charts, Ideas, and Activities}
Well, I don't know about your students, but every year, it seems that interpreting remainders is a struggle for my students. It is really a struggle for students who have difficulty understanding word problems or that have no conceptual understanding of what division is. This post will share some of the activities we did and a free anchor chart with sample word problems ... Read More
Division Fun and a Tropical Christmas Freebie
We have been working very hard on long division these past few weeks. My students have huge gaps in their number sense, so this has been somewhat of a struggle for some. We have been working very diligently getting them to understand the partial quotients method of division in a conceptual way. Read more about how I teach partial quotients by clicking here. We have been ... Read More
Teaching Math Through Cognitively Demanding Tasks
Once a week, I do a cognitively demanding math task lesson to expose my students to rigorous word problems and allow them to learn from each other. I do this with the skill we are working on (if most of the students have mastered it) a review skill, or even to introduce a new skill. 90% of the problems are word problems so the students have a context to deal with and not ... Read More
Winter Math: Free Constructed Response Practice
Earlier this week, I blogged about sneaking some constructed response practice into Halloween fun. Read that post and grab two free math tasks by click here. The students had a great time completing them and it was some much needed practice so I decided to create a winter version for this upcoming winter season. I created four winter math word problems based on the common ... Read More
Halloween Math Constructed Response Practice
You guys, I got super smart this year and tied some of our Halloween Math with some extra constructed response practice. The kids never knew they were preparing for an assessment with these fun problems! This year, our district is having students take constructed response assessments on a few of the fraction common core standards (multiplying fractions by a whole, ... Read More
Free Fraction Center {Nacho Math}
I just found out today that our Math night is a nacho theme. It is called Nacho Ordinary Math Night. I thought that was the cutest idea! So, I made this cute nacho themed free fraction center using these fun nacho graphics from Ashley Hughes (LOVE her work). On another note, the heat was running full blast in my room this morning. It reminded me of that ... Read More
Teaching Poetry in Reader’s Workshop
Confession- I love reading, but I don't love reading poems for young adults or adults. For some reason, I can never get the message or theme just right. Luckily, I do enjoy teaching poetry to my 5th graders, mainly because I use a reader's workshop format for teaching reading. Also, the poems used in 5th grade are definitely more interesting and reader-friendly. This post ... Read More
Struggling Readers Take Home Book for Reading Strategies
Do you find that your struggling readers often need a little extra push to help them apply reading strategies while they are reading at home? I often find that my below grade level readers don't naturally apply the different reading strategies that have been taught while they are reading. To help, I created this free Reading Take Home Book specifically to help my students ... Read More
Morning Work Freebies to Start the Year
I use a lot of my review printables and resources from my TeachersPayTeachers store throughout the year. However in the beginning of the year, I like to use resources specifically created based on the standards I have taught so far that year. This builds the students' confidence and makes the review truly a review and independent. To be honest, when I try to use 4th ... Read More
