Valerie's Core Classroom

Teach your students how to engage in academic discourse using these CCSS aligned sentence starters. The download includes sentence starter classroom posters as well as printable cards for individual students. Sentence starters provide students the framework needed to participate in collegiate discussions. This resource will change your classroom discussions for the better!

This Google Slide presentation activity was made to practice identifying plot elements while incorporating creative writing opportunities. This source is great for remote teaching and can easily be edited or used as is for any text or story. Teachers can assign a text for students to work with or let students self-select a story. First, the students work on identifying plot elements of the story using strategies (see a list below). Then, students revise the climax and resolution to alter the end

This presentation was made to directly teach the elements of plot using Pear Deck to make the slides interactive. While teaching remotely, I've used this in lieu of a direct instruction lesson to review elements of plot with my students. In order for the presentation to work as designed, you must have a Pear Deck account and add the Add-On extension for Pear Deck in Google Slides. With Pear Deck, you can schedule a lesson and teach a live lesson to your students OR you can start a session and le

This editable Google Slides presentation was made to directly teach the elements of plot using Pear Deck to make the slides interactive. While teaching remotely, I've used this in lieu of a direct instruction lessons to review elements of plot with my students. In order for the presentation to work as designed, you must have a Pear Deck account and add the Add-On extension for Pear Deck in Google Slides. With Pear Deck, you can schedule a lesson and teach a live lesson to your students OR you ca

This presentation was made to directly teach and practice using strategies to identify the elements of plot. The presentation includes Pear Deck slides to make the lesson interactive and allow teachers a way to formatively assess student understanding. While teaching remotely, I've used this in lieu of an in-class lesson to practice strategies for finding plot elements with my students. In order for the presentation to work as designed, you must have a Pear Deck account and add the Add-On extens

This presentation asks students to choose a story from something they've read or watched to practice identifying plot elements. While teaching remotely, I've used this in lieu of a direct instruction lesson to review elements of plot with my students. Teachers can edit the slides to scaffold for students as needed. This is part of a distance learning unit on plot elements and utilizes the terms and strategies introduced in the unit. Check my store for the other products in this unit and/or the u

This Google Slide presentation was made to help students practice identifying plot elements while analyzing any text. This is an especially helpful tool for remote learning. This resource is interactive and EDITABLE allowing you to add or take-away to better suit your students' needs. This resource is part of a distance learning, digital unit on plot elements. Check my store for the other products in this unit and/or the unit bundle. Identifying Plot Elements Practice for Any Text includes dire

Use these posters and coupons to reward your students without spending a penny! These rewards support any classroom management style or system. These free rewards are both motivating and fun for students to collect!

The opportunities to creatively incorporate error analysis into your classroom are endless! Use this resource as a printable activity or assign digitally through Google Classroom! This is an adapted version of My Favorite “No” (a warmup activity for math error analysis). Put simply, My Favorite "Almost" walk students through analyzing a prompt, identifying strategies to approach the prompt, and evaluating a sample response to the prompt. The response used is "almost" an example or proficiency,

This write-around activity engages student in close reading, annotating text, citing evidence, examining word choice, and written discourse. Students work in groups to silently participate in the group activity. Students rotate the activities around in their groups. This resource provides teachers with a quick and simple assessment of students comprehension and depth of understanding.

Great resource for back to school, end of the year, or any time in between! These posters contain mottos to reinforce a growth-mindset based on the work by Carol S. Dweck, PhD. In addition, three activities are included that guide students through identifying what these mottos "look like" in practice. Specifically, students can use the pages to reflect on a challenge they're experiencing and create a plan of action. This resource also contains an activity that helps students track their progres

This flowchart covers the impact of agriculture on societies. Students write short summaries with supporting details. Each summary is illustrated. I've used this flowchart with my students for a few years now. It serves as a great assessment to check my students' understanding of the basic beginnings of civilization.

As I start to build my own classroom library, I felt inspired to label my book bins with genres and titles familiar to my middle school students. The genre labels include three young adult exemplars of each genre. The product contains the following genres: Nonfiction Fiction Fantasy Science Fiction Historical Fiction Realistic Fiction Mystery Poetry Mythology Horror Autobiography/Biography

Use this Star Wars themed handout to help students with the basics for formatting documents. I usually require my students format all assignments using APA and MLA basics (12 pt. font, Times or Arial, etc.) This handout includes screenshots that help students with alignment and indenting paragraphs using the TAB key. Check my blog for more on how this handout works in my classroom. http://valeriescoreclassrm.wixsite.com/coreclassroom

Restorative conferences are a very effective in guiding student to reflect on their behaviors and learn how to repair harmed relationships. We've all witnessed students having disagreements in our classrooms. Too often, students lack the skills (or simply don't know it's possible) to repair the damage done. Restorative conferences help to "restore" the relationship by focusing on the actions taking and the impact of those actions. I also like to ask students to revise their actions and think abo

Reach out and connect with families before the school year begins! This template helps you make a beautiful, memorable, and positive first impression with your students and families. This template is editable in Google Slides, so you can customize the content to meet your needs. It includes: Space for personalization of each letter to a studentTemplate for message to parents/guardiansTemplate for message to studentsScratch off space (insert your picture) for students to scratch off and "meet' th

This graphic organizer is Common Core State Standards aligned. The printable is designed to use with W.A.C. (Word Structure, Apposition, and Context Clues) vocabulary strategies. Using the graphic organizer, students will have to cite evidence, and use vocabulary strategies to determine the meaning. This is a great resource to use with word lists provided by teachers, but also works with independent student word study lists.