Teacher’s Brain

Tag: teaching tips

5 Creative Ways To Make Worksheets More Fun

Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Worksheets are an essential part of the classroom. There are so many activities and crafts we can do with our students but sometimes there is just no way to get around good old fashioned worksheets. They are the best way for students to get practice and build fluency in whatever you are working on in the classroom. Worksheets are also just the best way to assess where your students stand in with the skills you are working on aside from taking a test.

Unfortunately, they aren’t always the most fun or engaging for the students. Despite any cute or fun designs they might have, they are still a sheet full of work for the student to complete, and that just isn’t the most thrilling thing to do. 

I am all about keeping my students engaged in the classroom, and the best way to do that is to make learning fun. Sometimes shaking things up a little can make a big impact on the kids’ willingness to really dive into what we are working on. 

make worksheets more fun

 

With worksheets, it can be beneficial for your students if you think outside the box. Believe it or not, there are ways to get creative with worksheets so that your students actually enjoy it, I promise! 

Here are some ways to make worksheets more fun

  1. Have students complete half. Let your students pick what half of the worksheet they want to complete. Letting them make the decision to do only the half that they want to do can take the pressure off to do the whole thing and shake things up just enough to take away the monotony of another worksheet. 
  2. Use rainbow writing. Get out fun colored pencils or colorful markers and have them use different colors to complete the work. This will create a fun rainbow effect on the worksheet. It’s like educational artwork! 
  3. Make them dry erase. Laminate the worksheets and get out some dry erase markers for the students to use while they complete it. There is just something about using a dry erase marker for kids. They love the feel of markers and their ability to easily erase and start over if they mess up. They will legitimately enjoy the activity, trust me. 
  4. Work with partners. Everything’s better when you’re working with a classmate. You can also pair the students up and let them play against each other in a game of “Beat My Partner”. They can race to see who can complete the work first with a little friendly competition. 
  5. Have a snowball fight! Have your students complete their work as fast as they can. Once they are done, check their work (to make sure they did their best), and then have some fun. Have everyone ball their paper up and have a “snowball” fight with them. This is guaranteed to be a hit! 

 

make worksheets more fun

Shaking things up in the classroom not only helps the students, it helps you keep things fun and exciting for yourself! Not to mention it will make you one of the most memorable teachers your students will have! 

For more ways to make learning fun, check out my tips for using games in the classroom here! 

For more learning resources, check out my shop here.

Do you have any ways you like to shake things up in the classroom to have more fun? Let me know in the comments!

make worksheets more fun

 

School Holiday Door Decorating for Christmas Ideas

Classroom Decor, Craft Ideas, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Our school asked us to decorate our door every year for the holidays.  For teachers, the holidays is not the time to usually ask us to do “extra” projects even if we enjoy the task.  It does make the school look festive though. To make it a little fun, the administration usually makes it into a contest so we can win gift cards for holiday shopping.  Here are a few holiday door decoration ideas!

Holiday Door and Display Decorations

Christmas Bulletin Board
by The Homeschool Style – Katie Ring
Let it Snow Door Decoration
by Teacher’s Brain – Cindy Martin 
Christmas Decoration Bulletin Board
by Allie P’s Practical Preschool

 

Snoopy Door Decoration
By Tammy Cleghorn “The kids loved that the lights actually lit up!”
Elfie Picture Holiday Door
by Instagram @misschloe91

If you haven’t seen Joey Udovich’s door designs, you are missing out! She has a ton of them for the whole year in her TpT store.  Here is an adorable holiday door design to Deck the Halls!

 

Winter Door Decoration
Don’t Have a Meltdown Keep Your Cool
Bear Cave Winter Door Decoration
by Debora Marines TeachMagically
Winter Door Decoration
Hoot Hoot Hooray Snow is on it’s Way
Simple Door Christmas Decoration
By Lisa Taylor Teaching the Stars

Doing writing with winter toppers is great for window decorations too!

Holiday door decorations can be fun, but what about the windows? These reindeer want ads were my favorite window display activity I did every year for the holidays.  Students learned about classified ads and practiced fine motor skills.

Find MORE Door Decorating Ideas HERE

 

Teaching Forms of Energy

Science, STEM

Energy is the ability to do work. We know this, and we appreciate the ways we use energy in our everyday lives. For our students however, this is not necessarily something they would think much about. Our kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade students may not even know a lot about the energy they use every day like sunlight, food, and electricity. They also may not think of light, sound, and heat as types of energy. This is a very important topic for students to understand. 

Something that is important is to know your students’ misconceptions. Most likely, they don’t know what energy looks like. They may think that light can’t move through objects. They may have never thought about vibration creating sound. Teaching these concepts can be really fun with a little prep work!  

Here are some tips for teaching energy forms to your students. 

  • Take it slow. It can be a challenging concept for younger students to grasp at first. You don’t want to overwhelm them right from the start. Plan it out ahead of time and take it one step at a time. 
  • Explain what energy is first, and then start offering examples of energy (sound, heat, and light). Breaking it down will make a difference in student comprehension. 
  • Try reading some books about energy forms. Usually, books are a great way to learn more about subjects from a different source, which can be a great thing for the trickier topics. 
  • Do a variety of activities to get lots of practice. You can do fun science experiments if you want, or you can keep it simple and straightforward. Tell your students that they are the scientists and their job is to understand forms of energy. 

This Forms of Energy Activities resource for kindergarten and first grade would be a great addition to your forms of energy lesson plans. It covers sound, heat, and light with a 3 week plan including 3 inquiry lessons, data notebook, rubric, home project, and more. forms of energy

Here’s some more information on what is included in this Forms of Energy resource:

Lesson Plan (What is a Scientist?) WEEK 1

Lesson Plan (Science Tools) WEEK 2

Lesson Plan (Scientific Method) WEEK 3

Act It Out (Teacher calls out the energy word, students act it out)

Draw or List forms of energy

Forms of Energy Writing and Drawing Printable

Forms of Energy – Heat, Light, Sound Interactive Notebook Page

Energy Mini-Book

Venn Diagram – compare fire and the sun

Ask a Friend – Practice collecting data, predicting and collecting evidence

I SPY Sound Items

Draw what you think sound looks like

Interactive Notebook pages for making a pocket full of things that make sound

Sound Energy Mini-Book

Venn Diagram compare the soft sound of the beach to the loud sound of the music room at school

Writing Page about Sound Energy

Draw 3 forms of energy in the circle.

Inquiry Lesson Light Experiment with various Items to see if light passes through

Inquiry Student Page to collect

Hear and See Sound Experiment

Hear and See Sound by showing vibration

Melting Ice Teacher Instructions for Inquiry Lesson

Student page to collect data on melting ice experiment

Fun Science Hat/Headband 

What is energy? Poster

Vocabulary Posters (sound, soft, vibrate, loud, heat, light)

Energy Notebook Journal with Rubric

Forms of Energy

 

What activities do you like to do to help your students understand forms of energy? Let me know in the comments below!

forms of energy
For more science activities and lessons, check out my post here! 

Strategies for Teaching Science in Elementary School

Science, Teaching Tips

If you struggle with figuring out how to teach science to young students when you have little time in the classroom, I have some strategies to help you achieve a positive learning experience for your students.  I know for me, finding time to squeeze in science and social studies in my jam-packed plans was a struggle.  The first thing I do to alleviate the stress is to integrate my reading, writing, or math into a science lesson.  By utilizing the other subjects during science lessons, it is a real time-saver.

Integrate Subjects

If student engagement is a problem, integrating science into a boring math lesson can help to produce 100% engagement with the students.  For example, if you are teaching addition in math and matter in science.  Why not have students collect types of matter, write about the properties of matter and then create additional problems with the matter they collected.  This brings me to the most important way to teach science.  Kids need to have their hands actually on physical items in order to help retain information, especially after a long morning of learning.  Encourage students to set up experiments or participate in science discussions to help boost their confidence and critical thinking skills.Science, Technology, Education, Research, Digital

Science Notebooks

Providing a Science Data Notebook helps students develop writing skills while exploring science concepts.  Encourage them to collect information and drawings about their observations.  Have students record steps they need to take to create a science experiment.  Have them think of a  burning question they want to be answered.  Then, develop a safe plan to test something in order to answer the question.  You can pick one out of all of them to actually do with the whole group.  This will help them understand the scientific method.

Investigation Stations

I like to always refer to my students as scientists during science class.  I want them to know that everyone can be a scientist.  On Fridays, I would have Science Investigation Stations.  Students could wear their father’s white button-up shirt, and goggles to feel more like a scientist.  Then, they get to explore at different stations.  I incorporate reading and writing in the lessons to ensure I’m hitting all my academic targets.  Each station has posters with vocabulary words that go with the unit we are focusing on that week.  Learning science vocabulary is essential for helping students to think and communicate in future science lessons.

Make It FUN!

Most importantly, be excited about science.  Students feed off of your energy.  Making learning fun is simple when you use science lessons!

Here is a FREE Energy Sample for Kindergarten and 1st Grade, if you are looking for some ideas.

K-1 SCIENCE Made EASY Year-long Lessons