Common Sense Teaching

Are you sending home packets for distance learning? These spring jokes are light-hearted (just what we all need) while helping kids practice their handwriting skills. Parents will appreciate an activity that kids can do independently! This download includes both a cursive and print version of 12 jokes that kids will love.

Need something simple but fun for the week of Valentine's Day? This product includes both cursive and print handwriting practice cleverly disguised as 12 kid-approved Valentine's jokes. Your students will have fun learning the jokes while they improve their handwriting. All you have to do is make the copies! These printables are great for a literacy center or independent work time.

Looking for a new way to help parents encourage beginning readers? Swap out boring reading logs for a fun Reading Bingo challenge! Families are challenged to not only read together, but also to tell jokes, play with rhyming words, and listen to stories online. Simple explanations on each bingo sheet help parents understand why both reading and playing with words is important to reading success. Download includes six Reading Bingo templates that are ready to copy and send home!

The Treaty of Fort Laramie is an important piece of American history in the West. As America expanded westward, tensions grew between Native American tribes and the new settlers. This article is intended to give 4th and 5th grade students a brief overview of the treaty and the history connected to it. Included in this article are maps to help students understand where in the country these events took place as well as a peek at the original treaty document. Students have an opportunity to go bac

Chief Sitting Bull is a fascinating person to study. This short article gives your students a glimpse into the life of a great influencer of history. This download includes three versions of the same article at three different reading levels using the Flesch-Kinkaid formula: 5.6, 4.7, and 4.3. Because the articles all have a similar look, you can easily differentiate based on student needs. The timeline assignment requires the students to locate information from the article, determine importan

If your students need a little handwriting practice, these printable sheets are easy to use! Included in this packet are practice pages for both cursive and print (Zaner Bloser). Your students will practice writing the Days of the Week, Months of the Year (and abbreviations), and the four seasons. These packets are great bellringers!

Don’t let Valentine’s Day bust your teacher’s budget! Here’s an easy, low-cost way to let your students know they are pretty special to you. Buy a box of giant Pixie Stix. You can typically buy a box of 85 giant Pixie Stix (about 15 inches long) for around $15 from merchants like Sam’s Club or Amazon. If you don’t need 85 Valentines, share the cost with a few teacher friends. Print these tags on card stock or color paper. Staple a tag to the top of each Pixie Stix. Your Valentine’s are done

Handwriting practice is easy for students to complete independently, whether you need a center activity or a printable to send home. Writing the states and capitals is a great step towards memorization! This download includes both cursive and print options. Easy to download, print, and hand out!

These simple alphabet coloring sheets are perfect for preschool and kindergarten students. The pictures have just enough detail for your little ones to work on their fine motor control, but are large enough for students to be successful. This download includes one coloring page for each letter.

Spend some quality time together coloring and assembling this Advent Paper Chain Countdown! Each day in December, remove the chain link for the day and read the verse together. By December 24, you will have read the entire story of the birth of Jesus, along with a reminder of why this baby is so very important to all of us. Perfect for a family activity or a church group, this paper chain is meaningful to all ages. Each page has three paper chan links that will be cut apart on the dotted lines.

Get your students digging into Proverbs to find the true meaning of friendship! This activity is perfect for students in grades 4-8 to complete independently or with a partner in Sunday School, private Christian school classrooms, or homeschool families. Great partner stories include Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1) & David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 19-20).

Anchor your students' sight word learning in a story they love! Read aloud Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle, then add these easy-prep activities that make learning fun in your classroom. Featured sight words: what, we, see, look, at, do, is, it, me, to. Eight activities include Write the Room with bear word cards to place around your room, rainbow writing, a template for student book writing, Feed the Bear (a sight word practice game), a practice sheet to take home, and

Kindergarten and first grade students love the Five Little Monkey stories! Start with a read aloud, then expand their learning with sight words from the story. The ten sight words in this file are: no, said, on, and, the, one, two, three, four, five. Included in this file is a Write the Room Activity with ten sight words printed on monkey cards to hang around your classroom. Give your students the printable recording sheet with a clipboard and let them be sight word detectives. Additional activ

Tired of boring reading logs? Spice up your at-home reading with Reading Bingo! These Bingo sheets are ready to be copied and sent home. You can send them home weekly, or copy on two sides for a longer challenge. Your students will enjoy earning bingos, and parents will appreciate the simplicity of encouraging reading at home. You will appreciate this simple way to encourage your students to read more! Ten templates will keep your students reading all year long.

End your Lewis and Clark study with a project that shows off your students' learning! Students will engage in research to gather facts and arrange them in a timeline that chronicles the Corps of Discovery expedition. This project provides an opportunity for students to conduct short research projects and gather/organize information (Common Core ELA-Literacy.W.4/5.7/8). Students will need construction paper or poster paper to complete their timeline, as well as access to information about the Le

We know our students have plenty of opinions, but do they know how to support their opinions with good reasons? These fun Christmas opinion writing prompts give students a chance to practice a key Common Core standard. Included are three Christmas themed prompts and two blank versions. Each theme includes a scaffolded version for a rough draft and a paragraph format for a final draft.

Are you letting the primary grades have all the fun during Fire Safety month? Kids are naturally interested in fire safety, and it is a topic well-worth discussing. Use your intermediate students’ natural interest to help them practice writing quality essays. The first page is intended to be added to your students’ Writer’s Notebook. They can refer back to this resource every time they need to write an essay. There are two pages to help your students organize their thoughts before they begin

This Bible Study was created to meet a need in my own church for Bible-based lessons that are age-appropriate. This unit focuses on Esther 2-7 in four lessons. The lessons are perfect for Sunday School, Christian Education classrooms or home study. The studies are broken down for grades 1-2, grades 3-4, and grades 5-6 and are intended to take about 20-25 minutes. Each lesson includes a coloring sheet and a worksheet for grades 3-6. Worksheets that are not completed in class can be taken home fo

Posting your learning targets can be fast and easy! Each 4th grade Math Common Core standard is written in student-friendly language. Each statement is a half-sheet of paper, which saves space and keeps your classroom from looking cluttered. Print on card stock and laminate for easy use every year! All 4th grade math standards are included in this document: OA, NBT, NF, MD, and G. Headers for each strand are also included to post in your classroom.

Posting your learning targets can be fast and easy! Each fourth grade ELA Common Core standard is written in student-friendly language. Each statement is a half-sheet of paper, which saves space and keeps your classroom from looking cluttered. Print on card stock and laminate for easy use every year! All 4th grade ELA standards are included in this document: RL, RI, RF, SL, W, and L. Headers for each strand are also included to post in your classroom.