teachersbrain, Author at Teacher's Brain

Christmas FREE Printables and Lessons for Kids

December 12, 2019 teachersbrain Free Teaching Resources, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

The holidays are a really busy time for everyone, but ESPECIALLY teachers! This is why I teamed up with some great TpT authors to give you FREE TEACHING CHRISTMAS Resources at you fingertips! Click the photo of what you want to download from TpT! Don’t forget to let the author know how much you appreciate their hard work in your feedback or blog comments so we are encouraged to keep the freebies flowing! Have a great holiday season!

FREE Holiday Printables

$Winter Math Worksheets Free$

$FREE Christmas Multiplication Activities$

$Making Ten to Add Holiday FREEBIE Mega Math Practice CCSS 1.OA.6A$

Christmas Gift Craftivity or Bulletin Board for Kids

December 1, 2019 teachersbrain Classroom Decor, Craft Ideas, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Winter

Paper Bag Gift Book

Making gifts for parents in the classroom is something I always struggled with as a teacher until I started making gift waffle books. They make a great decoration for the bulletin board and then, you can send them home for student o give to a parent or loved one as a gift for the holidays.

Here are the directions:

You can even use wrapping paper on the front cover to make it look more like a gift with some fancy paper. Coupon books that promise rooms getting cleaned, massages or some other special action on the part of the student make a nice touch inside the gift bag book. There are 10 different pull books to choose from for the holidays, birthday or even a blank template for students to create their own.

Bulletin Board Set

Add a cute title the a bulletin board to create a cute display for the holidays. This helps serve two purposes… a display and a gift to send home! Parents love them and students enjoy creating the craft. Place decorative bows on top for an extra special touch.

Find the printables HERE.

Veterans Day Ideas for Classrooms

November 7, 2019 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

We all want students to do some meaningful activities to learn about veterans. You can still have fun and create engaging activities to get your students to see how important veterans are to our country.

Veterans Day Activities

I remember teaching first grade and just showing a movie about veterans around Veteran’s Day, but then I created an escape room for primary classrooms. The students were 100% engaged! They were learning and didn’t even know it! Students worked as a team to solve clues about veterans, opened a box and escaped the classroom to recess. They went home and talked about it to their parents.

During the rest of the week, I had students make pennants to display in the classroom. A veteran was invited to come speak to the classroom. She took questions from the students. During centers, students created a Veterans Day layered book and wrote about why veterans are so important to our country. We discussed how we should treat veterans.

Students can make a KWL chart at the beginning of the week to show what they know and what they have learned at the end of the unit. Venn Diagrams make a great way to help students identify the difference of Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. These two days are confused easily. Memorial Day honors the military personnel who died while serving. Veteran’s Day honors the persons who have served.

Escape Room

Halloween Escape Room

October 12, 2019 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

If you have never planned an educational escape room with your elementary students, why not try one this Halloween? You will find that the students are all engaged, excited to learn while solving clues and discover how to work as a team without a lot of direction from you. It takes about 45 minutes to set up the materials. This Return the Pumpkin Escape Room Mystery is designed with your K-2 students in mind! The download is editable so you can tailor it to your needs, or just print and go!

Halloween Escape Room | Editable — Halloween Escape Room

Hook Them Early

First, a video story creates a “hook” for engaging the students in the mystery right off the bat! Students will have to find their classroom pumpkin that Willie the Werewolf stolen. The video is only a few minutes long. The video will tell you to press play so you can read the first clue, but then you can press play to have some background mystery music while the kids use teamwork to solve the mystery and open a box to escape the classroom!

Halloween Escape Room Mystery for Elementary Classrooms

Each escape room provides 3 clues for students to solve. The average time for them to be able to beat the clock is 40 minutes. This classroom escape room has students finding bags of letters to form words. Students are encouraged to help each other. Not just their own team, but the other team too because they can’t open the box without both keys. Paper keys provided, so no need to buy real locks.

Halloween Escape Room Mystery for Elementary Classrooms use Teamwork to Solve Mysteries — Solving the Halloween Mystery Escape Room Clue

Once student solve all three clues, they will find the missing class pumpkin, receive a prize from the box and escape the classroom to a monster dance party, recess or the library. You get to choose!

Check out The Magical Teacher using the Halloween Escape Room in her classroom! She shows you how to add that special teacher magic that only a great teacher can bring to get maximum engagement!

Why use escape rooms in the classroom?

Break OUT rooms or Escape Rooms encourage teamwork, academic skills, problem solving and require students to listen while following directions. Then there is also the incredible engagement aspect it provides. This is why many teachers like to use them for their evaluations.

Author: teachersbrain