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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.
[Read more…] about How to Unfold Geometry: Books to Shape Your Unit
We love to read to our students, but they are in grades four and five, so we try to avoid books about romance when we look for Valentine’s Day books, but sometimes it just sneaks in. Quite often, the books are too young for our students, but when that happens, we encourage our students to read to their younger buddies. Come read through this list of Valentine’s Day books we’ve collected over the years.
[Read more…] about Our Favourite Books to Use on Valentine’s Day
It seems that there is less and less time for reading aloud to your students, but if you use that read-aloud to engage your readers, you can teach so many different skills. Kids (and adults) of all ages love to be read to. If that weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be a thriving industry of audiobooks.
Administrators want teachers to focus their time on literacy and numeracy. Things like read-alouds seem like “entertainment,” but there is so much value in reading aloud to children. Come learn how we turn every read-aloud into a lesson (without our students even knowing it).
[Read more…] about 15 Ways to Engage Readers During Your Read-Aloud
Read-aloud novels are a huge part of our daily literacy routine. We built in fifteen minutes each day where one of us reads from a novel to our students. It is important (even at the higher grades) to model fluency, self-monitoring, and questioning techniques when reading aloud to students. We include these minutes in our weekly Language Arts minutes.
[Read more…] about Five Novels With Amazing Young Protagonists
Idioms are a complicated thing for many English Language Learners. In fact, many students struggle with them in their day-to-day life. Every language has its own idioms: phrases that say one thing literally but mean another thing figuratively.
Learning idioms helps students understand the cultural context and conversational skills. Many idioms come naturally to native English speakers, making them challenging for English Language Learners. Students with learning challenges like Autism or cognitive issues can find figurative language misleading and frustrating. In our experience, many native English speakers don’t always know the meanings of the idioms either, so they are great for all your students to learn.
What are some different ways you can help your students learn idioms?
[Read more…] about How to Add Some Meat to Your Idioms Lessons
We have collected some of our favourite books written by Indigenous authors. It’s part of our commitment to raising the voices of Indigenous People across Canada. Canada is filled with so many wonderful creators that it only seemed fitting to highlight some of the best.
You will notice there are no affiliate links in this post. We ask that you support local businesses and authors by shopping at your local book stores. Teachers in our school purchased most of these books so we could have them in our school library and classrooms. Please be sure to comment below if you know of more books we should add.
[Read more…] about Learn the Truth With Books by Indigenous Authors
