Ninja Notes

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Engaging Lessons

How to Build Math Fact Fluency in Your Classroom

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Getting students to practice their times tables can be difficult. There just isn't time to practice everyday. We wanted to make students more aware of their growth, so we started practicing our math facts and then had students graph their progress. It also encouraged learning about different types of graphs. Come get our math fact fluency graphs and learn how we use these in math class to ecnourage accuracy.

With so many things to do in math class each day, it’s almost impossible to help our students build fluency in math facts because there simply isn’t enough time. Timed drills have been proven to be unsuccessful for the majority of students because rather than testing mathematical knowledge, they test how fast a student thinks or writes. So, we were looking for a way to help students practice their math fact fluency without time constraints. That’s how we came up with our math fact fluency graphs.

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How to Teach Types of Sentences and Fix Punctuation Problems

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When students understand how punctuation can change an author's intent, they get better at using the correct punctuation in their own writing. They also learn to properly express the author's intent and read properly with the correct tone. Come learn about a lesson we use to help students learn about the dfferent types of sentences in our upper elementary language arts class.

Often when the school year starts, we do a few different writing activities to get a sense of how well students can (or cannot) write. One of the things we continually see is the lack of conventions regardless of whether students write by hand or type it into a device. We found that a simple lesson around the different types of sentences changed many of the punctuation problems. Come read about the lesson and get some ideas for your classroom.

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How to Unfold Geometry: Books to Shape Your Unit

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Picture books are a great way to inspire your students in a visual way. Geometry has a lot of new vocabulary which can be challenging for students, so use books to help students learn new words and concepts. Come check out this list of geometry books and questions you can use while reading them with your upper elementary students.

Are you using geometry books in your math classes? Why not? Even simple books can help students visualize concepts. Even books that might be considered “baby books” can be used in your upper elementary math. There is more than one way to use a book. Come read how we do it.

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Unravel the Magic of Fractured Fairy Tale Activities!

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How are you using fairy tales in the classroom? One of our favourite ways is to use fractured fairy tales to help students write their own stores. There are already so many great examples out there. Come read through this list of ideas you can use right away in your upper elementary classroom. Add some magic to your language arts lessons.

Once upon a time, there was a teacher who discovered her students didn’t know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Yes! It’s a true story. It is not a fairy tale. With each year, it is surprising that fewer and fewer students know the traditional fairy tales. It seems that reading classic stories before entering school has become less and less common at home. With the huge selection of stories, teachers just don’t have time to read them all.

Even in upper elementary, one of our favourite units is fairy tales. We start our fairy tale unit by reading some of the old classics. If you have older students who are a little twisty, you can even share the darker versions. We talk about why fairy tales were used by parents and how the stories have changed over time. Come learn about how we use fairy tales in our upper elementary classroom.

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Rich Financial Literacy Lessons to Save For Your Students

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Financial literacy is so much more than counting money, but things change regularly so it can be difficult to keep up. We put together all the information teachers need to add these lessons to their upper elementary classroom. Talk about saving, investing, budgeting and so much more with these activities and all the the background information needed for teachers.

Gone are the days when parents would teach their kids how to use their money. In fact, many adults don’t know how to use their own money. According to a recent poll in Canada, seven of ten adults consider themselves financially literate. However, nearly 65% of Canadians admit to being in debt or living from one paycheck to another. So, what does it really mean to be financially literate, and what does this have to do with elementary education?

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5 Amazing Canadian Women Your Students Should Know About

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You don't have to wait for Women's History Month to learn about amazing Canadian women. There are so many creative, intelligent and trailblazing women in the world. I think many people don't realize how many fascinating women we have in our own country. Come learn about these women that you can add to your lessons any time of year.

You don’t have to wait for Women’s History Month to learn about amazing Canadian women. There are so many creative, intelligent and trailblazing women in the world. I think many people don’t realize how many fascinating women we have in our own country. Come learn about these women that you can add to your lessons any time of year.

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