Teacher's Pay Teachers Archives - Page 23 of 61

Spring Would You Rather Game For Elementary That Students Will Love!

April 1, 2022 teachersbrain Distance Learning, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips, Writing

There’s nothing I love more than when students get excited to learn. It’s the best feeling to see their faces light up as they fully engage in their lesson. It’s every teacher’s dream! However, it can be tricky to achieve. Especially as we approach the end of the school year. Students start to get a little restless so it takes a little creativity to really capture, and keep, their attention.

One of my favorite ways to do that is by playing games! Games in the classroom are proven to increase engagement, learning outcomes, and fun! In fact, research says that along with increased participation, playing games with your students can also encourage social and emotional learning and motivate students to take more risks.

One of my favorite games to play in the classroom has to be Would You Rather!

If you aren’t familiar, Would You Rather is a fun game where you have to choose between two different scenarios or items. For example, would you rather see a bird or a butterfly? These questions are intended to be silly and fun and encourage creative thinking. It’s guaranteed to get your students giggling.

With spring officially here, I created a spring-themed Would You Rather game that your students will love!

These Google Slides come with several questions to get your students thinking about spring. After making their choice, students will then use the paper provided to explain why they made that decision.

These Google Slides are interactive and editable. Which means you can change them up to fit your needs. Feel free to delete slides, add your own directions, or change the pictures as you see fit.

You can have students hold up one or two fingers to share what they would pick. It even comes with a movable highlighter to highlight your student’s most popular choice! This resource comes with 50 colorful slides for endless writing fun. If you are distance learning, this resource is easily adaptable to do digitally as well.

If you love this activity, you can also get it for every season!

The complete bundle comes with Would You Rather slides for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. This means you get over 200 colorful slides. A great way to teach students the seasons as well!

What are your favorite games to play in the classroom? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for some more fun spring resources? Create a bunny trap with this resource!

Spring Break Packets For Elementary

March 11, 2022 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

We all know how important it is for our students to get a break from school. To relax and take their mind off of it and just enjoy being kids. Spring break is a great time to do this!

As important as the downtime is, it wouldn’t hurt for students to also get a little practice with those skills we’ve been working so hard on in class. In fact, parents are often asking for something for their children to work on while they’re out of school.

Naturally, with any break from school, there is a degree of regression. Studies actually show that students are more likely to score lower on tests after being on break than they are during school.

Assigning light but engaging activities during spring break can be the perfect way to keep their brains active while not in school and prevent that learning regression as much as possible.

The key is to assign work that is engaging and will get your students thinking, but won’t take up too much of their time.

When I was in the classroom, I would let the students know that it’s not mandatory, but if they complete it, they will get some sort of reward or prize when they return it to school. This could be a homework pass, treat, pizza party, or something similar.

I created Spring Break Packets for each elementary grade to help make it easy for you!

These packets have a spring theme to make it fun for students. You can buy them as a bundle or individually for the grade you need! No prep required, just print these out and go!

Here’s what you can expect for each grade level:

Pre-K

Spring break word bank, reading log, sight word lists and progress monitoring sheet, handwriting, trace lines, find the letter, color the crayon, writing, upper and lowercase letter work, patterns, sight word find, coloring, comprehension sequencing cards, math printables (adding, counting, shapes, number charts, number line, counting on)

Kindergarten

Spring break word bank, reading log, sight word lists, progress monitoring sheet, narrative writing, printables on CVC word families, reading comprehension, rhyming word crossword puzzle, handwriting practice, ABC order, rewrite the sentence, adjectives and nouns, math printables (addition, subtraction, counting on, adding single digit numbers, shapes, fill in the number chart, number bonds, 10 more, 10 less and 1 MORE 1 Less)

First Grade

Spring break word bank, reading log, sight word lists, narrative writing, printables on CVC word families, reading comprehension, , ABC order, rewrite the sentence, adjectives and nouns, Math Printables ( Addition, subtraction, mental math, adding 2 digit numbers, shapes, measurement, number bonds, 10 more, 10 less and 1 MORE 1 Less)

Second Grade

Word bank, reading log, sight word list, opinion writing, printables on adjectives, nouns , plural and singular nouns, collective nouns, reading comprehension, suffixes, ABC order, rewrite the sentence and word sorts, math printables ( expanded form addition, subtraction, mental math, adding 3 numbers, shapes, measurement, 10 more, 10 less)

Third Grade

Word bank, reading log, sight word list, opinion & narrative writing, printables on context clues, abbreviations, prepositions, verbs reading comprehension, suffixes, ABC order, and rewriting the sentence, math printables (bar graph, addition and subtraction 3 digits, rounding, perimeter and area, fractions, multiplication, division and comparing numbers)

Fourth Grade

Word bank, reading log, suggested sight word list, biography reporting, opinion & narrative writing, printables on context clues, to too two, there they’re their, a an, prefixes, root words, suffixes, relative pronouns, comprehension, past tenses, ABC order, and rewriting the sentence, Math Printables (factoring, 3-digit addition, rounding, multiping using the area model, greater than less than, rounding, fractions, multiplication and comparing numbers)

Fifth Grade

Word bank, reading log, 5th grade suggested sight word list, biography reporting, opinion, informative & narrative writing, printables on context clues, fluency, there they’re their, inference, main Idea, prefixes, root words, suffixes, relative pronouns, comprehension, past tenses, ABC order, and correcting sentences, math printables (graphing points, coordinate patterns, adding subtracting and multiplying decimals, order of operation, factoring, 3-digit addition, rounding, multiping using the area model, greater than less than, rounding, fractions, multiplication and comparing numbers)

Do you assign school work during spring break? Let me know in the comments!

Tips for Talking to Students About War

March 6, 2022 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

This topic is HOT right now with teachers. It is a hard discussion, but with so many kids on social media, they are bound to hear and see things that could make them emotional. Talking about war with children is a part of the job for parents and teachers. If a child asks about a war or something they saw on tv, chances are the other students have seen or heard about it also in your class. How much discussion of the topic is too much? What are the right ways to have the discussion with different grade levels?

Tips about talking to students about WAR

If you teach primary students, I suggest you don’t bring up the topic on your own. Students who are unaware of the topic should not be pressed on what they know or don’t know. But if children of any age are talking about war with other children, it is important for you to support them. This might mean inviting the school counselor into your room for a discussion to keep students calm and compassionate. It could be you simply answering a few questions with facts and removing any stereotypes from their discussion. It is important to never villainize a culture or country.

The goal is to ensure students about their own safety and guide them to look for and to be helpful citizens. Creating a calming corner or area in your classroom for students to relax with breathing exercises is helpful for students who are showing anxiety from viewing war events.

Here are some other suggestions:

Encourage students to talk to parents about it.
Discuss things that you can control. For example, don’t watch the news.
Avoid giving your opinion but allow them to express themselves so you can find out what they think or feel prior to any discussions.
Ask questions like: “What have you seen or heard.”
Remind them to look for people who are being helpful.
Consider having a fundraiser for a charity so they can see how they can be helpful.
Admit when you don’t know the answer to something

OLDER KIDS

Older students need and want to talk about what they see and how they are feeling. They still need guidance from adults to navigate emotions and thoughts in a productive way. Provide them a safe space to express themselves and to process information. Teachers need to be aware of the emotional impact this has on students and families. You can consider discussing the government or president’s role in shaping foreign policy, policy options to respond to war, geography, or lasting impacts from previous wars. You should give factual answers, reassurance, and admit when you don’t know something.

Tips For Implementing Classroom Jobs In Your Class

February 25, 2022 teachersbrain Classroom Behavior Management, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Let’s talk about classroom jobs!

If you aren’t familiar with the term, classroom jobs are simple and meaningful tasks that you assign each student in your class that will be their responsibility. Tasks like line leader, trash cleaner, cubby inspector, attendance taker, book monitor, etc. You can think of small tasks that they can complete independently that will also take a load off of your plate.

At first, it may seem to you that students wouldn’t enjoy being given jobs in class and it would be one more thing to make sure they are getting done. On the contrary, historically classroom jobs are a huge hit among students of any elementary grade!

Classroom jobs give students a sense of responsibility and importance. It also builds a strong sense of community and belonging. It’s so fun to see how proud they get of their work and the relationships they build with each other by working towards a common purpose.

Here are some tips for implementing classroom jobs in your class

Assign classroom jobs in rotation. Inevitably, there will be jobs that are more popular than others. There will be jobs that are coveted and some that don’t get quite as much enthusiasm. To make it easier, rotate out your jobs once a week. This will keep students from getting too jealous or bummed out that they didn’t get the job they wanted. Plus: students will actually look forward to class on Monday because they will find out what their new job is. Score!
Explain why each job is important. To help build the sense of responsibility, make sure students know why their job is so important to the classroom as a whole. No one wants to be stuck doing a job that isn’t meaningful. You can do this by explaining it all at the beginning of the year, or you can hand out notes explaining the importance each week when students are assigned their jobs.
Reward them for a job well done. Remember, we all appreciate being recognized for the hard work we do. When you notice that your student is doing a great job with their classroom job, reward them! You can do this with your normal classroom rewards (like this one) system or you can create a reward system exclusively for your classroom jobs.
Make sure the schedule is visible for students to reference. When you are rotating out weekly, it can be easy for students to forget what their job is. Creating a display will help them keep track of their job. For younger students who aren’t strong readers yet, include pictures in your schedule so that they can figure out what their job is.

Ready to get started implementing jobs with your students? I have you covered!

This classroom jobs chart is completely editable so you can customize it to fit your needs. These cards can easily be used on a pocket chart, wall, or on a magnetic board to make displaying and rotating them easy.

You’ll get 52 editable PowerPoint slides. They include premade classroom job cards as well as some blank cards so that you can create your own. Make it your own by choosing between cursive or print and black and white or color with pictures.

The editability of these cards makes it easy to match them to your classroom theme or decor!

Pictures included for Line Leader, Greeter, Caboose, Folders, Lunch, Teacher’s Aide, Pet Care, Book Monitor, Sweeper, Kindness Keeper, Door Holder, Schedule Helper, Attendance, Lights, Cubby Inspector, Hand Sanitizer, Backpacks, Music, Meteorologist, Computers, Pencils, Bell Ringer, Recycling, and Absent Keeper.

Do you use classroom jobs? Let me know in the comments below!