by Lindsay Flood
Every year or so there is an introduction of a new buzz word among educators. A few from the past few years have been empathy and diversity. The thing with "buzz words" is that they tend to come and go. What does not need to happen with these particular words in our classroom is the latter; they don't need to go.… Continue reading Diverse Picture Books
The Winter Olympics are here again and my kiddos and I have been enjoying not only reading, but watching the Olympics and gearing up for our own version of 6th Grade Winter Olympic Games in a few weeks! As well as reading and writing and reading and writing and reading and writing like the gold… Continue reading Text Analysis Carousel Activity
Lemme just tell you. This lesson is amazing for lots of reasons. It gets your kids up and moving. They want to move. Hence, fidget spinner mania. It gets your kids collaborating with one another. It forces your students to "out smart" one another, in the friendly spirit of academic excellence of course. (Duh.) It forces your… Continue reading Text Analysis Lesson
Determining importance is a critical skill that students must understand before they analyze any element of text, specifically main idea or central idea. For students, choosing details that are important vs. details that are interesting can be difficult. We know this because kiddos are often drawn to the interesting details before recognizing the importance of key details… Continue reading Determining Importance Lessons
If you're a teacher and you've ever taught writing, I need not insert the thoughts that run through your head as you read a piece that you've worked on for 2 weeks only to get something that looks like this: I went to the beach. It was fun. The food was good. I had fun. My… Continue reading Writer’s Workshop for 3rd – 5th Grades