Elementary Explorations

This is a 9 slide PPT presentation that includes 8 journal entries over the classic novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter. The journal entries are for every 3-4 chapters in the book and include 3 questions per slide. Display or print these questions for students to answer in their literature response journal or use them to guide your discussion over the book. Enjoy! Journal Entry Slides: Ch.1-3 Ch.4-6 Ch.7-9 Ch.10-13 Ch.14-17 Ch.18-21 Ch.22-25 Ch.26-30

This 10 slide PPT includes a simple way for students to remember that THEME means "THE MEssage". The author's message of course. It gives them a great visual and includes two practice passages with answer choices. The last slide gives an optional activity where students can work in groups to read passages of your choice and write the theme of each on a piece of paper. The students then place the paper in a bottle to represent "THE MEssage in a bottle." My students LOVED this activity and never f

This PPT introduces the strategy of a "Hand Summary". Students can use the visual of their hand to remember the 5 parts of a story; character & setting, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. There is an example of the hand story structure using the familiar Disney film Aladdin. Then, it gives the students an opportunity to create a summary over their own book.

This is a PowerPoint presentation that introduces how to infer through the use of the trash bag activity as well as reading receipts. (Teacher brings in a trash bag full of items that can be used to have the students infer who the trash belongs to. GREAT "hook" activity!) There is also an example of a receipt and an activity that goes along with the receipts at the end of the presentation to practice making inferences.

This is a personal narrative writing prompt that would be great for the first day or week of school to get to know your kiddos. The prompt asks the students to tell about an experience that allows their teacher to get to know them better.

This is a PPT with seven 4th grade writing prompts (4 narrative and 3 expository prompts) This PPT can be used in its presentation form to have the whole class write, or it can be printed and hung around the room for students to move in groups to discuss their ideas. Great for STAAR review!

This PPT presentation shows the template to create a cinquain and includes an example using a snowflake as the topic. The last slide is used for students to then create their own cinquain poems over an assigned topic.

This PPT is great for the first day/week of school or even parent meetings. It allows you to edit each slide with the information you need. Great template to use that will save you time!

Great way to make your student's writing more elaborative, or as I like to say "colorful". This is a PPT presentation that introduces how to color code writing and includes an example. Students are encouraged to use all of the colors in their writing to strengthen their details. My students use colored pencils to "color up" their writing as a part of their revising process. Colors include: Red- Talking, Hearing, Smelling Yellow- Thinking Green- Action Blue- Seeing