"Smocus Smocus"

This is a project for the end of the novel My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. I used this project with my students and they loved the modern approach to a classic novel. Throughout the project, students use text evidence to support their conclusions and inferences. There is a rubric attached to evaluate the students ability to find text evidence to support their conclusions, the relevance of that evidence, and the overall quality of their work.

Baymax fever has taken over my house and my classroom! This packet was designed for 4-8 grade to provide teachers with no prep, highly engaging literacy activities for the classroom. These are great to use to break up the stress of state/standardized testing or for those crazy days at the end of the school year. These even work great as activities for sub plans! Packet includes: - Student cover sheet - Viewing guide with literacy concepts and terms - Character analysis - Character traits

Figurative language can be a difficult topic to teach, but when you combine it with popular songs it makes learning fun. This resource contains a three-page worksheet with over 20 examples of figurative language found in songs by Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, Imagine Dragons, The Score, Shawn Mendes, Marshmello, 5 Seconds of Summer... and more! The worksheet aligns to a YouTube video I created and can be used in conjunction with the video or separately. There is also a bonus section that in

This project takes my love of hockey and helps me share it with my students! Through this project students will work collaboratively on rounding, estimating sums, multi-digit addition and subtraction, using data tables, and completing task cards. I created this project to help my 4th grade students better understand the concepts taught in the first module in the EngageNY series. My students were having difficulty applying strategies taught during the Module lessons (such as vertical number lines

This novel unit for The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau is aligned to the 4th grade Common Core standards and easily adaptable to other grade levels. The unit contains text previewing activities, comprehension questions for select chapters, theme discussion activities, a final project with rubric, and much more! Common Core standards addressed in this unit: 4.RL.1 4.RL.2 4.RL.3 4.RL.7 Thanks for checking out my product! ~Stacie

The idea is simple… Students use the titles of books to create poetry! Teaching poetry to reluctant writers can be a daunting task. Especailly for students who have difficulty beginning a writing piece. Using book titles relieves the burden of writing original sentences and phrases. Instead students can choose existing book titles, arranging them in a way that creates an interesting poem, sentence, or phrase. Teaching Notes: Have students begin by looking through book titles in your library or

This product was created out of frustration from trying to get my 4th graders to provide text evidence in their written responses! I needed to find a way to reach them, something catchy that they would remember and use. I had successfully used the ACE strategy from Lovin' Lit's interactive notebooks last year with much success. However this year's crop of 4th graders just didn't grasp it with the same enthusiasm. I was in the middle of correcting yet another evidence-less response when my son w

***Recently updated to include numbers 1-40 (hopefully no one has 40 students in a class!!)*** A new twist on classroom job charts! Assign each student a number and rotate them through each job throughout the school year. It is quick and easy to assemble: ~Print out icons, labels, and notification badges on cardstock. ~Paint the inside of an 11x17 baking sheet black (I used chalkboard paint) ~Use hot glue to attach the icons and labels to the baking sheet. ~Glue magnets to the back of each num

This activity fits perfectly into any unit on the American Revolution. I designed it to be a culminating activity for students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of the events leading up to, during, and as a result of the American Revolution. There is a link included in the activity to a fantastic music video parody about the Declaration of Independence. After watching the video, analyze the song lyrics with the included worksheet and answer key. You could stop there, or you can co

Ever get tongue-tied when talking to parents? Break out in a cold sweat right before parent teacher conferences begin? Or maybe your discussion goes way off topic and you forget what you wanted to discuss with parents. If any of these apply to you, then this Conference Guide will be a lifesaver! There are 8 pages of worksheets here to help you plan and organize your thoughts prior to conferences. Use it to keep the conversation focused and on track. It is also a great handout for parents to take

It's back to school time! A fun and engaging way to kick off the new school year! Get to know your students with this creative poster activity. Students will choose adjectives/character traits to describe themselves, list some of their favorite songs, and share their favorite things to do. Thanks for downloading my product ~ Smocus Smocus!

This activity is designed to help students achieve Common Core standard RL.4.4 – Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean). This activity includes an original holiday (Black Friday/Thanksgiving) themed text to provide students with examples of allusions. Students create a page for their notebooks including a definition of allusion and a foldable graphic organizer to help stud

This activity was created during distance learning as an interactive way to expose students to a wide variety of examples of the theme good vs evil. Each object in the classroom below is a clickable link that takes students to short video clips. Each clip is an example of good vs. evil (or good vs. bad) in popular movies. The message on the board provides students with directions and directs them back to Google Classroom when finished to complete the assignment. I asked students to write a parag

*Use this rubric to accompany and Interactive Notebook. *Provide your students with quick feedback and encouragement.

This product includes: - logos and labels to create your own classroom book display - tutorial for leveling classroom library using AR BookFind - book review form Use this along with my Reading Celebration Packet to spark student enthusiasm for reading! Thank you! Stop by my blog for more inspired ideas: www.smocussmocus.blogspot.com

This activity will help keep students engaged in reading throughout the summer! At the end of the school year students take home a chart containing 35 unique reading activities. Each activity is worth a set number of points. Over the summer students work on completing tasks to earn as many points as possible. Tasks include: reading with sunglasses on, reading by the campfire, reading on a plane, reading a map, reading with a friend, etc...and many more!certain number of points. Best of all, t

This product contains everything you need to create an engaging classroom library! It's simple design fits easily into any classroom theme. This product includes: - library bin labels - library rules posters - 30+ quotes from young adult and middle grade novels - large letters for bulletin board/display titles - ideas/suggestions for how to create your library display - ALL future additions to this product are included!! New quotes will be added often! Use this with my Readbox classroom libra

This activity is designed with the busy teacher in mind! It can be spread out over 2 weeks of class time (I teach in 45 minute periods) or completed in a week if questions are assigned for homework. Since the movie is rated PG a permission slip is included to send home with students. While watching the movie, students answer questions that will help them understand the change that the character, Walter Mitty, is going through. Then, students will analyze the themes in the movie (a list of possib

Helpful rubric to assess students during independent reading, silent reading, or SSR. The rubric works with any reading response activities (some suggested activities are included). Students complete the rubric at the end of the week as a self-evaluation and for a classroom grade. The rubric addressees student behavior, work ethics, and response completion.

Our whole school goal this year is to work on Speaking and Listening, specifically SL.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. Recently I had the opportunity to work with colleagues to discuss what that standard might look like at each grade level (this was a mighty task considering our school is PK-8!). We had meaningf