Barbara Yardley

Get your students up and moving as they race to classify and understand the four basic types of conflict. Aligned to the Common Core ELA-Literacy Standards, this engaging activity can be used as a follow-up to your own conflict types lesson, or used in conjunction with my Conflict Unit which is available in my TpT store. During this interactive, competitive activity, students read short story scenarios, identify the conflict types, race to the appropriate corner of the room, and collaborate with

If your students have a tendency to write “grocery list” essays, then here is the unit for you. In this series of 5 brief lessons, your students will learn how to use connectors like transitions and conjunctions to add sophistication and flow to their expository writing. They’ll study mentor texts to see how published authors tie ideas together, participate in activities that will allow them to create the missing links, and practice incorporating the transitions into their own writing. "

It's or its. There, their or they’re. Your or you’re. You’ve probably seen homophone mistakes on billboards, in newspapers, or even on school newsletters and just cringed. It’s clear choosing the correct homophone is often a problem for adults in our communities, and it’s especially difficult for beginning writers. There are all kinds of neat tricks for getting students to learn the correct form, but they still need practice. Instead of giving them a boring worksheet, why not use a fun game

Making inferences while reading is one of the most fundamental skills in the ELAR curriculum. However, learning how use textual clues to make inferences can be quite challenging for many elementary students. Because students need plenty of practice identifying text evidence to support inferences, having several engaging activities in your bag of teaching tricks is a real must. This “Take a Chance” learning game can help fill that need. Formatted as a lottery style card game, “Take a Chanc

A research based "text talk" activity, this vocabulary lesson begins with the shared reading of a picture book and continues on to incorporate the brain friendly strategies of movement, novelty and repetition. Over the course of the lesson, students are presented with multiple opportunities to use new words in multiple contexts such as acting out word meanings, writing on the interactive white board, and journaling with a partner. Each unique interaction with the new words provides students with

Homophone practice for more advanced students! It's the same fun-filled, edgy card game format your students have loved in "Risk It" and "Homophone Hazard", but this version has some of the really tricky homophones like effect/affect and principal/principle. The game can be used as a whole class activity, in tutorial sessions, or even in writing centers. It's simple to create, simple to learn, and a simply marvelous way to get those "reps" in without a boring worksheet. Turn your more advanc