Brain Ninjas

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Bulletin Boards

How to Make Valentine’s Day Love Trees

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Create these adorable watercolour love trees for Valentine's Day, World Kindness Day, Earth Day or Pink Shirt Day. They make a great bulletin board and our post features step by step instructions for your elementary classroom. Come read the whole post.

Do you need a Valentine’s Day art project or activity that you can use to teach students about colour while making something special? Do you dread having to find something to do for Valentine’s Day? Are you a Valentine’s Day fool? Or Scrooge? It sounds like you need to learn how to make Valentine’s Day love trees!

There are several variations to make this Valentine’s Day-themed project listed below, but basically, it’s a tree with heart-shaped leaves. Sounds great, right? Who doesn’t need a heart-shaped leaf? So cute and easy to make! They are perfect for World Kindness Day or Pink Shirt Day too!

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Get Great Anchor Charts Without Making Great Anchor Charts

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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.

We make all our anchor charts with our students as we learn each lesson. It helps them connect to the information, and all of the language on the chart comes from the kids, but let’s face it: They are ugly. We’ve admired beautiful anchor charts online, and while we would love to decorate our classroom with those types of works of art, we believe that our students should be part of making them.

Come learn some of the ways we include our students when making anchor charts.

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7 Inexpensive Ways to Decorate Your Classroom

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Are you looking for ways to decorate your classroom that don't break the bank? We've put together some tried and true ideas that you can use for any age. You don't need to spend all your own money to fund your classroom, so come learn how to save and still have an engaging deor scheme.

The pressure of social media to have the “Pinterest Perfect” classroom can be a little overwhelming for any teacher, especially those on a budget. We are very fortunate in our classroom that we have a small budget for items needed, and we have full discretion on how we use it, but the last place we want to spend it is on decor. We prefer to spend any money we have on quality resources and learning materials. Check out this list of ways to decorate your classroom that don’t break the bank.

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How to Use Collaborative Tasks to Create Classroom Community

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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.

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How to Create Memorable Remembrance Day Art Projects

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Come find simple art projects that make a great Remembrance Day display in your school.

Each year, we spend a good chunk of time creating Remembrance Day art projects to decorate the halls of our school. Our Remembrance Day assembly often invites community members, so we like to have beautiful art to enjoy. There are always a lot of poppies. We wanted to create some pieces for upper elementary students that took a little more time and care to create but were not poppies.We took Remembrance Day beyond the poppy.

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How to Work Through the Design Process

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The design process is useful for working through a problem. We use it in science and in our makerspace. Come learn about the process and get some design thinking posters for your classroom.

Here’s a quick lesson you can do with your students to learn how to use your Makerspace while teaching students to enjoy the process of solving problems. Problem-solving is a skill that needs to be taught, learned, and practiced. The design process uses simple steps to help alleviate frustration between creating, testing and refining. When all of your students have a common language, it can help facilitate conversations between them. Come learn how we use the design process in our classroom.

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How to Create Back to School Power Words

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Try this quick activity that will last all year. We use power words instead of making goals. We talk about growth mindset and words that help us be our best. Then we make a display to share our words. This makes a great back to school activity or works perfect in the New Year. Come take a look!

Do your students write goals? It can be an effective way to have students learn to take responsibility for their behaviour or learning. We tried something new this year. Students chose power words instead of goals.

Back to school is a great time to reflect on past years in school. It’s the right time to think about the positive changes you and your students can make. This will help you all have a wonderful year together.

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