Becc & CALL

Do you love playing NYT Connections? Have you ever tried to play with your students? I created this as an appropriate and safe version for you and your students. For use whole-group or printed for independent work. I envision projecting it on Monday whole group, but also printing it. I will encourage students to work on it independently or within small groups either as an early finisher task or as a warm-up. I will project it again on Friday and unveil categories together as a group.

I have used the burger diagram for paragraph writing for years, but it wasn't until I color coded the details that my students finally understood the concept of a 5-sentence (or 8+ if your writers are more advanced and are adding more than one detail sentence per idea) paragraph. I also really drive home that the top bun and the bottom bun of a burger taste VERY similar, but NOT EXACTLY the same. Happy writing!

Reading genres poster incorporating popular examples of books upper elementary students are reading. I did a complete overhaul of my library two years ago in an effort to visually organize my books to better serve my students. I incorporated a reading challenge from the following ten genres. I then organized my library in the same way. The genres are set up alphabetically, as are the colors of the stickers used. Once I had these elements in place, I physically moved my library to reflect this m