Celebrating our Presidents

Nearing the end of winter and cold, long days, the calendar approaches Presidents’ Day.  The elementary classrooms are full of snow pants, boots, wet mittens, and even wet homework papers from damp backpacks.  What an excellent time to study Washington and Lincoln, and turn a corner in the school year!  These great leaders demonstrated perseverance, and they give us a chance to apply this idea in our classrooms as the calendar days march on and we persevere through the dreary end of winter. Washington and Lincoln exemplify strong values and character.  This is an opportunity to discuss role models who are not always considered in today's world of video games and television. Presidents’ Day presents many other teachable moments as well. You can incorporate the holiday into your classroom by trying some of the following ideas. 

•                Compare/contrast the two Presidents using Venn Diagrams.

•                Study character traits in non-fiction sources.

•                Sequence historical dates.

•                Infer:  What is leadership? What does "Father of our country" mean?

•                Discuss differences between long ago and modern life.

•                Compare the two historical time periods of their presidencies. How were presidential elections different long ago?

•                Make art projects to brighten up the elementary classroom, and take those wilting snowflakes down! Perhaps your students could make silhouettes of each President.

•                Distinguish fact from myth in their lives.

•                Consider and evaluate:  Do the myths also help us?  How?  What do we learn?  Why do those stories persist?

•                Silently read the numerous fiction and non-fiction books about Washington and Lincoln available in many elementary school libraries, putting aside modern fiction and fantasy for awhile.

•                Genre study:  What is historical fiction?  What non-fiction conventions do students notice in the reading?

•                Don't forget a chance for an educational video or two and a little breathing room after the 100th Day, Valentine's Day, and helping children with boots and zippers. Whew!

•                Lincoln studied by firelight and wrote on shovels.  Washington had little formal schooling.  What do today's students think is an educational hardship . . . having the Internet down? This is a chance for some great classroom discussion.

•                General Washington led the war at Valley Forge, and was reluctant to become President, but he sacrificed self for country.  Have the students had to make sacrifices? 

 More books have been written about Lincoln than any other human being (16,000).  This gives us a hint of the importance of Presidents’ Day.

Many years ago, my kindergarten son asked me, "Was that the war with the rags on their feet or the one about slaves?"  History through a child's eyes is fascinating, as elementary educators know.


Teachers Pay Teachers - Wise Owl

Carolyn Wilhelm
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Products


President's Day Powerpoint


President's Day Interactive Poster Activity

Thursday Round Up #4

Welcome to the Thursday Round Up - a great place to find terrific TpT products all on sale for three days! Once again, a great group of resources from sellers we know and love and some new ones too.

This week there were twice as many sellers wanting into the Round Up as we need! But don't worry, if you didn't make it in this week, you'll be in there next week.

Inference Mini Lesson On Character's Feelings Grades 3-8
This 5 page pdf file includes a complete scripted mini lesson for teaching students to infer character’s feelings. The lesson includes an active engagement activity for small groups, a full sized example of the modeled text, and a Character’s Feelings & Emotions poster to hang in your classroom
Lisa Frase

"Hunger Games" Panem to Panem, game similar to Apples to Apples Grades 5 - Adult
You've read the book, you've done the worksheets and activities, now it's time to play the game! Your students will love Panem to Panem, a game based on the popular party Game Apples to Apples®. Everything you need to play is included along with instructions.
Rachel Lynette

Winter Math and Reading Activities Grades PreK-1
46 pages of fun, engaging math and reading activities featuring snowmen and penguins. There is an original beginning reading book with a matching printable book, a penguin rhyming words match, snowman beginning addition, counting 1-25, word families, ending sounds, sight words, and more! Several games come with matching cut-and-glue activity sheets.
Teacher Tam

Reading Informational Materials PPT Grades 7-12
This powerpoint presentation provides an overview of how to read informational materials including consumer documents, workplace documents, and functional documents. Specific examples and features of informational documents are included. Works with Reading Comprehension 2.1 and 2.7, understanding and analyzing functional and technical documents.
Melissa Soeltz

Packet of New Practice Exercises for Simple Steps to Sentence Grades 7-adult
An entirely new set of exercises, tests, and writing connection pages to be used in conjunction with the notes, students lesson plans, and overhead projection pages in Simple Steps to Sentence Sense. Now you can use the book with more than one grade level.
Charlene Tess

Valentine's Day Coordinate Graphing Grades 3-5
Teach or review coordinate graphing with 3 "sweet" Valentine's Day pictures.  Students can complete an easy Hershey kiss, a cute flowering heart, or a tricky cupid.  You decide the challenge level by choosing the picture to give each student. These make a nice display in the hallway when they are finished.  Marked down especially for the holiday.
techedoutteacher

Valentine's Activities for Primary Students: math, literacy and more! Grades 1-3
A 50+ page collection of activities for the week surrounding Valentine's Day. Activities are well-suited to learning centers, whole-class activities or partner-based learning and cover a range of math and balanced literacy skills.
Shelley Gray

Valentine's Math:  Counting Back Interactive Slides and Printable Game Grade 1
This is an interactive Valentine's Day theme lesson which has a focus on counting back.  The slides ask questions such as, "What are the next four numbers counting back by 4's from 39?"  The printable game may be played by partners.
Wise Owl Factory

Idioms and cloze activity with George Washington Grades 3-7
With the help of America's first President, your students will have a ""whale of a time"" learning idioms and understanding their meanings. This 23 slide presentation discusses what an idiom is, and gives 20 examples of commonly used idioms. You'll laugh along with your students in a memorable presentation, full of animated graphics!
Teachers Unleashed

Area of Irregular Figures: Using Rectangles math resource 10-pg packet Grades 4-6
10-page teacher resource packet on finding areas of irregular shapes (such as L-shaped and U-shaped figures) using rectangles (no triangles). Step-by-step explanations and examples of strategies for solving problems by adding smaller areas inside the figure or by subtracting missing pieces from a larger rectangle. Includes a 3-page section to help teach how to find and label missing dimensions, by adding and subtracting other labeled sides.
Patrick Shaffer

21 Literature Worksheets for ANY Book Grades 1-5
20% off my best selling product!!! 21 quality graphic organizers that can be used with any picture book or short novel.
tchrBrowne

Read Across America Day Treasure Hunt Grades 2-5
This is a four page document that is guaranteed to put some fun into reading for Read Across America Day or any day in school. This Treasure Hunt activity will have students searching for authors, genres of books, lengths of books, and other fun topics. Watch them scurry around your room trying to get the treasure (which can simply be candy or the award that is attached as well). Have fun with this creative activity!
Wise Guys

Mitosis and Meiosis (Cell Growth and Division) Powerpoint and Notes Grades 7-12
This powerpoint is on Mitosis and Meiosis (Cell Growth and Division). It consists of 55 slides that are colorful, informative and visually stimulating. You will also receive a teacher set of notes and a student set of notes.  Students will fill in their outline of notes as the powerpoint is being presented.
Science Stuff

Exercises for the Classroom Grades K-8
 I created this Smartboard activity so that my students can get up and move around for a minute or two before moving on to the next subject. Gym or no gym, doing a few exercises is motivating. There is a scrolling banner across the top to tell the students what to do for one minute, and there is a timer to keep track.
dijobaker

Detecting Capital Letters Center Grades 2-4
Your students will be ready to solve the case of the missing capital letters! Included in this purchase are 24 magnifying glasses, which have text typed in them that are missing capital letters (ex: mrs. caffelle, washington d.c.). There is an included recording sheet to track "case notes" aka words with capital letters, and all you need to include is the "case envelope"- a manilla folder to put the pieces in.
BeverlyTeacher

Seven Greatest Classroom Irritations for Teachers with Solutions All Grade Levels
This short, four page resource offers a number of practical ideas on how to eliminate those day-after-day aggravating problems that keep resurfacing in your classroom. Seven problems are discussed including Children Who Are Always at Your Desk and Use of the Pencil Sharpener. Underneath each topic, a number of doable solutions are recommended.
scipi

15 Spanish 1 Projects Grades 7-12
Group Projects, Individual Projects, Projects for the Main Themes of all Spanish I textbooks and classes.. 24 pages including rubrics for easy grading and clear expectations for a majority of the projects. Themes include Food, Health, Vocab, Clothing, Family, House, and more!
Justin-B

Author's Purpose:  Resources for Language Arts Grades 5-10
This 30 page resource contains various activities for you to use while teaching the literary element of Author's Purpose (to persuade, to inform, and to entertain). This resource includes: posters, bookmarks, activity ideas, reading response prompts, internet resources, book list, an anchor chart, and two rubrics.  It also contains 7 graphic organizers for reading, 3 different writing activities (Pizza Purpose, Writing a Newspaper Page, and Creating a Menu), and an oral communication activity.
Runde's Room

Graphing Booklet- Sports Theme Grades 2-5
Sports Graphing Booklet: Create a tally chart, pictograph, line plot, bar graph, horizontal bar graph, and answer questions based on frequency chart data about sports. I have other themes of the graphing booklet as well.
Beverlyteacher

Kate Chopin Mini-Unit Grade 7-12
This mini-unit is a 3 day student-centered activity set for Kate Chopin. Student handouts are provided for each day and all reading materisls are provided with online links. Includes a biography scavenger hunt, a timeline activity, a short essay writing prompt, a reading guide, and wrap-up questions for review.  Allow your students to learn to love reading and the great authors of our past!
Michele Luck

That's it for this week. If you submitted a product and it isn't here, it means that you didn't turn in your form soon enough to make this week's Round Up. Look for your product in next week's Round Up. We have several products ready to go for next week, but there is still room for more. If you would like your product to be included, just fill out this super easy, handy-dandy form. All TpT sellers are welcome to participate.

Poll Results

We are all good teachers (or at least we think we are!)

What grade would you give yourself as a teacher?

This week's poll is about year-round school. If you want to comment on the poll, this post is a great place to do that.

Valentine's Day Learning

You know it’s February when you walk through the halls at school amidst a sea of pink and red:  red ladybugs with little hearts, tissue paper hearts on windows, and hand-written poems on pink hearts backed by doilies.  You know it’s February when you head to the supply room and find the pink and red paper completely cleared out.  You know it’s February when the custodian doesn’t dare throw out a box, knowing they will be needed for Valentine mailboxes (covered, of course, in pink and red paper).

         Every Valentine’s Day I watch in amazement as the piles on my students’ desks grow with  cards, pink pencils with heart erasers, sugar cookie hearts with pink frosting, red cinnamon hearts (my personal favourite), and chocolates, chocolates, chocolates.  Is it generous?  Yes.  Is it appreciated by the students at the time?  You bet.  Is it necessary? Absolutely not.

         What is absolutely necessary in my class is for all my students to know they are thought of and cared about every single day.  They don’t need cards and candies to tell them this, but they do need to be told.  What’s more, it’s our job as teachers to make sure they are told.  I try to tell my students every day, but on Valentine’s Day, I show them too.  About a week beforehand, I hand out a class list (enlarged onto 11 x 17 paper) to every student.  Each student must write 2 sentences (the more specific the better) about every student—a great opportunity for a mini-lesson about writing with details or making rich sentences.  I take the completed lists and turn the sentences into  a paragraph for each student.  I then go to www.wordle.net, click ‘create’, and copy and paste the paragraph into the box.  (Hint:  Write the student’s name down an extra 5 – 10 times to ensure it’s the largest word on the page. You can also repeat any key words you would like to emphasize to make them larger.)  When I’m satisfied with the Wordle, I print it.  I also print and glue the original paragraph to the back of the Wordle.  I laminate the final products before giving them to the students.  It is a bit of extra work, but no more so than baking and icing two dozen cookie hearts with pink icing, and the final product means so much more to the students. It’s a keepsake that students can treasure for years to come. 

         Valentine’s Day is about caring.  As teachers, we care every moment of every day – it’s our job, and we love it!  But on Valentine’s Day, take an extra minute or two to make sure your students know just how much you care. 

Jennifer Runde  (Runde’s Room)

mmm, chocolates

Additional products for Valentine's Day


Valentine's Day Heart Art Grid

Valentine's Day Vowel Sorting Activity

 Valentine's Day Activities Packet

Math and Literacy Fun for Valentine's Day

8 Colorful Bookmarks for Valentine's Day

1st and 2nd grade Valentine's Addition Centers

Valentine Animated Poetry Project

Valentine's Day Heart Art

Thursday Round Up #3

So many reasons to be excited about this Round Up!  There are lots of terrific Valentine's Day Activities as well as many other high-quality resources - all on sale till Saturday evening! The Round Up is becoming more popular as more and more buyers and sellers learn about this terrific opportunity. This week there was an overflow of product submissions. We have lots of new sellers this week, too! Great to see so many new "faces."

So, take a peek and if you find something you can use, be sure and leave some feedback for the seller. We sellers love to hear from happy customers!

Valentine's Day Stations: Fun Activities for Students grades 3-6
Here are some great activities that you can make into kid friendly stations for a fun Valentine's Day in your classroom!
Wise Guys

U.S. History Bingo Game grades 3-12
This game won the Creative Child's Game of the Year for educational products!  I created this game as a way to provide students with a fun way to learn about the important people of American History. 
Rosshalde Pak

Valentine's Day Math Smartboard Lesson grades 1-3
This 10-slide Smartboard lesson can be used on Valentine's Day to help practice and reinforce important math concepts. It includes place value, even and odd, graphing, plane shapes, 3D shapes, money, greater than and less than, time, probability, and fractions.
dijobaker

Tic-Tac-Toe Literature Response Choice Grids for Any Book! grades 3-8
Here are 45 literature response activities arranged in five grids of nine activities each to make a Tic-Tac-Toe format. The Tic-Tac-Toe format forces students to make choices, weighing one activity against another. . These can be used with any chapter book and are great for independent reading.
Rachel Lynette

Valentine's Math Activities and Center Board grades 3-5
Have fun and learn on Valentine's Day with these 9 different Valentines themed math activities and centers grid. Product includes teacher directions, centers grid, recording sheets, and student directions for all 9 activities. Skills and concepts practiced are: problem solving, computation, measurement, geometry, data analysis, reading and writing numbers, and more.
ashleigh

Main Idea and Detail Game: Hey Whats the Big Idea grades 1-12
This is a fabulously fun word game that helps strengthen language processing, word retrieval, and organizational abilities. It develops students’ understanding of main ideas and details – a fundamental of reading and writing! This game offers three levels of difficulty and can be played individually, cooperatively or competitively.
erica77

Valentine's Day: El Dia de San Valentin! grades 4-12
Celebrate Valentine's Day in your Spanish classes with an assortment of activities.  This packet includes: Songs, Vocabulary Lists, Poetry, Word Searches and Grammar activities.
LaProfesora

Research Skills - Templates and Organizers to Use for ANY subject and ANY project! Grades 5-12
A great set of graphic organizers and templates to use with students while they work through a research project. Includes brainstorming sheets, note-taking templates and more! Detailed lesson plan and examples included.  Can be used with any subject and any type of assignment - paper, poster, pamphlet etc.
Addie Williams

Tuck Everlasting: 6 Vocabulary Crosswords by sections grades 4-6
This is one of over 550 word puzzles I have created based on classroom books of all levels--over 100 titles! The various puzzle types challenge students' reading, vocabulary, and spelling skills, as well as their general knowledge of the English language. Fun teaching--and learning!
Pegi Bevins

Heart Quips: A Problem Solving Activity for February grades 5-9
Heart Quips is a 13 page handout (with answers) that features 22 pictures of hearts which represent different heart expressions. (e.g. “From the bottom of my heart”). Each day, leading up to Valentine’s Day, put up one Heart Quip as a student focus activity, OR, put two or three up at one time or all of them up at the same time. Students are to figure out which heart expression the Heart Quip represents. It can be fun, but also a very challenging Valentine's Day activity!
scipi

French Oral Practice - Prepositions grades 2-10
This is a listen and repeat Powerpoint containing 30 slides for either French Second Language classes in the older grades or for French Immersion students in the younger grades.  It focuses on using prepositions and house vocabulary.  Also included are worksheets to consolidate the language learned in this Powerpoint.
Ms. Joanne

Biology Unit on CD: Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), RNA, Protein Synthesis grades 8-12
This is an entire Biology unit that will be shipped to you on a CD.  This unit has everything that a Biology teacher needs to teach a unit on DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis to Biology I students. You will receive:  A 69 slide Powerpoint Presentation, Teacher Notes, Student Notes to be filled in as the powerpoint is presented, 4 Homework Assignments, 4 Quizzes, 2 Labs, 3 Jeopardy Review Games, 2 Crossword Puzzles, Study Guide, and 3 Unit Tests. 
Science Stuff

Rainbow Crow Lesson, Centers, Prinable Pages for K-1
"RAINBOW CROW is a wonderful Lenape story about why crow has a hoarse voice and black feathers.  Crow was selfless and helps others in the story.  Word sort and poetry center printable pages.
Wise Owl

Myth of the Dreamcatcher Art Project grades 5-9
This is a common art project that the students really enjoyed. Students listen to the ""Myth of the Dreamcatcher"" and then make a dreamcatcher for themselves. This download includes the lesson plan, myth read aloud (written by me), assignment sheet and listening rubric.
Terry-Lynn McLeod

A Lesson Plan for Teachers, New and Old! Grades K-12
To be a teacher in today's classroom it takes patience, skill, knowledge, and most importantly, HUMOR!  This 82 page downloadable version of A Lesson Plan for Teachers will guide you through some of the pitfalls of teaching with specific direction and a touch of humor.  It's a must for all teachers in today's classrooms. 
Michele Luck

Valentine Homophone Heart Game grades 2-5
This Valentine's day themed activity is a twist on Old Maid matching homophone pairs... or pears? There are 36 pairs of homophone words, CUPID cards (Old Maid) and extra hearts to customize your game.
Beverlyteacher

Newspaper Template for School Newspaper / Newspaper Club  grades 4-8
A Microsoft word file that you can use as a template for your school newspaper or classroom letter. 4 pages. I used this template when I supervised the newspaper club. You can even use as a project when students write a mock newspaper as part of a journalism or language arts class.
Justin-B

SMART Soil Sleuths for grades 2-5
Take your students on a fact finding mission to learn all about soil layers, components, organic and mineral matter, vocabulary and more! External links and teacher notes help clarify concepts and aid student comprehension.
SunnyDays

Chris Van Allsburg Author Study for grades 2-6
This file includes 23 pages of photographs, anchor chart headings, fluency passages, and response sheets to launch a Chris Van Allsburg Author Study.
Mrs. Nickerson

Valentine's Day Activities Pack for Elementary Grades grades K-3
Your students will love these fun and easy-to-use activities during your Valentine's Day festivities or centers. Included in this packet are 5 Valentine's Day activities: a word search, a dot-to-dot puzzle, a word hunt, a scrambled word puzzle, and a do-it-yourself Valentine card.
 John Blake

Reading Comprehension Strategy Binder grades 5-10
This HUGE 183 page resource contains everything you need to support your students’ learning of the reading comprehension strategies (Asking Questions, Determining Importance, Inferring, Making Connections, Summarizing, Synthesizing, and Visualizing).  Each section includes posters, bookmarks, activity ideas, reader response prompts, a variety of graphic organizers, and a rubric.
Runde's Room

That's it for this week. If you submitted a product and it isn't here, it means that you didn't turn in your form soon enough to make this week's Round Up. Look for your product in next week's Round Up. We have several products ready to go for next week, but there is still room for more. If you would like your product to be included, just fill out this super easy, handy-dandy form. All TpT sellers are welcome to participate.

Poll Results

Here are the results from our first poll. Clearly, smaller class sizes would really help. A new poll is up for you to vote in!

Which of these would most help you as a teacher?

Check out this Sqworl

What is a Sqworl? It is a great way to get a quick view of a lot of webpages all at once. Here is a sqworl of TpT Teacher blog pages  from the author of  Kindergarten Works.