Teach123: freebies

Showing posts with label freebies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freebies. Show all posts

Leveled Book List, fairy tales, April birthdays of Children's Authors

Hans Christian Andersen's birthday is April 2nd.  He is the author of many fairy tales.  April is the perfect month to integrate fairy tales with your other Spring lessons.

Include The Ugly Duckling with your pond life lessons.  Science and literature is a perfect combination!
  • The Ugly Duckling (retold - original version is a higher reading level) Guided Reading level - G
Read fractured fairy tales and compare texts.  Let students write their own version of one of the fairy tales that you share.
Grab a copy of the Happy Birthday author forms from my February file.  
Martin Waddell was born on April 10th.  Some of his books that you might be familiar with are:
Let's go home little bear would be a good text to compare to Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Eileen Christelow was born on April 22nd.  You probably have a copy or two of one of her Five Little Monkeys books.
Five Little Monkeys play hide-and-seek
Her book, Where's the Big Bad Wolf, would be a nice addition to a fairy tale unit. Police Detective Phineas T. Doggedly is looking for the Big Bad Wolf after the pigs' house of straw and house of sticks was blown down.
Where's the Big Bad Wolf?
Guided Reading level - L

Amy Hest was born on April 28th.  She is the author of books about ducks and weather.  Perfect topics for your April lessons.
Guided Reading level - J
Guided Reading level - I
Looking for new fairy tale ideas?  I just added a fairy tale themed file.  Students read the directions and either color the pictures or draw a picture.  Then write about the picture.

Grab a copy of the FREE April leveled book list.
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Sight Words and FREEBIE

http://www.teach123school.com/2017/12/sight-words-and-freebie.html
Whether your school uses Dolch, Fry, or another list of words, your students will spend part of their day studying sight words. Sight word knowledge impacts students' reading achievement.

Recent research has shown the importance of handwriting. The process of writing engages parts of the brain which enhances memorization.  This is true for all ages which is why college students are encouraged to take notes by hand rather than typing them on their laptop.

Tracing vs. Writing
Should students trace letters?  Tracing letters provides some benefit such as providing a correct model for letter formation. Tracing is good activity when handwriting is the goal. It does not maximize students' learning potential when reading. Students need to write the letters in order to stimulate the different parts of the brain.

Is Handwriting Important?
When I began teaching, handwriting was taught as a teacher directed lesson each day.  This was back in the days of the ball and stick method.  We did not have a longer school day. To utilize our time effectively, we incorporated other skills with our handwriting lesson.  We integrated sight words and facts from our current science or social studies unit into the sentences students were copying.

Why was so much time devoted to handwriting if students already know how to write letters?  Conservatively speaking, a 15 minute per day was 75 minutes per week spent on handwriting instruction is a statement of the importance our school placed on this topic. We noticed that students as a whole scored lower in the written part of the standardized test.  The test scores of bright, capable students did not reflected their knowledge.  Over the course of the school year, teachers became familiar with their students' handwriting.  This familiarity with students' handwriting became like a shorthand.  Teachers and parents could read the students' handwriting, but it was difficult for an outsider to read some of the letters.

The person grading the written portion of the standardized test had a limited time to grade each test.  The grader default was NOT to "assume the best" when he or she could not read the students' handwriting.

Once parents understood that handwriting could impact test scores, they were supportive, which meant neater homework.

Keep in mind this was in the early 1990's when children spent more time writing. Ironically, many schools quit teaching handwriting at the time when children began spending more time on technology and less on writing.

You can read more about how writing enhances learning at the following links:


Integration is key to this! You can easily set up a handwriting center which also includes writing with a simple activity like the picture above or the picture at the top of the post. Students practice tracing letters which is important for learning correct letter formation. Plus, students will write the sight words and sentences.


Make your center more engaging by letting your students use a variety of school supplies such as colored pencil, thin markers, or gel pens.
Would you like to try a free sample?
FREE Sight Words & Digraph


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Back to School Tips


The past few years, I have written several blog posts with tips and freebies to help teachers prepare for Back to School.  I compiled a collection of them so you have them in one handy spot.





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Class Incentives


How do you motivate your students?  Do you use incentives?  I know there is usually a pro-incentive camp and a con-incentive camp.  I've heard different arguments through the years against incentives.  The one I heard mentioned the most was about intrinsic motivation.  Students are supposed to want to do well because they are motivated from within. They are not motivated by outside forces or things like stickers, trips to the treasure chest, praise, or candy.

More often than not, the same colleague who was opposed to rewarding students through the use of stickers, treasure chest, or other extrinsic methods was the same person complaining in the teachers lounge that her principal or parents "doesn't appreciate her".  If asked how she would like her parents or principal to show appreciation, she usually wanted to be recognized for her hard work with a happy note, email, visit or phone call.  Wouldn't these words of affirmation be considered extrinsic motivation?  

Don't we work harder for a principal when we feel like we have a principal that supports us and recognizes our value?  If we are truly intrinsically motivated, we should work to the same high degree whether we have parents and administrators that value us or not.  

What about our paycheck?  How many of us would show up for work everyday if we weren't getting paid?  Isn't a paycheck extrinsic motivation?  We expect students to show up and do their best quality work because that's their job.  Their "paycheck" is their grade. But, when you're young, do you really get the value of a report card? 

As you may have guessed, I fall into the pro-incentive camp.  I enjoy rewarding my students through a variety of methods. 

One of my all time favorite incentive plans was the B.U.G. plan.  You can read more about it HERE plus there are FREE printables for you.




Looking for more tips?  Check out my Behavior Management Pinterest board.  Click on the picture below.



Fern has a few tips about behavior management to share with you, too.  Be sure to hop over to her blog!




Fern and I are adding something new this summer.  Summer is a great time to catch up on your reading.  I love to read teacher blogs and the latest teacher idea books.  Stop by Fern's blog and my blog each week for Tuesday Teacher Tips.  We hope you will share your ideas, too.  

Each week we will choose one person who shared a tip on our blog who will get a $10 shopping trip.  We will announce the winner in the following Tuesday's post.  The winner for today's post will be announced on next week's post (June 17th).


Congratulations Debbie Weaver for sharing your pencil tip on last week's Tuesday Teacher Tip post.  You have won a $10 shopping trip in my store.  Email me (teach123.school@gmail.com) links to the lessons you would like as your prize.  Click HERE if you'd like to read all of the tips shared about classroom management last week.

Do you have an class incentive idea to share?  Be sure to include your email so I can contact you if you're the winner of the $10 shopping trip.


Looking for more ideas?  Check out these!

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Classroom management: Pencils


Pencils are one of those things that are not taught in your undergraduate classes.  Sad, because they can cause so much frustration in your day-to-day life as a teacher.  I thought I would share a few of the things I learned - many times - the hard way!

It was my second year of teaching and I was very nervous.  I had a year under my belt so I knew there was a lot about teaching that I had yet to learn and I knew I didn't know everything.  I was at a new school so I wanted to make a good impression.  I had worked hours on my room and I THOUGHT I had everything ready for my students.  I had just found out that I was going to be the teacher with the oversized class.  I was supposed to have up to 30 first grade students that year with an teacher's assistant. The T.A. wouldn't be hired until weeks later after the final numbers were in so I was on my own for now.  And I started out the year with 32 first graders.  Yes, I was 2 over, but the district assumed a couple of students would move in the first few weeks.  I didn't even have enough desks for all my students at this point.

After the parents left and I took roll, I gave my students an assignment to fill out.  My students began digging through their brand new supplies but very, very, very few of the pencils were sharpened.  And no one had told me that I should have a class set of pencils sharpened and ready to go the first day.  

So, I did what any 2nd year of teaching teacher would do.  I told my students to line up at the pencil sharpener.  This was in the olden days when you had to sharpen your own pencils, not use an electric sharpener.  There were probably 25 kids in line at the sharpener.  You can imagine what that was like!  So, then I took over the cranking of the sharpener, thinking it would speed things along.  And guess who walked in?  It was my principal AND the Superintendent of the district.  Not the best way to make a good impression.

So, my teacher tip is, buy a class set of pencils plus a few extras.  Sharpen them before the first day so you won't make the same mistake that I did.

I have a free parent note for you.  Click on the picture to download it.



Looking for more tips?  Check out my Classroom Management Pinterest board.  Click on the picture below.


Fern has a few tips about pencils to share with you, too.  Be sure to hop over to her blog!




Fern and I are adding something new this summer.  Summer is a great time to catch up on your reading.  I love to read teacher blogs and the latest teacher idea books.  Stop by Fern's blog and my blog each week for Tuesday Teacher Tips.  We hope you will share your ideas, too.  

Each week we will choose one person who shared a tip on our blog who will get a $10 shopping trip.  We will announce the winner in the following Tuesday's post.  The winner for June 3rd post will be announced on June 10th's post.

Do you have a pencil tip to share?  Be sure to include your email so I can contact you if you're the winner of the $10 shopping trip.


Looking for more ideas?  Check out these!
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