Lesson Planning

At some point, most of us have said the words, “I need a brain break…” or some variation of it. Brain breaks are important not only for kids but for adults as well. In life, we often feel like we need to focus on things intently to understand something or finish a project. Sometimes, during a long day at school, there is only so much we can take and only so long we can concentrate on one thing before everyone’s brain gets too tired to keep on. Hence where brain breaks for the classroom come into play.
Brain breaks are a great tool in almost any setting, but especially helpful in the classroom, either with small children up through the high school senior. These …

In the ever-changing educational climate, with its constant adjustments, classroom learning has become much more student-directed. As good teachers know, student-directed learning is interesting and engaging for students. Children learn best when they are enjoying themselves and fully engaged in classroom lessons. By involving students in lesson planning and activities, student-centered learning can be an incentive for students to understand their learning styles. This will help them succeed in their future adult lives. Developing educational objectives is crucial to find effective, student-centered learning goals. All learning goals should be observable and the three M’s-…

Small group instruction refers to teaching concepts, information, and learning strategies to a small group of students. Having fewer students allows the teacher to share a deeper level of opportunity with students across different skill levels. Some of these students may struggle with different learning problems.
Benefits of Small Group Instruction
Teaching students in small groups allows the teacher to give each student more individual attention. This benefits especially those who are struggling in bigger classes. It gives them a better chance of catching up with the rest of the group.
A teacher with a smaller class can give a better formative assessment…

A text features anchor chart is a unique way to teach your students to learn and detect different nonfiction work elements. These charts give students an understanding of what text features to look for, how to find them, and why they are important. A text feature anchor chart can be more useful than a traditional lecture. It gives the reader a visual representation of the things they are looking for within a book or other work.
Creating anchor charts can be an interactive learning process. It is another way to facilitate greater learning and comprehension of the material.
How to Make A Text Features Anchor Chart
You can buy …

Helping our students practice and understand different text features is a key part of imparting reading comprehension. Interactive learning is effective at helping kids retain information and understand concepts better.  One way to make a non-fictional text more exciting is a scavenger hunt. Below you will find a free text features scavenger hunt template. You will also find some ideas of how to set up a fun scavenger hunt in the classroom.
How to Set Up the Text Features Scavenger Hunt
Before you begin your text features scavenger hunt, make sure that your students have a basic understanding of what a text element is and how to find them.
There are tons of free text …

Students retain information a lot better when their lessons are interactive and engaging. Teaching kids about text features and reading comprehension and finding ways to make these lessons interactive is a great way to really assist students during guided reading and nonfiction reading sessions. In this article, you will find fun examples to integrate text feature activities into your classroom.
There are tons of different ways to turn lessons about text features into fun tasks that make teaching nonfiction a lot easier …

In this article, you will find a list of our 10 favorite review games that are fun for students and teachers.
A review game is a fun and unique game to prepare students for tests. There are many different types of review games that students can play. They help students prepare for upcoming tests and better solidify their understanding of the content in class.
A review game aims to find ways to get students to answer questions correctly in a way that doesn’t feel like work. Group activities whereby students work in teams is a great way to foster team-building and help students with test prep.
This type of game can make the time in the classroom more…

Classroom jobs refer to in-class tasks that elementary students partake in to help them learn how to assist others, develop manners, and learn basic responsibility. These tasks make kids feel like they are part of the class. Classroom jobs promote positive social behavior and save a teacher’s time in the process. Later in this article, you will find a list of our favorite classroom jobs.
Jobs in the classroom can take a lot of different forms. They help foster a better classroom community. The teacher can assign them at the beginning of the year or change them during quarters or semesters. These small tasks are a great way to prepare kids for the real world, …

Text features are an essential part of teaching. It is an academic phrase that refers to parts of the text but is not part of its main body. These features are part of the text organizational structure but don’t necessarily appear directly within the nonfiction text.
The most common areas for text features in books are the index, table of contents, captions under pictures or diagrams, glossary terms, labels or features of graphs and charts, and bolded words.
Text features are commonly used in nonfiction work. They are a unique way to help the student understand a key concept or theme. Quality text …

Taking students on field trips is fun and challenging at the same time. Counting heads, booking busses, packing food and water, medical bags, and tracking down that last kid that had to get the snack bar right before leaving is always tiring. However, 2020 has left every kid and every teacher wishing for some normalcy the opportunity to see something new and exciting. The question arises as to how teachers and homeschoolers can make classes fun and exciting. How can we, as teachers, bring that loving field-trip-feeling into the classroom? The answer is virtual field trips for …

Gone are the days where desks are always in rows, where students are essentially seen and not heard, and where the classroom environment was all note taking and PowerPoint presentations. Students don’t learn well that way. But with those environmental factors fading away, teachers are taking on roles that they were never trained in. So, how can teachers create a positive learning environment in the classroom without too much cost?
Teachers have become parents, encouragers, counselors, and the complete scapegoat for much of the failure in education. However, we power on and continue to serve our students with little material and much strategy. With this said, one thing that doesn…

Music is a highly underrated, underutilized tool in the classroom. Not only is it an impactful medium to integrate into your lessons, but music also offers numerous benefits. Whether you are tutoring online or in-person this year, there are several ways to include music in a way that ensures the kids in your classroom enjoy the lesson and continue to stay engaged. Read more below to learn about the benefits of music, how to integrate it into a lesson plan, and suggestions for 20 school-appropriate songs to start your own kid-friendly playlist.
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Flexible seating has only become something prevalent in the classroom within the last decade or so. This concept has flipped the idea of classrooms being stagnant upside down! More and more, teachers are introducing alternative forms of seating in the classroom to accommodate children with different learning styles. One option to integrate this is by using stability balls in the classroom.
Where there are new ideas and new ways of doing things, there will always be new science. Alternative seating methods would be challenged, and ultimately, science prevails in the face of old thinking. Science has shown consistently that students who use stability balls within the …

Modern-day classrooms no longer bring the feeling of being in a stark white sanitarium for a prison cell. Classrooms are encouraged to be bright and colorful, often featured student work, inspiring quotes, and soft lighting. Some schools have painted the entire building according to the science of the best colors for a classroom. That’s right. There is a science to color and how we react to it.
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When thinking about what works best in the classroom, many people go straight for the electronics. What is the latest piece of technology that needs to be used and in all classrooms? However, sometimes we forget that the best pieces of equipment for the classroom have nothing to do with an electronic device like interactive whiteboards, but rather something that students can pick up and work with. This is where the need for a teacher easel comes into play in the classroom.
Parents often see that little chalkboard and whiteboard easel in the aisle at their local store and purchase …

Who doesn’t want a bright and colorful classroom that is also comfortable? But did you ever think that different classroom rugs can also be used for organizational seating and classroom management? Maybe you have a reading corner, and some beanbags or a small sofa and a rug make it all the more comfortable to sit and read. Possibly, you want your classroom to be stylish and cute. Whatever the reason, we have put together a list (in no particular order) of the best classroom rugs to choose from on Amazon…

Organizing your classroom is a must to ensure that students get what they need when they need it – but it’s not always easy. Between the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day classroom activities, it’s hard to make sure that each student has what they need to bring home to their parents. Good to know there are solutions inside the classroom to help you keep your cubbies, boxes, trays, and other school storage needs in line while promoting learning. That’s where classroom mailboxes for students come in!
Teachers, these are a handy way to make sure your students have their new homework…

As technology continues to develop and advance, many industries that might not have found themselves seeking the latest tech are beginning to yearn for it. Schools and offices alike have begun to search for the latest and greatest in new technology. One such example of this development is the desire for smartboards or interactive whiteboards. You’ll often hear school boards questioning whether or not to invest in this new software. But, what’s the difference between smartboards vs interactive whiteboards? Is one better than the other, or are they simply two names for the same …

For new teachers who are just figuring out how to prepare for a school year, professional development goals can help reaching a teaching goal a lot easier. Below you will find 9 professional development goals for teachers for a healthy work-life balance.
9 Professional Development Goals for Teachers to Focus on
1. Avoid Teacher Burnout
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In 2020, teachers all around the United States faced challenges, both inside and outside the classroom environment. Furthermore, teachers had to hold classes inside the classroom and outside the classroom using new technology all at the same time. There is a shining light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Teachers have been using document cameras for close to a decade, and they are well-known pieces of technology within the learning community. In this particular case, we take document cameras and pair it with the new technology of both classroom and remote learning. Below we have …