Tales and Teacherisms

Life skills are SO important in elementary school! We are always surprised by what our students come to school knowing (or not knowing), and many of these pieces of information are important to the health and safety of our youngest students.Try using a life skill of the week. Introduce it during a morning meeting on Monday and practice it all week. You have 47 life skills that students can practice throughout the school year!So, how do you use this resource?In our elementary classroom, I print o

Hands-on activities with building blocks challenges for the win! Engage and motivate kids on the daily basis! Use for morning tubs, recess bins, STEAM/STEM time, and at-home or distance learning! Your students will be begging for more!Enjoy 120 engaging and motivating building blocks STEAM/STEM challenge task cards that promote critical thinking skills! There are 120 exciting challenges, each on their own card, in black and white for easy printing. Pick and choose the challenges you and your stu

Personal dictionaries for students! Each page has some commonly used words that start with that letter - much more manageable than big, bulky dictionaries. There are also lines for students to add their own words. Ideal for Writer's Workshop, supporting independence during writing, and ANY grade level.This can be printed in two versions - whole pages and stapled, or select the booklet feature on your copier/printer to print as half pages half pages to fold into a mini book.How to Use this Resour

Fun Fact Friday! Each week, come together as a class and learn something new! What a fun addition to your Morning Meeting, or a way to kick off your closing circle. The perfect component to support classroom community building and bonding with your kiddos.What materials should I have on hand?Paper! You can print on card stock and laminate for durability, if you would like. I also like to hole punch the fun facts posters and hang them from command hooks so all I need to do is flip the poster each

The Hope Chest is included in the Engage NY fourth grade ELA modules. This is a novel study that can accompany that unit or be used in place, while still using the novel. I found that my fourth grade students needed additional background knowledge, written response questions, and scaffolding in order to fully comprehend this text. This text is engaging and informative, and this novel study provides the structure for reading the novel while responding to the text.This is 150 pages of engaging and

This is an exciting way to encourage your students to do their best on days of testing at school! I do this every year to give positive support to my students during stressful testing. Each day during testing, kids look forward to their words of encouragement from family members who mean the most to them!How do I use this resource?Personalize the letter included with the information about your school testing. Pack the letter, envelopes, and notepaper in a manila envelope. Attach the “Secret Miss

Minute to win it games for kids at school instantly add excitement to your school day! These minute to win it challenges are easy to get set up, great motivators for kids, and offer teachers minute to win it ideas for challenging your students! Instantly, notice the friendly competitive spirit, excitement celebrating each others' successes, perseverance to complete a challenge, and determination to succeed! Kids will go home talking about these challenges!Are you nearing the end of your school y

PRINT AND GO! If you are using SIPPS Extension, Plus, or Beginning, you are ready for center work that will support students! Easy to use for teachers! There is work that aligns with each lesson and can be completed independently.SIPPS EXTENSION:This resource includes easy to use one-page written response to text questions for students to use independently or with support. This is meant to be used with Collaborative Classroom's intervention program, SIPPS Extension.How to Use:This is so easy - p

Pax is a memorable story that students will look forward to reading every day! Prepare for kids to beg to read another chapter! "Just one more!"Novel studies engage, motivate, and instantly hook students! Offer choice of text if possible, but certainly be able to differentiate the questions for each of your students with this novel study. There are more questions and activities than students could do - so pick and choose what is most appropriate for each student or guided reading group. Your stu

Introduce your students to the idea of grit and exploring a growth mindset through a research based biography project. Students will research one of twenty different famous people throughout history, learning about how they failed and persevered before finding immense success. Many students only know of the successes these people have, not of the tales of perseverance that lined the road to success.Integrate Social Emotional Learning into your writing curriculum today! Use this at any point in t

Building brick challenges for kids brings hands on activities to your math block. These hands on learning activities can be used in small groups or with individual students. It's helpful if each student has their own small building blocks bin (I tend to use pencil boxes), to make these challenges run smoothly and really come alive in your classroom. These challenges can also transition to at home learning activities for virtual or hybrid classrooms.Engage and learn through building blocks today!

Read Crenshaw with your class today! Great for read alouds (text-dependent questions are done for you, along with supplemental independent work), independent work packets, sending home for distance learning or hybrid classrooms, literature circles, small group reading or guided reading, and more! Let's make your life easier - everything is ready to go to read Crenshaw with your class or small groups right away!Use this 91 page (easily differentiated, with multiple choices for questions and activ

Here are building bricks Challenges for kids, focusing on hands on activities to immediately engage and motivate learners! These building blocks challenges can be integrated across multiple subjects, morning tubs, and recess bins. You can even use some for at home learning experiences!What's Included?Enjoy four STEM/STEAM challenge products bundled together for a discounted price. Included in this bundle are other products from my TpT store:1. 120 STEM/STEAM Challenge Task Cards and Mini Journal

This quick and easy science experiment can be set up in a matter of minutes! The actual process is a few days, but it gives kids plenty of time for observation and to see the scientific method play out. Hands on, engaging, and motivating classroom experiences get kids excited about science and writing!Everything you need to launch experiment writing in your classroom and hook your kids immediately! Get kids engaged and WRITING!THIS IS A SERIOUSLY AWESOME ACTIVITY!First, place a raw egg in a cup

Building brick challenges for kids instantly engage your students! These daily building brick challenges for the classroom are exciting and bring out the innovation and creativity from kids! Hands on activities are motivating, perfect for any time of the school year, and easily differentiated to reach a wide audience and multiple grade levels.What's Included?Try out 14 building brick Challenges! Each challenge includes a description of the challenge, a planning space, and lines for reflection. B

Instantly engage your students in a high quality text today! Hoot is interesting to kids and hooks them right from the very first page! Use this as a read aloud, novel study, or in your literature circles.What's included?This is a 60 page novel study. It includes:- pre-reading activity- anticipation guide- 2-4 comprehension questions for each chapter (21 chapters and an epilogue)- select vocabulary (chapter 1, focus on using context clues to figure out unknown word meanings)- chapters 1,2,3 shor

I just love a good, quick, and EASY experiment to hook those kiddos and get them writing up a lab report! Make your own lava lamp with materials you have around the house. Engage kids in a science experiment for all ages!This one is exciting, low prep, and engaging. Kids are given some background on chemical and physical reactions. (Check out some cool Brainpop, Generation Genius, or Flocabulary videos for extra background knowledge) Your class will then create their own lava lamps using a mini

Toliver's Secret, written by Esther Wood Brady, is the historical fiction text depicting Ellen Toliver disguising herself as a boy in order to deliver a secret message to General Washington. As a fourth grade teacher, I read this text as a read aloud and use the accompanying student packet to tie in vocabulary and writing. It goes along with the fourth grade and fifth grade Social Studies curriculums.What's Included?The student packet has before, during, and after reading activities. Some chapte

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is an ideal text for engaging in meaningful discussions surrounding a high quality and thought provoking text. Kids make instant connections to this text. They share, open up to their peers, and begin to feel that compassion and empathy for others. I enjoy reading this book in the beginning of the school year with my classes, as I feel it bonds us and creates a true classroom community, but it can be read throughout the school year - it's that good! Plus, can you eve

Math Joke Monday! Each week, come together as a class and laugh about a math joke! What a fun addition to your Morning Meeting, or a way to kick off your math class. The perfect component to support classroom community building and bonding with your kiddos.What materials should I have on hand?Paper! You can print on card stock and laminate for durability, if you would like. I also like to hole punch the math jokes posters and hang them from command hooks so all I need to do is flip the poster ea