Have you ever wanted to unlock the secret sauce to reading comprehension? Of course, you have! Teaching reading in upper elementary is challenging. Providing students with an essential skill to rinse and repeat with every text they read sounds dreamy, right?! Annotation is the key to understanding texts beyond just the words.
With spring comes warmer weather, plants blooming, and excitement from students knowing summer is on the way! However, it also means end of the year testing is soon. Teachers work hard all year to ensure students master the skills they need to succeed in reading. By spring, teachers understand their students’ reading levels and look for ways to differentiate instruction for them.
Students love to be detectives, right? Well, if you are teaching point of view in the upper elementary classroom, now is the perfect time to get your student’s magnifying glasses out! Here, I will show you some tips on how to engage your students in learning all about point of view.
As you approach the end of the year, it is time to start wrapping things up in your classroom. The end of the year is always bittersweet. I’m sure you are excited about the upcoming lazy days of summer. You may also be a little emotional thinking about your students and how far they’ve come – especially through such a difficult school year. They grow so much academically and as people. 🙂 Today, I’m here to help you celebrate their successes and keep their memories close for years to come! The perfect way to do this is by having your students create an end of year memory book!
Do you dread teaching poetry? I get it! I’ve been there! The concepts of poetry are oftentimes difficult for children to understand and that makes it challenging to teach. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. After years of teaching and practice, I’ve nailed down a few strategies for teaching poetry effectively in the classroom. They say practice makes perfect, right?
Aaaahhhh! It’s almost April and you know what that means. The snow has melted and the soft, refreshing rains of spring are upon us. Soon we will see flowers popping up everywhere after a long, dreary winter. In addition to the changes in the weather, April is filled with some fun holidays too! With April Fools Day, Earth Day, and Easter all wrapped up in one month, there are lots of engaging themes to bring into the classroom. I have a lot of fun April activities to help you finish strong.
Engaging students in reading comprehension activities can be so hard. As teachers, however, we know the importance of these skills. So working to keep reading comprehension lessons and activities fresh and fun is half the battle. It is so important to keep students engaged so they can fine-tune their reading comprehension skills. Sure, we can assign reading passage after reading passage, but who really wants to do that? Instead, let’s focus on some engaging reading comprehension activities that will make reading lessons fun!
Teaching main idea and supporting details to students isn’t all that easy. Many students struggle with the concept and the process. They get confused and caught up in all of the little details when reading through the text. Some even confuse summarizing a passage with finding the main idea. So, how can you as a teacher make sure that this doesn’t happen to your students? After many years of trial and error, I have the solution that has worked in my classroom time after time. I’m excited to share with you my strategies for teaching main idea and supporting details.
While I love a good school holiday, there’s also a part of me that really loves being in school on holidays so that students can learn about them. There are many holidays that we seem to have lost the significance of and they have become nothing more than just a Monday off. Presidents’ Day is one of those holidays. These Presidents’ Day activities will help you teach your students about this holiday and the important position of the president. Consider adding a few of them to your lesson plans during the week of Presidents’ Day!
As teachers, there are many demands on the precious hours we have with our students. We have many standards to teach and students to prepare. Sometimes the thought of adding one.more.thing is enough to make a teacher scream. However, there is one thing we owe to our students to prepare them for the future. No, it’s not more academic knowledge. It’s the practice of instilling good character. Character education plays an important part in preparing our students for lifelong skills. I’m excited to share these Character Education in the Classroom Year-Long Activities! As well as, help you develop a plan for incorporating these ideas into your daily lesson plans.
For most of us expanding our teaching practices into virtual teaching or distance learning is a fairly new thing. We are on a steep learning curve as we work to do what is best for our students. It’s kind of like the first year of teaching . . . again! Today I am excited to share some of the things I have learned on this journey. Here are 5 ways to use PDFs digitally in the virtual classroom.
The year 2020 will go down as the year that education changed! We might have been forced into the changes by COVID-19 but I’m not sure that we will ever go back to “the way things used to be.” I believe that the increased use of technology in education is here to stay. I’ve put together a list of 25 of the most useful resources for remote learning (aka distance learning, virtual learning, home learning – you know what I mean)! But these resources can also be used in the classroom with technology integration.
With the sudden increase of digital activities and assignments, student feedback and grading of work can lose the personal element. Students turn in an assignment digitally, teacher checks, records grade . . . next. It’s all pretty mechanical. But just because the work has gone digital doesn’t mean that we have to lose all the personal and sometimes fun feedback and encouragement students receive from the teacher. Enter Digital Stickers! I’m so excited to teach you how to use digital stickers so you can add a personal touch to your digital grading. Keep reading, because I have some free digital stickers for you to try at the end!
How would you like your students to have skills-based practice in a self-correcting format? What about an engaging activity like an app without ads? Maybe you’d prefer a practice or review activity without the need for making copies? If you answered yes to any of these, then I have the answer for you: digital task cards! In fact, digital task cards are all of these rolled into one!
The end of the school year is an exciting time! I know what you’re thinking – “Yes, Summer is coming!” But summer aside it is still an exciting time. It’s a time to celebrate the learning, the friendships, the hard work. But it’s also a busy time for teachers with so much to do. I’m here to help with both of these things! I’ve gathered some amazing End of the Year Activities for the Classroom!
I’m Kim, the founder of A Love of Teaching. My ultimate goal is to empower teachers to reclaim their afternoons and weekends, all while feeling confident in their role as educators. I’m passionate about inspiring teachers with fresh ideas and providing them with time-saving materials.
I’m happy you’re here!
COPYRIGHT © 2024. Kim Miller.
