Introducing poetry to your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classroom soon? The tips below can help you make sure this is an enjoyable experience for both you and your students! Written by Guest Blogger Patsy Johnson Hello, my name is Patsy Johnson, a guest writer for Teaching Made Practical. I have taught grades 2-8 throughout my teaching career, and one …
Secrets on Using Retelling / Summarizing Strategies to Create a Behavior Breakthrough
Written by Guest Blogger Miss Sonjia Colson In my experience, one of the most difficult tasks can be creating the pattern of how as a teacher you choose to react to student “drama.” Students as early as kindergarten are natural born storytellers and create their own drama! Kids want to be heard, especially when conflict arises. As a teacher, when …
Free October Writing Prompts and Team Building Questions
This October freebie is multi use. You can use it to help strengthen your classroom community, build oral communication skills, or as October writing prompts. Teachers tend to spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year on team building and ice breaker activities, knowing that having a positive classroom environment is essential for learning. Once the attention …
8 Ideas and Activities for Making Writing Fun in Upper Elementary
Making Writing Fun Activities Written by Guest Blogger Jessica Thompson, 4th Grade Teacher Writing. The minute the word is mentioned there is an audible, in-sync sigh from the students. Of course, there are a few super excited students who cannot get their ideas down quick enough. For every handful of excited writers, there is a large portion of the class …
Making Teaching Inferencing Easier
Written by Guest Blogger Kerry Heino At heart, I must say that I consider myself more of a math teacher, stronger in the ways and means of teaching math concepts, but I do enjoy teaching inferencing strategies to my class. Over the years, too many to actually count, I have strived to make this unit more meaningful, but also fun, …
A Back to School Team Building Activity – Preposterous People
Back to School Team Building Activity Written by Guest Blogger Kimbra Counts Teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students comes with its own set of obstacles. One of the most surprising issues I face in the classroom is perfectionism. As students grow, they begin to feel more pressure than they did in the lower grades. The drive to be the …
Facilitating Small Group Discussion in the Upper Elementary Classroom
Facilitating Small Group Discussion Written by Guest Blogger McCormick in Middle Do you want a classroom of engaged 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students during small group discussions? Would you love to be able to circulate your classroom and listen in on thoughtful and meaningful conversations about books without having to intervene to resolve conflicts? Is one of your goals …
Keeping the Classroom Clean: Setting Up Student Procedures
Keeping the Classrom Clean Written by Guest Blogger Tamara Leavitt of Tamara’s Teacher ToolboxKeeping the Classroom Clean: The QuandryIt’s been a busy day, but keeping the classroom clean has not been a priority. Not only are the students’ brains full and bodies antsy… gravity has done its job well in the classroom. The floor is covered with pieces of paper, …
A Free Point of View Activity
A lot of point of view resources focus on helping students distinguish between 1st and 3rd person, but point of view is so much more than this, and this point of view freebie addresses this. When teaching point of view, we need to help 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students think about author bias and how their own point of …
Brain Break Ideas for 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade
Brain Break Ideas Written by Guest Blogger S.M. So, we’ve all been there…you’ve been pouring your heart and soul into the lesson and in front of you are a classroom full of uninterested upper elementary kids. I mean, you could be dancing on the desks and they wouldn’t notice you. After so many struggles with what to do I’ve finally …