Eric Jayne

Students don't use the dictionary as often as they should. Part of the reason, I believe, is because they don't know how and they don't really know what's in there. I use this activity to force students to get into the dictionary and find out all that it has to offer. It's also a great activity to meet CCSS L.4.4.c or L.5.4.c. I start the activity with some basic instruction about guide words, pronunciation guides, and what is meant by parts of speech. I then provide students with a dictio

This interjections worksheet asks students to identify and correctly punctuate interjections. The sentences combine a variety of interjections, including ones that require an exclamation mark and ones that require a comma after them.

I made this activity to help students understand physical changes to matter. Students rotate through 6 stations physically changing matter using basic items found in the classroom. The idea is for this to be a discovery lesson where students discover what a physical change is and develop a definition of physical change. I teach this after teaching them about physical properties and before teaching about chemical change and chemical properties. This lesson contains teacher and student directi

This is a creative way for students to practice organizing the details of their writing in sequential order. I use this activity when I teach students about text structure. After they've explored different texts that are organized sequentially, I set up this activity so they can practice organizing their own writing in sequence. Students will be writing about an event that happens in their classroom - a visit from a creature - which you will create. When the students are out of the room,

This compound sentences quiz assesses students understanding that a compound sentence is made of more than one simple sentence combined using a coordinating conjunction (and a comma). Students are required to identify whether a sentence is a compound sentence or not, and they are also asked to correctly punctuate the use of conjunctions.

This file includes both a written book report rubric and a book talk rubric. Both rubrics are out of 21 points and focus on the elements of genre, characters, setting, and plot. There are also sections for a critique and on the appearance and/or presentation.

I made this contract to try to hold students accountable for their behavior. It contains a list of daily responsibilities that seem to be typical for disorganized, struggling students. Responsibilities include writing down assignments in their planner, putting papers where they belong, and following directions. I find that getting down your expectations is a good first step in holding students accountable for their behaviors, and this contract serves that purpose.

This is a brochure that outgoing students can make for incoming students (the following year) to read and learn about the grade they're entering. The brochure has areas for students to share what they learned in math, science, social studies, reading, and writing. There are also sections to describe fun activities students might do and advice that the outgoing student has. The brochure can be tri-folded, and students can design a cover, like "Welcome to ___ Grade!" I use this activity during

This appositives quiz assesses students understanding of appositives. Students are asked to insert appositives into a sentence using correct punctuation and to correctly punctuate appositives that are already in given sentences.

The common core standards place an increased focus on writing in response to reading. Students need to incorporate ideas from texts with their own ideas to answer questions related to the text. One way to assist students with this task is through the A.C.E. strategy (Answering the Question, Citing Information from the Text, and Explaining and/or Extending their Thinking). This organizer helps students focus on the individual components of A.C.E. It helps them see which areas they need to wor

This is, by far, the number one thing that students mention when talking about what they enjoy about my classroom. This is a comprehensive set of documents that includes everything you need to start your own classroom economy. Includes reports, jobs, money template, and several other helpful resources. In this economy, all students have jobs, earn a salary, pay rent for their desks, and have access to a class bank and store. The currency is called a Scholar. Students are highly motivate

Students need to be taught how to take notes. Many of them find note-taking frustrating because they don't know how to do it efficiently and effectively. I made this sheet of note-taking tips as a student resource to go along with my note-taking instruction.

This is a packet I made a few years ago for a unit on persuasion. The packet is designed to be all-inclusive as it takes students through what is persuasion, opinion statements, reasons, and transition words. There are worksheets practicing each skill as a reader and a writer, and the packet culminates with a persuasive letter assignment and a group persuasive commercial assignment. The packet contains hand-outs, note sheets, worksheets, rubrics, and even a spot to write their persuasive lett

This packet contains everything needed to successfully assign book reports to intermediate students. It contains both a book report and a book talk rubric, both of which focus on the following elements: genre, characters, setting, plot, and critique. There are practice sheets for each of those elements so students can work on their report in pieces that get submitted to the teacher for approval. Lastly, there is an outline and an organizer to help students organize their ideas.

This activity is to designed for students to write about their summer vacations. I use it as a first day/week activity to get students writing. It's intended to be a chance for them to talk about their summers and to practice writing. When students are finished, this makes a nice early item to display on bulletin boards.

I made this sheet to assess students' understanding of place value. The different math concepts measured by this quiz include base-ten theory (10 times greater & less, etc.), place value, value, comparing numbers, and reading and writing numbers in word form, expanded form, and standard form. There are 18 questions on the quiz, and I score it out of 20 points.

I made this PowerPoint to introduce students to polygons so that I could focus on quadrilaterals. This is 16-slide show that is intended to be a teaching tool that students can take notes from and a teacher can lead a discussion from. The slides give definitions and examples of polygons, including the different types of quadrilaterals.

This quiz is designed to assess students' understanding of subject and verb agreement in a sentence. There are 11 multiple-choice questions with both singular and compound subjects.

I use this presentation to introduce my students to the commutative, distributive, and associative properties of operations. The lesson starts with defining the terms commute, distribute, and associate. From there it connects those definitions to the properties and gives examples of each property. The show ends with some sample problems that students are encouraged to do mentally by using the properties. You should run this file as a show, as there are custom animations in it.

In this activity, students will be planning a Halloween party for their class. They will need to "purchase" supplies for their party using a budget that you set. I set a budget that forces the students to make budget choices, i.e., I don't give them enough to buy everything they want. Students will work in partners to plan their party, making decisions based on their budget constraints. Students are also asked to perform some data analysis on the party choices. This is a good activity to do