Engaging Lessons

Challenge Your Students with Writing Activities

What are you doing in your upper elementary classroom to encourage a love of writing? We've shared some of our favourite writing activities that work whether you're teaching in person or doing distance learning. Come check out the list and get some inspiration for your writing lessons.

There are generally two reactions that students give when it is time for writing activities in the classroom. Half are usually excited and the other half are filled with dread. We’ve been through lots of different writing programs over the years, been to hundreds of hours of professional development to teach writing and have seen the same pattern over and over again.

Most teachers don’t feel like they know how to teach writing. Is that you? Keep reading.

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You’ll Love These Exciting Winter Classroom Activities

by BrainNinjasWP 1 Comment

Come see some of the winter classroom activities we do all winter long (and it's always long up here in Canada). We got winter themed math and language arts. Of course we haven't forgotten about going outside for winter activities and winter lessons. We've even included some winter art projects and a digital escape. You can have so much fun during the winter in your upper elementary classroom.

Winters in Canada are long, so technically you could be doing winter classroom activities for most of the school year and you’d still be on track weather wise.

We tend to use winter classroom activities from November through February, especially around Christmas, since many of our students come from different religious backgrounds. Many do not celebrate Christmas and so everyone deserves to do fun activities that aren’t connected to a specific faith or holiday.

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Energize Your Gym Class With Very Little Equipment

by BrainNinjasWP 1 Comment

Do you have to teach physical education with safety restrictions? Maybe you're trying to teach gym online through distance teaching. We've collected some ideas for activities you can do with your upper elementary class that don't require much equipment. Come check it out.

Are you teaching face to face this year? Do you have to provide some sort of physical education program? Is all your equipment locked up? Are you supposed to be socially distanced? Do you students have to wear masks? What are socially distanced gym activities?

Remember when teaching physical education was so much easier? Remember when you could touch things?

Well, don’t worry.

We’ve been collecting ideas for your socially distanced, equipment-free, mask wearing gym classes. We’ve even found a few ideas for online classes. Let’s get started.

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Remembrance Day Assembly Ideas When You’re Apart

by BrainNinjasWP 3 Comments

Are you trying to plan a Remembrance Day assembly around social distancing requirements? We came up with a way to have your ceremony. Come check out our list of safe and simple Remembrance Day ideas.

Every school across Canada has held a Remembrance Day assembly since the end of the Second World War. In fact, it is written into the School Act in Alberta as a requirement. Schools must have a Remembrance Day assembly on the day closest to November 11. We’ve got some Remembrance Day assembly ideas for you.

What happens when there is a pandemic and it’s no longer safe to gather together in a gym to sing and speak and remember the sacrifices that have been made for the freedom and safety of Canadians?

We’ve been rethinking how we’ll honour our soldiers this year. If you are planning a Remembrance Day assembly, we might have a few ideas for you.

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How to Set Up Your Reading Comprehension Schedule

by BrainNinjasWP 2 Comments

If you use our weekly reading comprehension sets (or maybe you want to learn more), come see how we schedule the first month and get some ideas for how you can use these reading and grammar activities in your classroom whether your instruction happens in the classroom or online.

If you are struggling with reading instruction in your classroom, you’re not alone. Upper elementary teachers are often not trained in how to teach students to read, despite the fact all the students in their classroom are unlikely to be reading at grade level. Setting up a reading comprehension schedule is one way to get on track.

We designed our Weekly Reading Comprehension Skills specifically for our students. We needed reading material for science and social studies that were at the right reading level and needed to teach grammar and reading skills. You might want to read this post about how we came up with them: Add Great Content to Your Literacy Lessons.

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Add Great Content to Your Literacy Lessons

by BrainNinjasWP 2 Comments

There are so many things to teach and just not enough time for it all. We started using content from science and social studies to teach grammar and reading comprehension. Game changer! Come find out what we did and how we did it in our upper elementary classroom literacy lessons (even during distance teaching).

It took fifteen years of teaching and professional development before we felt confident teaching reading to students in upper elementary. Reading is one of the most important skills any teacher is responsible for, but it is often taught by stabbing at strategies until something works-only to find it doesn’t work for the next student. Literacy lessons were hard to design and we didn’t really know where to start.

The most important thing we’ve learned is that reading comprehension skills are also skills related to grammar, word parts, word families and patterns, and writing. The same skills are used in a variety of ways.

If a student missed one of these skills, they trip over it in everything other subject. By the time students get to the end of Grade Three, if they aren’t reading at grade level, they are statistically unlikely to catch up. So, what is a teacher to do?

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Engaging Lessons

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