Grammar & Vocabulary Games vocabulary games provide a quality complement to regular classroom work, giving students the opportunity to practice vocabulary concepts in a fun way. This in turn ensures that students acquire new Language Arts skills all the while setting the stage for a lifetime of learning appreciation. As teachers know, the eighth grade vocabulary curriculum is closely linked with not only proficiency in reading comprehension but also proficiency in eighth grade writing. Because vocabulary is the common denominator, parents can play an important role in helping their children meet literacy goals by having them play fun online vocabulary games.
An Original Writer's Notebook Lesson from Corbett For this lesson's notebook page, after we explore Pat Benatar's metaphor in her song "Love is Battlefield," my students create original and interesting metaphors for the topic of love in their writer's notebooks; on a notebook page, each metaphor is established and extended upon with two details. Once students have practiced extending original love metaphors, they are asked to create new metaphors over the month that are more appropriate to their other core content areas: math, science, and social studies. Once a week in Language Arts class, students polish a new metaphor they have created outside of English class, then publish and illustrate it on a designated page in their writer's notebook. After the two-page notebook spread is complete, students can be reminded/prompted to use more metaphors during writing or during processing in the future. In 2012, I added a poetry extension lesson, which you can find below in the write-up. Idea #1...Teaching a Four-Metaphor Poem From day
PYP Visual Art Central Ideas I hate coming up the right wording for with central ideas, especially for Units Outside the Programme Of Inquiry. It's hard when you don't have a team to bounce ideas off of. Anyway, I always wished that there was a Central Idea Bank where a PYP art teacher could go to "steal" a central idea and tweak it to fit their needs. So I did it. Visual Arts Central idea Bank: People use different materials and resources to express feelings, ideas and understanding. Architecture often reflects culture. Cultural traditions can be preserved in artwork, and can help people express their identities. Celebrations and traditions are an important part of our cultural identity. Colors are used and interpreted in a variety of ways around us. The fine arts provide us with the opportunity to reflect on, extend, and enjoy creativity. Noticing and analyzing patterns helps us interpret, explain and respond to our environment. Visual representations facilitate our understanding of the world around us.
LAL Tips for Teachers What have you found? Pictures galore are inspiring teachers and Pinterest is allowing them to save their favorite ideas using a virtual pinboard. Share your teaching-related pinboard with us here so we can: repin your items that we love, follow you if you are a pinning-diva, get some great tips and find materials! Be sure to pin your favorite things from TBA while you're clicking away! (Linkup closed) Click to see TBA's pinboards and follow us! Reading Worksheets Fourth Grade Reading Comprehension Test Collection – 9 Tales of 9 Tails: Use the information in the story to answer the 5 comprehension questions. Answer Key Is Included. Each story is part of an ongoing story of self-discovery and growth of a 9-tailed fox. Traditionally considered an evil fairytale creature, like Europe’s Big Bad Wolf, this is a lighter take on the creature’s folklore. The First TailThe Second TailThe Third TailThe Fourth TailThe Fifth TailThe Sixth TailThe Seventh TailThe Eighth TailThe Last Tail Reading Comprehension Workbooks – Click Here Information: Fourth Grade Reading Comprehension. 4th Grade Reading Comprehension Test Practice. Download
Books Read The Biggest and Brightest Light For Ages: 4-7 Read now More info Wishes Read now More info Popcorn Read now More info Fix It, Fox Read now More info My Twin! Read now More info My Cat Read now More info Spots Read now More info Where Can a Hippo Hide? Read now More info Hop! Read now More info Night Animals Read now More info A Hunt for Clues For Ages: 8-10 Read now More info Moon Stories Read now More info The Tale of Cowboy Roy Read now More info Spring Read now More info Turtles & Tortoises Read now More info Life in the Ocean Read now More info Nuts Read now More info The Four Seasons of the Year For Ages: 0-3 Read now More info Secrets of the Seashore Read now More info Christopher Hogwood Read now More info Little Bird Captures the Moon Read now More info A Mouse Named Small Read now More info Packy & Frip. Read now More info The Hungry Mockingbird Read now More info My Amazing Changing Life Read now More info A Frog's Life Read now More info The Rolling Reading Room Read now More info The Other Wolf Read now More info The Storm
Teaching in the Age of Minecraft Like many 11-year-olds in Texas, Ethan had to build a model of the Alamo as a school project. Often, students make their dioramas out of paper mache or popsicle sticks, but Ethan’s teacher gave him permission to build his project in Minecraft, the popular sandbox software game in which players build structures out of blocks. With his dad’s help, Ethan recorded a video tour of his scale model of the fort, complete with explanatory signs, and posted it on YouTube. A few minutes into the tour, it started raining unexpectedly over Ethan’s diorama, but Ethan noted, "This is exactly what happened during the battle of the Alamo—it rained." To his dad—and, presumably, his teacher—this comment revealed Ethan’s familiarity and knowledge with the subject matter that he might not have had otherwise shown. With more than 18 million downloads to date, Minecraft is the best-selling computer game of all time; the game’s free-form structure has made it popular with kids and adults alike.
Tom March :: Thesis Builder - The Original Persuasive Essay Maker ElectraGuide is a tool that wants to help high school students: find a topic (see example topic questions?)create a good thesis statement (see an example?)and generate an outline (see an example?) Let's get started! What's the topic you want to write about? What's your main opinion on this topic? What's the strongest argument supporting your opinion? What's a second good argument that supports your opinion? What's the main argument against your opinion? What's a possible title for your Essay? Once you are happy with your thesis statement,you can crank out a quicky outline by clicking the button below. inquiry | Inquiring Minds We are about to start author studies here in my Kindergarten class, but first, we took some time to tune in. The notion of tuning in is often misunderstood. Some teachers regard tuning in as initial explorations of a unit’s content or concepts, which is not altogether incorrect- provoking student interest and identifying personal connections is a necessary component of the start of a unit of inquiry in order to help students begin their journey to deep conceptual understandings. Kath Murdoch (the well-known inquiry rock star) suggests the teacher’s primary role during the tuning in phase of inquiry is to “… stimulate, question, record, mediate and, above all, to listen.” With this in mind, I started the process of tuning my students into the concept of authorship via a simple thinking routine, whilst I tuned into them, their prior knowledge, and what may interest them as we learn about various authors and their work. Part one First, we defined what an author is. Part two – It’s OK already.
Tom March :: Thesis Builder - Topic-O-Rama Welcome! This Website offers an ideal pool of 50 prompts to help you brainstorm a topic you're interested in. Topics for essays are often controversial and sometimes hotly debated so look for one that excites your opinions. Instructions Click on the "Topic-O-Rama" button below to jump through 50 ideas. Or else you can click the arrows to move through the ideas in order. When one of the ideas creates sparks: drag across it from the menubar, do an Edit - Copy or Right-Mouse Click > Copyclick the mouse/cursor in the text field below called Your Idea Listthen do Edit - Paste from the menubar or Right-Mouse click. Note: You can also use the text field to write down your own ideas as they come to you. When you've looked at enough ideas and feel confident that you have a good topic for a persuasive essay, click the "I'll Take my Ideas Now, Please" button. What Next?