teachersbrain, Author at Teacher's Brain

Reading Strategies For Read Across America Day

February 11, 2022 teachersbrain Reading, Teaching Tips

National Read Across America Day is coming up on March 2nd. This is a fun day to celebrate one of the best things ever- reading! This day was established to get students more excited about reading and the wonderful stories we get to enjoy.

For younger students, reading is still a little more challenging because it is still so new to them. Unfortunately, this means they may not be as excited to read on Read Across America Day.

Here are some strategies you can work on with your students to help them find more joy and satisfaction in reading.

Preview

This method is when students skim a text to get the main idea and important points before they start to read. Research shows that this improves comprehension which makes the reading experience more enjoyable and satisfying for students.

Picture Cues

Teach students that the pictures in their books connect to the words on the page and they can look at them for clues about what is happening in the story when they get stuck. Ask students what they notice about the pictures in the book and what they think it means for the story.

Making Connections

Show your students how they can connect what they learned in another story with what they are currently reading to help them better understand what is happening in the story. For example: “This story is about an elephant. Do you know any other stories about elephants?” This helps students think more deeply and get more engaged in the content they are reading.

Predicting

Readers can gain meaning from their text by predicting what will happen next in the story. They can do this by using their existing knowledge or illustrations to make an informed prediction. When reading, pause and ask them what they think will happen on the next page based on the information they have.

Ask Questions

Teach your students to ask questions before, during, and after they are done reading to help them better understand what happened in the story and why.

With some practice, these simple and effective reading strategies will increase reading comprehension and help your students gain more confidence while reading. Ideally, this will help them develop a lifelong love for reading!

If you’re looking for some reading-themed activities to do for Read Across America Day, I have you covered!

These reading activities are just what you need to get students engaged. It comes with over 100 pages of language arts, math, STEM, and crafts with the “celebrate reading” theme in mind!

Here’s a preview of what’s included:

Language arts activities: rhyming words, creative writing with prompts, write the room activity, sorting nonsense words from real words activities, poems, and more.

Math activities: word problems, adding to 10, shapes counting, 1 more and 1 less.

Plus a STEM activity, awards, reading pledge, bookmarkers, journal cover, and a recipe for a treat!

I hope you love these activities! Let me know your favorite Read Across America activities in the comments!

Digital Sight Word Puzzles for Practice

February 4, 2022 teachersbrain Distance Learning, education, kindergarten survival, Sight Words

We know how important sight words are in those early grades. They are crucial to developing reading fluency and expanding reading comprehension. It’s also a nice little confidence boost for beginning readers when they come across words they know!

To do this, we generally work on them in class and hand out our sight word lists for students to practice at home and they get them checked off as they master them. This is a simple and effective way to make sure your students are getting the practice they need! However, it’s not the most engaging or fun thing to do.

How can we make sight word practice fun and engaging?

I have lots of ideas on this topic including this cute and fun sight word teacher dress, sight word escape rooms, plus all of these fun, hands-on activities listed here.

You could say making sight word practice fun is a passion of mine!

Today I wanted to share another sight word practice activity that is a unique and engaging way for kindergarten and first grade students to master those sight words.

These digital Sight Word Puzzles are guaranteed to get your students excited to practice!

Created using interactive Google Slides, students will get to solve a puzzle using picture clues. They’ll locate the sight words and write them in the text box.

Two types are included 3×3 and 5×5 so you can differentiate and choose the difficulty level appropriate for your students.

This resource comes with 11 unique puzzles for students to work through at once or spread out. Plus, it comes with a fun bonus puzzle for those who need a little extra work for a real challenge.

I love this activity because it is completely digital. This means that it is perfect for students in the classroom or who are doing virtual school. So no matter the status of the pandemic or the weather, you can reach for these digital puzzles.

Here’s what’s included

Eleven total puzzles. Ten puzzles are 3×3 (easy version) and ten are 5×5 (more difficult to put together.) One puzzle is the bonus challenge. It is 5×5 and has 12 sight words instead of 6.

Students drag the puzzle pieces over the image area (picture cue) to solve the puzzle and see the sight words. Then, they will type the sight words into the corresponding area. When they are done you can have them send them back to you to check.

Wondering what sight words are used in this resource?

I, like, the, and, see, we, a, to come, me, with, my, you, what, are, now, is, how, of, so, many, where find, this, from, came, on, will, be, into, that, your, who, go, for, here, they, soon, up, make, play, them, give, say, new, said, good, was, then, ate, could, she, all, over, her, when, some he, no, must, saw, down, there, day, too, take, off, put, saw, their, very, look, ask every, one, walk

Learn more about these sight word puzzles in my video here!

What are your favorite ways to practice sight words? Let me know in the comments!

How To Celebrate Valentine’s Day In Your Classroom Online or In Person

January 28, 2022 teachersbrain Teaching Tips, Winter

Valentine’s Day is just a couple of weeks away! February is such a jam-packed month with lots of things to learn about. We get to celebrate Valentine’s Day (of course), Chinese New Year, and this year, the Winter Olympics!

Today, I wanted to share some of my favorite Valentine’s Day traditions from when I was in the classroom. Valentine’s is one of my favorite days to celebrate because it’s so fun to show our love and appreciation for each other. I love seeing the little cards that students bring in for their friends and their teachers.

Here are some fun ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day in your elementary classroom

Decorate your classroom. This one goes without saying but decorating your classroom or even just your classroom door for Valentine’s Day is so fun! A great place to find cute and festive decor on a budget is Dollar Tree. They have tons of heart-shaped banners and other decorations.
Have a Valentine’s Day party. This is a great time to break out the Valentine’s Day candy and activities. I love doing this escape room with my students. It is an activity that is guaranteed to get their engagement. Another very popular activity is the Love Monster Writing activity!
Exchange Valentine’s Day Cards. You can have your students decorate a paper bag or a shoebox with Valentine’s Day-themed supplies to collect their cards! This is such a fun way to get creative in the classroom and it’s so exciting to see what students come up with.

If you are teaching online this year, don’t worry! You can still have tons of fun with your students, even digitally.

Just host an online Valentine’s Day party! You can decorate your Google Slides with cute Valentine’s Day clip art. I created a digital Valentine’s Day escape room activity for teachers who need virtual activities that you can check out here.

As for exchanging Valentine’s cards, I have you covered there too!

This digital Valentine’s Day card resource was created with the needs of teachers who are doing virtual lessons in mind.

These digital google slides make it easy for your students to personalize and move editable conversational hearts to give virtually or in person. There is even a name grid provided so students can keep track of who got one and how to spell classmates’ names!

Included with this resource you’ll get 27 Colorful Google Slides with premade titles, editable text boxes, directions, movable conversational heart parts, and a video tutorial that you can check out below.

You can delete slides you don’t want to send to students, add your own directions or images to the sides of the slides to personalize.

Are you celebrating in person or online this year? Let me know in the comments!

Stop Motion Animation Activities To Encourage A Love of Creative Writing

January 21, 2022 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Winter, Writing

One of the most universally loved things right now is Disney movies. Frozen, Luca, Encanto… parents and kids alike love these movies. Which makes sense! The animation capabilities of these Disney creators are incredibly impressive.

Since it is something students love so much, naturally, I tried to think of ways to make it educational so they can enjoy it in the classroom as well. I found that stop-motion animation is a great introduction to animated movies and the enormous amount of skill, creativity, dedication, and art that goes into each movie.

It all starts with a good story! I found this way of approaching narrative, creative writing to be an extremely effective way to hook students into the concept because they want to create their own masterpieces.

With that in mind, I created a winter resource that will teach students about animation from a REAL Disney animator. How cool is that?!

This Stop Motion Animation Creative Writing three week unit is jam-packed with activities to get your students fully engaged in the creative process.

The focus of this resource is creative narrative writing through the integration of beginning animation concepts. The real Disney animator will get your students inspired and get those creative juices flowing.

The Animator Spotlight and Animator Interview will teach students everything they need to know to complete an animator study report.

Teaching students about short animation will help them better understand sequencing events and how to make their own creative endings. After that, students can use the printables provided to design their own book covers!

You’ll get everything you need with this resource. This includes lined paper along with writing toppers to make displaying your students’ work in your classroom easy and cute.

In addition to these activities, you’ll also get narrative writing choice boards, narrative lead ideas, creative writing story elements, a snowman flip book, and so much more. Furthermore, the stop motion animation directions will teach you how to create an animation with your students easily with tools you already have.

I included lots of extras with this resource for centers like the snowman drawing instructions and comprehension checks.

Interested in learning more? Check out my video here!

Looking for more winter activities? Check out these Winter Olympics activities!