• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Ninja Notes

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

  • Engaging Lessons
  • Teaching Strategies
  • Classroom Tips
  • Free Resources
  • Shop
  • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy

Teaching Strategies

How to Differentiate Math Lessons

by BrainNinjasWP

What is a teacher to do when there are such vast differences in skill levels during math class? How do you differentiate math lessons? Come learn some of the ways we streamlin differentiation in our upper elementary classroom.

Differentiated instruction is expected of most classroom teachers these days. Long gone are the times when one worksheet could be given to every member of the class and they would all work on that page until every question was done correctly. Since the pandemic began, the once manageable (pause for laughter here) learning gaps between students have gotten even worse. So what is a teacher to do when there are such vast differences in skill levels during math class? How do you differentiate math lessons?

[Read more…] about How to Differentiate Math Lessons

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Differentiated Instruction, Differentiation, digital task cards, interactive math notebooks, Interactive Notebooks, Math, Math Lessons, math manipulatives, Math Worksheets, Mathematics, self-checking task cards, Small Groups, task cards

How to Have Fun With Homonyms

by BrainNinjasWP

Do your students struggle with reading and writing homonyms? We brainstormed a list of games and activities to help students learn and practice the difference between homographs and homophones. We've even included a list of picture books with homonyms in them. Come have a read today!

Do your students struggle with using the correct word when they are writing? Do homophones confuse your students when they are reading? They are not alone. There are more than six thousand different homophones in the English language. No wonder it’s so confusing for students.

Teaching homophones and homographs can be a lot of fun. We’ve collected some of our favourite lessons, books and activities that you can use in your classroom to practice using homonyms. Come read more!

[Read more…] about How to Have Fun With Homonyms

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: English Language Arts, english language learners, Homographs, Homonyms, Homophones, Parts of Speech, Reading, Spelling, Teachers Pay Teachers, Words, Writing

How to Use Collaborative Tasks to Create Classroom Community

by BrainNinjasWP

Collaborative tasks help students learn to work together toward the classroom community they want to achieve. Read more about how we use collaborative tasks to build classroom community and learn more about the types of tasks we use.

One of the most effective classroom management strategies is the classroom community you build with your students. We start our school year with collaborative tasks to help students get to know each other. These activities help students learn to communicate and build trust. Collaborative tasks help students learn to work together toward the classroom community they want to achieve.

Come learn more about how we use collaborative tasks in our classroom.

[Read more…] about How to Use Collaborative Tasks to Create Classroom Community

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Alberta, Back to School, Brain Ninjas Shop, Bulletin Boards, Classroom Community, Classroom Management, Collaborative Posters, Collaborative tasks, Diwali, Eid, Eid Al-Fitr, group work, Indigenous Cultures, Indigenous People of Canada, Posters, Remembrance Day, research, research skills, Teachers Pay Teachers, Teamwork

Make Wellness Lessons a Priority in Your Classroom

by BrainNinjasWP

Wellness skills are life-long skills that benefit everyone. It's important for students to see these skills in action throughout their days if they are going to build them into their entire lives. Come learn how we do that every day.

When the health and wellness curriculum just becomes a list of things to teach, it really misses the mark. If the goal of health and wellness lessons are to teach student life-long ways to take care of themselves, it should be woven throughout their days at school in addition to explicit teaching. We’ve evaluated some of the ways we put our wellness lessons front and centre in our classroom.

[Read more…] about Make Wellness Lessons a Priority in Your Classroom

Filed Under: Engaging Lessons, Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Classroom Community, Classroom Management Strategies, classroom tips, Health, Lesson Plans, our tpt products, TpT Products, Wellness

How to Set the Noise Level in Your Classroom

by BrainNinjasWP

Is the noise level in your classroom driving you up the wall? When noise gets out of hand, it's time for a reset. Come learn what we discovered and how you can make it work for you.

Do you ever feel your classroom just keeps getting louder and louder until you want to take your ears off? As your students get more comfortable, the noise level can get out of hand. Of course, the activity going on in your room can often impact the noise, but your body language and your tone of voice play a bigger role than you may realize. This is a real experiment we tried on our students.

[Read more…] about How to Set the Noise Level in Your Classroom

Filed Under: Classroom Tips, Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Classroom Community, Classroom Management, Classroom Management Strategies, Classroom Noise, Classroom Set Up, classroom tips, Listening Skills, Noise, Noise Level, Professional Learning, Student Teachers, Teacher Stories, Teacher Workload

How to Include Different Types of Writing in Your Classroom

by BrainNinjasWP

Are you looking for ways to include the different types of writing in your classroom each day? Come see how we do it in our upper elementary classroom.

Over the years we’ve attended hundreds of hours of professional development for teaching students to write. Our school has tried out resources from Ruth Guthrie and the 6+ Traits of Writing, Barbara Mariconda and Empowering Writers and even Lucy Calkins and her Writers’ Workshop model. None of these were perfect. Some students did well with some of the lessons and some students didn’t see a lot of growth in their writing. Some students learned to follow a formula but struggled with being creative. How do you include different types of writing in your daily writing?

[Read more…] about How to Include Different Types of Writing in Your Classroom

Filed Under: Engaging Lessons, Teaching Strategies Tagged With: expository writing, Google Apps, Google Classroom, narrative writing, persuasive writing, Poetry, Writing, Writing Activities, Writing Lessons, Writing Prompts, Writing Strategies

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Most Recent

  • Are you looking for ideas to your school's Meet the Teacher Night? The last thing you need is more things added to your to-do list, so we've taken care of it for you. Come find these easy to prep and quick ways to get your classroom ready without much extra effort.
    Simple Meet the Teacher Ideas
    Meet the Teacher Night is a...
  • Stop taking away recess from your students who need it the most. There are better ways to deal with behaviours and help students learn to behave postively without getting into the vicious cycle. Come read the whole post the help you deal with classroom management and save you time in the long run.
    13 Ways to Deal With Behaviours Without Taking Away Recess
    Fortunately, we have worked at schools...
  • Anchor charts are an excellent way to help students reference information as they are learning, but they don't need to be complicated or even pretty. Come learn how we make great anchor charts without any effort.
    Get Great Anchor Charts Without Making Great Anchor Charts
    We make all our anchor charts...

Before Footer

Looking for something?

Footer

Copyright © 2025 · Wellness Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptReject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT