Back to School Season is here! Click to see my favorite first week of school activity.
The biography unit is one of my favorite reading units of the year! This post will highlight an easy biography poem activity that can be used with any historical figure. To introduce biographies, I use the text Gertrude Ederle: America’s Champion Swimmer. Who is Gertrude Ederle? This text is a biography about the life of…
Ready to jump into fraction instruction? These Valentine math fraction activities are sure to help your students deepen their fraction knowledge. These are some of my favorite lessons! Fraction Representations/3D Heart Mobile The perfect Valentine craft! One big problem with fractions is that students do not understand what they mean. As third grade math teachers, this…
Teaching fractions to third graders used to terrify me. Fractions are a hard math concept for a 9 year old. In fact, many adults have trouble with them. Throughout my years of teaching, I have learned to be more thorough with my fraction instruction. I have learned to go slow and help my students understand…
Sled Dog Racing Informational Text Structure Book I use this book during my dogsledding unit to teach my third graders to notice the differences between the 5 different informational text structures. Students complete the graphic organizers that accompany each passage. The short passages provide my students with more knowledge about dog sledding such as how…
Looking for a holiday activity that will keep your students engaged and focused on key reading skills? This reading activity is my GO TO during this busy holiday season. I can keep my students rigorously engaged in the reading standards, while also sneaking in some holiday fun! I help my students create an Informational Text…
This holiday writing activity will help your students stop and think about all of the things that bring them joy. We often talk about JOY during the holiday season. But we don’t always take the time to teach students what this means. Step 1: Brainstorming To help my students get started thinking about this, I…
Holiday fun doesn’t have to be reserved for K-2. Check out these FREE Holiday activities that you can print and use in your classroom for 3rd-5th graders. If you like something you download, be sure to leave feedback and say THANK YOU to the creator. Follow their store so you won’t miss out on future…
The holidays are my favorite time to be a teacher. Nothing beats the excitement of an elementary school at Christmas time. Holiday spirit is in the air and you can’t help but smile. I like celebrating the holidays with my students, but I also value rigorous instruction. I want to feel like I am still…
Like many other teachers, I use a composition notebook to help my students create a reference for our reading class. In this post I will explain how I use a third grade reading interactive notebook to help boost my students’ comprehension skills. Interactive notebooks are composition books where students can store their learning and thoughts…
Use the mentor text, Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg, to help students understand how to make inferences.