Teacher’s Brain

Category: Teaching Tips

Engaging Students in Themed Days

Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

There is no denying that the easiest way to keep students engaged is to have themed days in your classroom. Typical days I participate in through the school year are Polar Express Days, Snowed-In Days, May the 4th Be With You, The Ocean Festivals, The Thankful Festivals, and a Fall Festivals. The Fall Festival is where our team teaches the same fall lesson with a craftivity to the entire kindergarten as they rotate to each room.  There is always 100% engagement when themed days are utilized in the academic setting.

ESCAPE ROOMS

Escape rooms for elementary students are the latest educational themed day craze.  It is amazing to see kids working together to problem solve, find clues and the excitement it brings when they actually “escape the room.”  Most escape rooms use a video as a hook.  Here are the escape room themes I use in the primary classroom:

Sight Word Mystery

Numbers 1- 10

Comprehension

Save the Turtles

DINOSAUR Themed

Alphabet Mystery

Veterans Day

SPY DAY

Another great day which involves math, science, reading, writing and critical thinking skills is a SPY Day. This themed day motivates and rewards your students while sneaking in learning. Students dress up like secret agents, are given a mission to find a stolen object, walk through lasers, learn how to lift fingerprints, memorize a new alias and work as a team to discover clues to solve the mystery. Allowing the kids to dress like secret agents, really gets them engaged.

I keep the lights off and have them do their work with flashlights. I also invite parents to participate in the fun. When students see their parents having fun, they can’t help but be more positive about learning. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have extra help these days too! I’ve never had one themed day where there was a child not participating. It’s a lot of prep work for the teacher, but well worth the work. So, if you want your students engaged in learning, try to make learning fun by introducing a themed day. Click the picture below to find the printables for this themed day.


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Spring and Easter Crafts and Activities that ROCK the Classroom!

Craft Ideas, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Springtime is so much fun for students. It’s a time to celebrate change, colors and happiness. In my classroom, I always enjoy ordering caterpillars for the students to see them emerge into beautiful butterflies. The excitement from the students is priceless! Students send in jelly beans, and we learn math by sorting, counting, classifying and graphing the beans. Then they get to eat or take the jelly beans home. Another great spring activity that is gaining popularity in our area, is painting positive messages on rocks and hiding them around the campus for other students to find. Students really get into the activity, and it’s easy to get some other classrooms to participate in the fun. You can integrate science, writing, math and reading in this “Kindness” unit. Whatever you decide to do to make the season with your class special and memorable, make sure it’s so fun that the kids are blinded by the rigor of the assignment! Happy Spring!
Below are some links to useful printables:



St. Patrick’s Day Crafts and Ideas

St. Patrick's Day Ideas, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

I love celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in my classroom!  So this year, I’m a little bummed that we are on Spring Break, but who is going to complain about being on a break?

There are a lot of fun activities you can do with your students to really make the day memorable, special, and educational! I like to start my day with a leprechaun story from our class library.  I also love the video Leprechaun’s Gold found on YouTube.  You can explain the vocabulary words gold, greed, kindness and caring to the students after the video. I usually show it during Social Studies.  Share with the students that leprechauns are small, mischievous little men you find in Irish folklore. Then, locate Ireland on a globe.  I tell students how last year I almost caught one messing up my classroom, but he escaped.  I read the poem The Paper Leprechaun to the students.  I have them make their own paper leprechaun and pot of gold.  The pot of gold is separate from the leprechaun, so they can hide the gold from the paper leprechaun. They give their leprechaun a personality by writing it’s biography.   While students are at lunch, I mess up the room, sprinkle gold or green glitter around (even in the toilets), make little green footprints on the floor that lead to an open window and leave gold chocolate coins on their desks with a note from Lucky the Leprechaun. I have a pair of green felt little pants that I made myself, and hang from the open window. I pretend to try and grab him, but only have his pants.  The kids always giggle thinking there is a leprechaun running around in it’s underwear!  For math, I buy Lucky Charms cereal to pass out to the students.  They have to sort, graph and solve math problems using the lucky marshmallows found in the cereal.  After I check their work, they get to eat the cereal. (As always, check for food allergies prior to this lesson.) I send home a Family Project for student’s to create a trap for a leprechaun to build that home connection.  Finally, I let them make leprechaun headbands and Shamrock GLASSES to wear during story time.  If the kids are having fun learning, they will develop a lasting relationship with you and want to learn!

St Patricks Day Craft Leprechaun Craft Hat and Beard Headb St. Patrick's Day Writing and Crafts - Leprechaun Unit

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St Patrick's Day Craftivity - The Paper Leprechaun - Fun P   St Patrick's Day Craftivity Clover Glasses - by Teacher's Brain  Lucky Charms Graph - St. Patrick's Day Math Sort and Writing

Happy St. Patrick’s Day,

Cindy

HTML Codes – Make TpT Listings POP!

Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

I’m constantly trying to get my Teachers Pay Teachers product listings to stand out and POP among the thousands of other great product listings.  Here are some “cheat sheets” to help you make your listings SHINE!

Make it BOLD by inserting <stong>YOUR TEXT HERE</stong>

Underline it by inserting <span style=”text-decoration:line-through;”>YOUR TEXT HERE</span>

Copy and Paste These:

A round bullet: &bull;
An arrow pointing right: &rarr;
An arrow pointing left: &larr;
A heart-shaped bullet: &hearts;
A diamond-shaped bullet: &diams;
A star-shaped bullet: &#9733;