teachersbrain, Author at Teacher's Brain

Teaching Winter Holidays Around The World

November 20, 2020 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips, Winter

Winter is an exciting time for kids of all ages! For teachers of young children, it’s an especially fun time in the classroom. While the students may be a little distracted by all the holiday events, winter provides a perfect opportunity to join learning and celebrations. Children can learn about holidays through listening to stories, reading, music, art, and even food.

Celebrations from around the world provide an opportunity to discuss geography and culture in a way that gets students excited.

They may see similarities between their own lives and those of children in other countries. They may even enjoy bringing elements of the winter holidays they learn about into their own celebrations!

Holiday celebrations in the classroom are another way to teach students about other cultures. For a class party, foods from other countries could be served. Students could participate in art activities using themes they’ve learned about in their world studies. (

Instead of just focusing on the American traditions they are familiar with, kids can experience the ways that other cultures celebrate with their friends and family. While increasing a connection between kids around the world, these activities will keep students learning during the holiday season!

If you need some inspiration to talk about holidays in your classroom, The Winter Holidays Around the World Journal is a perfect springboard into learning about celebrations.

On each page, students will read a short passage about a winter holiday celebration, trace key words, and draw a picture to demonstrate comprehension. There is a flag to color for each country’s page. They can also locate the country on a map or globe and color the illustrations. Teachers can also facilitate further research into the winter holiday celebrations using the Internet or other media.

Students will have a great time learning about different traditions while practicing their reading and writing skills!

If you want more holiday classroom fun, check out my Christmas freebies here!

winter holidays

Try the Digital Escape Room 1-3rd, focus is on Main Idea and Holidays Around the World!

Using Games In The Classroom

November 13, 2020 teachersbrain education, Math, Teacher Problems, Teaching Tips

Games are an important part of childhood. From sports to board games, children all over the world play together to learn social skills and have fun. However, games haven’t always been a welcome strategy in the classroom. In the schools of the not-so-distant past, they were something kids were to do on the playground or at home- but not in their classrooms. Fortunately, thoughts have changed. We now know that games can teach important skills while students have fun!

If you’re ready to get your students more excited about learning, pull out some classroom games. Students will be more motivated to pay attention to the subject matter, and will be more engaged. They will positively associate learning the subject matter with having fun. This will increase their success with the material, and make your job a little easier!

Your kids will also develop stronger critical thinking skills while playing games. Depending on the object of the game, they might have to try new strategies, think ahead, or switch plans. In addition to content mastery, students learn social skills while playing classroom games. They experience winning and losing, taking turns, and co-operating. These skills are necessary for working with other people even in adulthood.

One of my favorite classroom game sets is Kindergarten Math Games. It is designed for pre-k and kindergarten classrooms to make practicing important math skills more fun (check out my Kindergarten Math Salad Bar here)! It includes several options for single players to complete on their own as well as games for two players to take turns. Students will learn to count and recognize numbers 1-6 while playing the games. You can simply print the game boards out, give students a 6-sided die, and let the fun begin!

Another resource available for FREE right now is the 10 More Or Less Game. It is ideal for students in grades K-2. This activity helps students understand the number concepts of 10 more and 10 less. It can be played as a whole group so you can help students understand how it works. Then students can play with small groups or partners. Your kids will love learning math skills while having fun with their peers!

What games do you like to play in the classroom? Let me know in the comments!

Tips For Teaching Main Idea

November 6, 2020 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

Have you ever felt frustrated or at a loss when teaching the main idea to your students? Sometimes it can feel like you are going around and around without making progress on your students comprehension of the concept. Teaching the main idea to elementary students sounds simple because all the students need to understand is what the story is mostly about. However it can actually be a little tricky.

Reading comprehension itself is one thing (you can check out my tips for reading comprehension here), catching onto the main idea is another, and this can be a difficult concept for young learners. You want your students to truly understand how to find the main idea and supporting details of a story, but to do that they need to know what it is. I have tried different ways of teaching this concept, and after some trial and error, have found what seems to work for my students.

Here are some tips for teaching main idea and details

Utilize visuals. For younger students, the more visuals you have, the better! You can use anchor charts or pictures to get students more practice with finding the main idea of different things.
Use the title. This method is easy and straightforward. Show your students how the title of a story can many times be a clue about what the story is mostly about.
Read together. When you are reading with your students, pause throughout the story to think out loud with your students and ask them comprehension questions. Showing them how to think about the story when you are reading can help them to do it themselves.
Use a graphic organizer. There are a lot of graphic organizers out there, but I like to use one that can help my younger students visualize to better understand. A table doesn’t stay up without the legs to support it. This table top organizer uses that concept to help your students put it all together. The tabletop itself is where you put the main idea and the table legs are where the supporting details go.

This graphic organizer goes along with my reading comprehension passages and questions resource. This resource is a yearlong program that helps teach your kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade students reading comprehension with passages, questions, graphic organizers, posters, awards, and more. This resource is versatile enough that you can use it with any of the stories you read with your students.

Some of the topics covered include:

Main ideas
Details
Summarizing inferences
Cause and effect
Fact and fiction
Conclusions
Authors purpose
Sequencing
Setting
Character traits
72 different reading comprehension passages

Do you have any tricks for teaching main idea? Let me know in the comments!

Turkey In Disguise Project For Kids

October 30, 2020 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

As a teacher, you know that family involvement is an important aspect of developing successful learners. Studies show that when families are involved in students learning, the students are more likely to succeed. However, it can be hard to find activities that families actually want to do together and that aren’t too time consuming.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, this Turkey in Disguise project would be a great way to get family involvement while working on an engaging holiday themed activity (check out my Thanksgiving escape room here). This turkey project is a great tool for helping families have fun together, while using reading and writing skills.

The Turkey in Disguise project incorporates listening, writing, and problem solving in one activity. In a busy classroom, finding activities that address multiple objectives is necessary. When they are fun for students and parents as well, that’s even better!

Here’s a walk through of the Turkey in Disguise Project

This fun turkey project includes everything you need to get your students’ creative juices flowing. First, students will listen to a read-aloud featuring a turkey that tries several disguises to save himself from being Thanksgiving dinner.

Then, they will work with their families to come up with a disguise to protect their turkey. They will use their writing skills to describe the disguise. This simple project will engage students in creative problem solving, writing for a specific purpose, and making connections to text. As an added bonus, they will enjoy getting creative with their families.

What ways do you use to get families involved in learning? Let me know in the comments!

If you are teaching VIRTUAL, try the digital version of this activity here.