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
Browse the archives below for even more great ideas
Persuasive Writing Anchor Charts for Struggling Writers {Lots of Pictures}
Here are some of my favorite persuasive writing anchor charts that I have used to help my struggling writers write strong, detailed persuasive papers. These charts contain a lot of sentence stems and step by step directions for each paragraph. It may seem a bit formulaic in nature, but once the students feel comfortable, they will branch out and add their own style and ... Read More
Writing Choice Boards
My students absolutely love choice boards. They love choosing their own tasks and having that sense of ownership. So, I created a set of Writing Choice boards that aligned to Common Core requirements and coordinate perfectly with my Reading and Math CCSS choice boards. This resource contains 7 different choice boards with 15 prompts on each choice board, for a total of ... Read More
Easy and Engaging Writing Ideas
I use a Writing Workshop model in my classroom that involves a lot of sharing, talking, and writing! Since my writing block is at the very end of the day, I often have to use some strategic writing ideas that get the kids up and moving, and excited about their writing. I wanted to share with you two of those strategies that are a favorite of mine- and so ridiculously ... Read More
Transition Words {Interactive Notebook} Freebie!
Last week, I did a quick mini lesson on using transition words in writing. We talked about how transition words make stories sound better and help the reader move through the story. We discussed how clear organization is key to a successful story and how transition words are key to having clear organization. We made this anchor chart as a class of some common transition ... Read More
Teaching Persuasive Writing with a Mentor Text
I absolutely love teaching persuasive writing, and I love using mentor texts even more. This year, I used the picture book, I Wanna New Room. This read aloud follows the same format of I Wanna Iguana with letters back and forth from the child to the parents. My main focus for this lesson was on choosing a main point and providing valid resources to support that ... Read More
Writing Workshop Idea for Gathering Seeds: I Bet You Didn’t Know!
Hello, friends! I am back on this sunny Sunday with another post with another writing workshop idea about Gathering Seeds for Narrative Writing during Writing Workshop. Check out my previous post here for more ideas on generating narrative writing ideas. Today's post is a twist on making lists with a fun little organizer of sorts. Please don't judge my terrible ... Read More
Writing Workshop: Gathering Seeds
Have I told you guys yet that I am moving schools? Well, if not, I am moving schools! I will still be in 5th grade but I am teaching in a school that is known as a Literacy Collaborative School that uses Fountas and Pinnell with fidelity. I met with my literacy coach today to map out the first few days of school. While I was pulling out my seed notebook, I decided it ... Read More
6 Traits Writing and a Secret Code to Improve Narrative Writing
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
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
Personal Word Collector for the Teacher
I am so excited about our spelling program this year. We are using Fountas and Pinnell principles to generate words that follow that principle (with the students' help). But, the best part, we are using the students misspelled words to generate personal word lists. We plan to do a week of principle words and a week of personal words. Here is an example: Week 1: ... Read More
6 Traits Writing Board and Writing Mini-Lesson Checklist
Need a way to remind your students of all of the writing strategies you have taught them? This post shares how I organize my writing mini-lessons and display them for my students using a dedicated bulletin board. To help you come up with mini-lessons, I also include the writing checklist I use for free. About the 6 Traits Writing Board For the past two years, I have ... Read More
