By Rachel Lynette
Comparing and contrasting is a higher level thinking skill important across the curriculum. We compare and contrast characters in a story, word choice in writing, equations in math (think < > =, not to mention word problems ), different hypotheses in science, how holidays are celebrated in different cultures, etc. That is probably why comparing and contrasting shows up multiple times in the Common Core Standards. Here
Here are five free worksheets (with answer keys) to use with your class to help reinforce affixes and to introduce word roots. These five worksheets will work fine as stand-alone activities but are actually part of a much larger 40-page prefixes, suffixes, and word roots product. Download this worksheet plus four more right here!
You’ve probably seen these kinds of puzzles for years. They are fun to solve and great for practicing lateral thinking! Here is a free page of puzzles to use with your students. Download for free here.
Here is something fun to try this year: have your students find the teacher’s mistake! Let your (upper elementary or middle school) students know that sometimes you will intentionally make a spelling or grammar mistake on a handout or worksheet. It is their job to find that mistake. They will never know if there is a mistake on any given worksheet – it could come
At first glance There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom by Louis Sachar doesn’t look like the kind of book you would read aloud to your class. It comes across (at least to me) as more silly than anything else. Although there is certainly humor in the book, There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom is so much more, and it is one of my very favorite
Over the weekend I took an Iris Speed Reading course with the hope of learning some techniques for dealing with the huge amount of reading material I deal with every day. In addition to books and articles that I need for researching the books that I write, there are also blog posts, tweets, status updates, message boards, and of course, that huge stack of books on
Here are 20 interesting literature response questions to use for discussion during literature circles or as writing prompts. You can get all 64 Lit Spark Question cards here. What is the most interesting thing you know about the main character of your book? Think about a setting in your book. If you were in the setting, what are some things you might see? Describe an
Looking for one more novel to read out loud or have your students read this year? Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor may be just what you are looking for. Here is why! Point of View/Writing Style Shiloh is written in first person in the voice of eleven-year-old Marty Preston. Marty lives in rural West Virginia, and his speech patterns make that very evident. This is a great
Totally and completely FREE
Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn’t like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from
Here is a fun way for students to practice their spelling words using a phone keypad. Students use the letters on the keypad to create a number for each word. To make the activity more challenging, have students translate their words into numbers and then switch papers to solve. Just be sure they mix up the words. This worksheet, plus another version to use with
There are many, many great ways for students to respond to literature. Students especially enjoy creative book reports. These will work for almost any book and are especially good when students are reading independent book selections. A quick web search will reveal that there are many ideas out there for creative book reports, but they are not all good ideas. Here are, in my opinion,
First off, if you haven’t read this book yet, you must. Truly a wonderful piece of literature for teens as well as adults, and especially at this time of year. If you happen to be teaching The Hunger Games , you can get some great resources for this book as well as the other two in the trilogy from Tracee Orman. Her unit on the book is one of the
Hopefully, you’ve got dictionaries, maybe even a class set. They are, of course, great for looking up words and you will use them to teach dictionary skills, but there are also other great things you can do with these rather large volumes of words. Here are just a few ideas: Send your students on a Dictionary Scavenger Hunt. You can make one up yourself, or get
The two main challenges with a classroom library seem to be making it cozy and inviting yet easily accessible, and keeping it organized. Here are some thoughts on both. Make It Inviting Most kids love cozy spaces. Ideally, your class library should be in a corner of your room, away from the door and the sink. A rug is a must. Bean bags, big pillows,
Watching a movie after reading the book is a wonderful way to encourage students to think critically about how each medium presented roughly the same information. Here are some questions to ask: Think about the setting of the book. Did the setting in the movie look like you had imagined it? (Good ones for this are the Harry Potter series, Holes, The Chronicles of Narnia series, and Where
