Ninja Notes

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How to Teach Students to Analyze Errors in Math

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When students understand how they make mistakes while calculating math equations, they can begin to prevent making them. We teach our students to analyze errors in math. Come see how we use this strategy to help students deepen their math understanding and grab a free activity you can use in your upper elementary math class. We use this activity with our grade four and grade five math students and all of them benefit from it.

Over the years, we’ve had students that don’t want to correct their math errors. Why do students need to know how they made a mistake? For students, it helps them understand where they went wrong so they don’t repeat the errors. For teachers, it helps narrow down how to support or teach the student. But how do you teach students to analyze errors in math?

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Art Projects That Will Last All Year

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If you are an elementary teacher who has to teach their own art lessons, this is the post for you. It comes with a big list of things you need in your elementary classroom along with several free art lessons that don't require special materials. Come take a read to get your art lessons organized for the whole year. Best of all, these are art lessons designed for Canadian students.

Most Canadian elementary teachers teach their own art lessons and most do not have any formal training outside of what they learned while earning their Bachelor of Education. That training can vary from a semester of learning to techniques to an afternoon painting one watercolour painting. Don’t worry, ninjas, we got a collection of art projects that will last all year. No planning needed!

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Books For and About Powerful Women

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Show students some amazing books for Women's History Month. We use these books all year to show students how important studying women's history is. Come check out our book list and some of the reasons these books are so important.

Each year in Canada, we celebrate Women’s History Month in October. This is in line with the International Day of the Girl and observing the anniversary of the Person’s Case, which took place in Canada on October 18, 1929. Women’s History Month was officially declared in 1992 by the Canadian government to celebrate the achievements of Canadian women.

In the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, Women’s History Month is observed in March. This is because many important women’s rights events happen during March in the United States. It took until 1987 for the American government to make it an official observance. International Women’s Day is in March as well.

It doesn’t matter when the month is. Women’s history should be taught as part of your overall history plan. Young girls and boys need to see women represented in all types of jobs and occupations. They all need to be taught that gender does not reflect how a person should be treated, paid, or ruled by laws.

That is why we try to have books that represent women and girls to the students in our classroom.

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How to Create Memorable Remembrance Day Art Projects

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This whole post is full of some our favourite and most beuatiful art projects to use for your Remembrance Day bulletin boards. These go way beyond poppies, so come take a look to see which of these creations your students can use to honour the soliders who have given us Canadians our freedoms.

Each year, we spend a good chunk of time creating Remembrance Day art projects to decorate the halls of our school. Our Remembrance Day assembly often invites community members, so we like to have beautiful art to enjoy. There are always a lot of poppies, but we wanted to create some pieces for upper elementary students that took a little more time and care to create and weren’t just poppies.

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How to Keep Students Accountable During Project Based Learning

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Does project based learning fall apart in your upper elementary classroom because you don't know how to keep kids accountable? Do they get to the end with nothing to show for it? These classroom management strategies will help you get the most out of project based learning in your classroom without the stress and strife. Come take a look and get some practical tools you can use right away.

We love using project based learning as one teaching strategy to engage students. The challenge with this type of learning is keeping students on track. Nothing is worse than getting to a deadline and discovering none of the students are done. So, how do we keep our students accountable during project based learning?

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How to Teach Students to Work in Groups

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Do your students struggle when working together in groups? Do you avoid group work because of it? Have you ever tried teaching students how to work in groups? Look no further. This post is full of ways to teach students to get along and work on projects together in groups. These are tried and true ways we've accomplished productive group work in our upper elementary classroom.

Some students love working in groups, while others prefer to work independently. There are many reasons students should learn to work in groups, but often we find teachers forget to teach the students what that looks like. Students need explicit teaching to understand the different group roles and processes. Here are some activities you can try to help your students get the most out of their group work.

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