Ninja Notes

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

Teaching Strategies

How to Teach Research Skills in the Library

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With all the digital resources available, the library seems to be overlooked. Schools are cutting back on librarians and purchasing books. What a waste! There are so many valauble research skills that can be taught in the library. Come read some of the ways we do it.

When you want to do research in your school library do you often find your school just can’t afford the resources (or even the librarian) you need? This is why so often we take our students online to do research. In doing this, we often teach students that libraries are not a valuable resource because nothing could be further from the truth. Help your students build research skills by taking them back to the library and showing them the value.

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How to Leverage Critical Thinking Challenges to Your Advantage

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Students need opportunities to try critical thinking in a fun and safe way. They should be encouraged to explore, rethink, design, test and learn. We try to create lessons and activities that encourage critical thinking and problem solving. Come learn what we do!

What do you do when you want to challenge students, but you also want them to learn? We give them critical thinking challenges. Critical thinking requires many skills-problem solving, collaboration, design thinking, and perseverance. When a critical thinking question is carefully crafted, you can get students to explore learning outcomes while having fun and being engaged in their learning at the same time.

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How to Teach Research Skills With Google Search

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Do your students struggle to find information online? Do they understand how to use search tools, refine their search or use basic keywords? Come learn some of the ways we teach our students to find information online quickly and efficiently.

Do your students suck at researching topics? Do they just copy and paste from Wikipedia? Can they find accurate information on their own or do they all just end up at Wikipedia and cite Google Search as a source? Can they use text features or find an actual book?

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How to Add Some Drama to Your Classroom

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Add some drama to your classroom to bring your lessons to life. Check out these practical ways to spice up lessons with dramatic flair for your students. Add some drama to your upper elementary classroom with these activities and lessons.

A strange thing happened this year. Our students were so dramatic-and by that we mean we started using drama in the classroom as a way to help teach, review and reinforce our learning in every subject area. The kids loved it-even the shy and quiet ones.

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How to Connect Social Studies and Art

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One of the ways to teach social studies is to look at the artwork created by different cultures. Geography also lends itself well to art lessons. Come learn about some of the ways we connect social studies and art in our upper elementary classroom.

In Canada, elementary teachers teach all the subject areas in most schools-except specialties like French or music. This means generalist teachers like us are expected to teach art, even when we aren’t trained artists. Our students have been known to question some of our drawings over the years, so we’ve had to be creative in finding projects we can teach our students that help them learn, but don’t stress us out. We want to share ways to connect social studies and art with all of you.

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How to Differentiate Using Choices

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Sometimes all students need to feel successful is the chance to make a choice so they feel like they have some control. Come learn how to leverage choices and boost your students' engagement.

How would you feel if you knew you were a wonderful writer but the only way you could express yourself was through modern dance? What would you do if you had to recite your report card comments by memory to each and every parent? How would you feel if you were given the choice to write your report cards any way YOU want? (Ours would be invisible!)

Imagine how different your life would be if you were given the choice to do or say certain things.

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