As the end of the school year draws closer, I’m constantly looking for new ways to keep my students motivated and engaged. Last week I shared a blog post on how I’ve started using escape rooms in my fourth grade classroom. The post gives step-by-step directions in how to implement and organize a physical or […]
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Breakout classrooms and escape room activities are continuing to grow in popularity in today’s elementary classroom. I too ventured into the world of escape classrooms, and my students and I absolutely love it! I’ll be real with you and acknowledge that I didn’t have a smooth start, as I had quite a bit of a
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I absolutely cannot believe that it’s time to start thinking about the end of the year. While I am beyond excited about summer vacation, it always makes me so sad to think about the “summer slide” that many of my students will experience. Research shows that students are likely to lose two to three months
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I’ve always enjoyed the time of year after testing and before summer vacation, which for me is about six weeks. It’s nice to teach without the stress of the big test hanging over my head. It’s also the time of year when I feel like I have a little more flexibility than usual, because ideally
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My absolute favorite thing to teach in math is area and perimeter. There are SO MANY fun things to do with this topic that keep students active, moving, and engaged. In this post, I’ve shared some of my favorite methods for teaching area and perimeter. Each of these lessons are from my Third Grade Area
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Teaching poetry can be a rewarding experience! Most upper elementary students love learning about poetry. It’s new, different, and a genre where all students can find a style of poetry they enjoy. The easiest place to begin teaching poetry is to simply read poetry to students, whether it is of a silly or serious variety.
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I love using these spring math centers for 4th grade! If you teach third grade, you can see my 3rd Grade Spring Math Centers here. These activities should take me through all of March and April. In April we’ll be out a week for spring break (yippee!!) and I won’t have centers during testing week.
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Teaching nonfiction text structure can be a bit of a challenge to make interesting for students. Nonfiction text structures can also be a difficult concept for students to completely grasp and apply. However, it’s an important part of reading comprehension, especially with informational text. Fortunately, I have a few strategies that have been efficient, AND
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This week completed our unit on space. I wanted to end the unit in a big way, so I dedicated an entire day to teaching about space through activities. I hung a space backdrop on one of my larger walls, which made a big show! Finally, I placed a space tablecloth on my two tables.
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Who has ever experienced this scenario? You spend weeks conceptually teaching fractions. You incorporate hands-on activities, multiple models and visual representations. Your students complete a variety of problem solving tasks in authentic situations. You also have students writing about fractions in their math journals. Then a few weeks after your fraction unit you have a
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