Teacher's Brain Blog

Teaching Your Students About Civics and Government

July 31, 2020 teachersbrain education, Teacher's Pay Teachers

Civics and government is a very important part of your kindergarten and first grade students’ education. Understanding the basics including rules and laws is going to be vital as they grow up and enter the world. Unfortunately, it can seem a little dry trying to teach it in a way that your students will find fun and interesting.

To do this, you want to find engaging lesson plans for your students so they will not only learn the material, but really understand and retain it. The key is to make your lessons fun! This is especially important with any lessons you do for kindergarten and first graders. The more fun the lessons are, the more interested they will be, the more they will learn!

I have you covered with my Civics and Government bundle!

This extensive resource includes nine full weeks of detailed lesson plans and everything you need for the entire unit. You’ll also get a home connection parent letter, American History Journal with a wordbank, a rubric for the journal, 9 interactive notebook pages, and posters for your classroom,

This Civics and Government resource will cover:

Primary Sources
Sequencing events
Calendar Skills
Being a GOOD Citizen
Rules and Laws
Conflicts and Fair Decisions

Extras included for centers: primary source activity, months of the year (what comes next), sort the pictures activity (rules vs laws), Tattle Tale Officer Activity (to teach your students the difference between being helpful and hurtful), big problem, medium problem, and small problem posters, and a Write the Room Activity (a great way to incorporate writing into your social studies lessons).

I created this resource to make your life easier and take the stress out of lesson planning! My goal is that this resource will cover all standards and truly engage your students so that they learn and retain the lessons.

Check out my tips for for social distancing while teaching here!

Do you have any tips for making civics and government fun? Let me know in the comments below!

Back to School Teacher Giveaway

July 27, 2020 teachersbrain Distance Learning, Teacher's Pay Teachers

BACK TO SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS

The crucial role by teachers is magnified during these uncertain times. YOU are the unsung heroes! We have teamed up with other amazing teacher-authors to show you how much we appreciate and respect your hard work and dedications to students!
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❤️3 $200 TpTGift Cards using the Raffle Link
❤️1 Rolling Storage Cart with a SECRET Gift
What NEW resources will you buy if you win?

Enter the raffle HERE:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Raffle Ends at 11:59 PM EST 07/30/2020. The winners will be announced by 08/01/2020.
?You must be an educator to win. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook, Instagram, or Teachers Pay Teachers. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this page and not to Facebook , Instagram, or Teachers Pay Teachers. No Purchase Required.

Engaging Students In The Five Senses

July 24, 2020 teachersbrain Science, Teaching Tips

Teaching your kindergarten or first grade students about the five senses and how they use them to understand the world around them can be such a fun unit! There are so many ways you can get creative and hands-on in the classroom on this one. The best way to really engage your students in learning about the five senses is- you guessed it, letting them use them! Really let them smell, taste, feel, see, and hear during the activities.

There are an enormous amount of activities out there that you could use to teach this. It can be overwhelming to decide what lesson plans to go with. You want something fun, age appropriate, and engaging, but that is also based on standards.

With that in mind, I created an awesome, extensive five week long 5 senses activities unit!

This resource includes 5 full weeks of lessons, a journal (a great way to integrate literacy and writing in your lessons), 5 mini books, posters, inquiry lessons, detailed plans and more!

Week one, your students will explore and learn all about the sense of touch.
Week two explore the sense of sight
Week three learn all about smell
Week four explore hearing
Week five explore taste

Additional Tips For Teaching The Five Senses

Read books about the five senses. This helps give visuals and incorporate vocabulary into your science lessons.
Get hands-on! Students love when they can get their hands dirty and really dive into an activity. Don’t shy away from it. There are so many cool ways to teach the senses.
Use the scientific method in your lessons. Check out my post on teaching the scientific method here!

What is your favorite way to teach the five senses? Let me know in the comments.

Back to School Checklist and Tools for Teachers with Social Distancing in Mind

July 23, 2020 teachersbrain Back to School, Distance Learning, Teaching Tips

This year is going to be different than any year we have ever taught before thanks to Covid-19. The best thing you can do now is get a jump start on classroom organization. I like to have checklists and a lot of teaching tools at my fingertips before I begin the school year in order for my days to go as smooth as possible. The best advice someone gave me once was to always plan and if the plan doesn’t work in teaching, change the plan.

Checklists for Teachers

Here is a list of things you can add to your own checklist for this school year. I have a free social distancing checklist download on TpT you can use if you don’t want to make your own.

Gather and organize classroom materials and supplies. (Include safety supplies, masks and hand sanitizer)
Distance seats from each student.
Make it a rule that kids need their own water bottle to keep kids out of the water fountain.
Create individualized bins for each student for supplies.
Prepare student name tags and/or student desk labels.
Organize your files.
Label all furniture in the classroom.
Create an emergency substitute folder.
Label textbooks, workbooks, and supplies.
Set up your grade book.
Make the first day of lesson plans very detailed.
Have rules for the NEW social distancing guidelines if you are in person.
If you are doing virtual or a blended version of both, create those rules.
Decorate your room to help students remember new safety guidelines.
Plan icebreakers for each day the first week of school.
Have a classroom calendar and schedule in the classroom.

Teacher Toolkit

In order to help you with all the new social distance guidelines and distance learning, I got together with some of my favorite teacher authors to bring you some teaching tools you can use in this Back to School Tools for Teachers! This is exciting because some of these are resources are way too time consuming for teachers to create. There are a few freebies in the mix too.