Teaching Tips Archives - Page 12 of 38

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!

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!

How to Celebrate the 120th Day of School Virtually

December 31, 2021 teachersbrain Distance Learning, education, Teaching Tips

It’s a tradition in elementary school to celebrate when you reach a milestone in class. This could be reaching our reading goals, mastering sight words, counting, or reaching a certain number of days at school!

For kindergarten, it’s typical to celebrate the 100th day of school. In first grade, however, it’s more standard to celebrate making it to 120 days instead. Counting to 120 is a goal for many first graders and this is a fun way to tie our celebration in with our class counting goals.

If you are a teacher looking for some fun activities to do on the 120th day of school, you’re in the right spot! Here are some simple and exciting ways students can celebrate reaching this milestone.

Bring in 120 items. Students can find 120 pieces of an item at home to bring into the classroom. This gives them practice counting to 120 in a way that doesn’t feel like practice! Bonus, it is fun for students to show their classmates what they accomplished. They can bring 120 paperclips, beads, Legos, etc.
Draw yourself as a 120-year-old. This one is such a fun activity for students. Have them create a picture of themselves as a 120-year-old and write about it.
Create a frame with 120 boxes for students to put small snacks into (think cheerios, m&ms, or goldfish)

If you are teaching virtually or just looking for some activities that can be done easily online with your students (no cleanup!), I have you covered!

These virtual 120th day of school activities give you several engaging activities to choose from to celebrate this exciting milestone.

Some activities included are:

120-second scavenger hunt
Make yourself or your teacher look 120 years old
120th-day fitness checklist
120th-day dot-art
Narrative and opinion writing prompts
Add 120 buttons to a sweater
Make a clown
And so much more!

This resource is available on Google Slides so you can send it to your class virtually or use them in your classroom. Movable parts make this an interactive and hands-on activity that students will love.

Want to learn more about how it works? Check out the video tutorial!

There are so many ways to make this day special, even if you are teaching online.

I hope you and your students have lots of silly fun with these activities!

How To Celebrate the 100th Day of School Virtually

December 26, 2021 teachersbrain Distance Learning, Teaching Tips

The 100th day of school is generally in February every year and it is a milestone that teachers and students everywhere like to celebrate. It is fun to reflect on the year so far and see how far the students have come academically, socially, and emotionally! You and your students have worked so hard, it is worth celebrating all you have accomplished over the year.

How do you celebrate the 100th day of school?

In the younger elementary grades, it’s really fun to go all out with a classroom celebration. This is a huge milestone, after all! You could make a whole day out of it with fun 100th day of school-themed activities and even delicious snacks.

With the ongoing pandemic, this may be harder to do this year with so many schools still doing virtual classes. If that’s the case, don’t fret. You can still make it a fun and exciting day for your students from afar.

How do you celebrate the 100th day of school virtually?

There are multiple ways to make this a especially day while distance learning. Here are a few of my favorites.

Dress as a 100-year-old. This one is always a hit! Students can dress the way they think a 100-year-old would dress for school. It’s so cute to see the things they come up with.
Count to 100. Count 100 pieces of bubble gum together as a class. Or you can get small fake bugs and count 100 of them for the number of times students “bugged” their teacher.
Have students bring 100 of something. Students can collect something from around the house that they have 100 of and share it with the class virtually. This can be 100 paperclips, crayons, Legos, etc.
Do some 100th day of school activities virtually. This can include digital or online resources like books, videos, or teaching resources that have the 100 theme.

I created these virtual activities to make it easy to celebrate the 100th day of school online.

This resource was created with Google Slides so it is super easy to implement with your students. It comes with interactive slides with moveable parts that make learning easy.

You’ll get 16 fun and engaging 100th day of school activities that include a virtual turn yourself into a 100-year-old activity, writing prompts, ten frames, a make a clown activity, make a 100th-day monster activity, add 100 buttons to a sweater, bubble gum activity, 100 exercises, a rainbow activity, and add goldfish to a bowl. Students can also set a 100-second timer to time them on a simple and fun scavenger hunt.

There’s so much fun to be had with this resource! You can pick and choose the activities you want or just push them out one at a time.

I love that these are editable so you can change things around based on your needs within Google Slides.

If you are in the classroom and want to do these activities in person- no problem! It comes with 18 black and white slides as well that are easy to print out and use in the classroom.

You can check out the video tutorial for this resource here!

How do you like to celebrate the 100th day of school? Let me know in the comments!