Ninja Notes

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Classroom Management

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 Set the Noise Level in Your Classroom

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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.

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3 Ways to Support Introverts in the Classroom

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What are you doing in your upper elementary classroom to support your introvert learners? We have some practical suggestions that will benefit all the students in your classroom, while giving your introverts a chance to recharge. Come read and get some tools you can use right away.

Despite what some people might know about me, I’m an introvert and as a student, being painfully shy made learning difficult. As a teacher, it’s made me acutely aware that it’s important to support introverts in the classroom. We need to advocate for their needs. Check out some of the ways we support introverts in the classroom.

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Saved by the Bell Ringers in Upper Elementary

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It can be difficult to use every momemt of your instructional time, but bell ringers might be the key in upper elementary. We use them in every subject area to make transitions smoother, keep behaviour on track and to ignite the learning for our students. Come read about how we use bell ringers in our classroom.

Your class trickles in as you watch the time tick away and the punctual crowd starts to get restless. A student hands in work, another tells you all about the taco salad they had for lunch, while two others argue over which of two seemingly identical chairs is theirs. Does this sound familiar to you? It sounds like bell ringers might be the solution!

Bell Ringers Can Take Back That Wasted Time

Silent reading is a great way to start the day or for use during transitions. But maybe you want to shake things up? Or you want to make every minute of the day count. Bell ringers help to get things rolling from bell to bell. Read on to find out how we use them in our classroom and all the different types of bell ringers that can work.

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How to Keep Students Accountable During Project Based Learning

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Does project based learning fall apart in your upper elementary classroom because you don't know how to keep kids accountable? Do they get to the end with nothing to show for it? These classroom management strategies will help you get the most out of project based learning in your classroom without the stress and strife. Come take a look and get some practical tools you can use right away.

We love using project based learning as one teaching strategy to engage students. The challenge with this type of learning is keeping students on track. Nothing is worse than getting to a deadline and discovering none of the students are done. So, how do we keep our students accountable during project based learning?

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How to Teach Students to Work in Groups

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Do your students struggle when working together in groups? Do you avoid group work because of it? Have you ever tried teaching students how to work in groups? Look no further. This post is full of ways to teach students to get along and work on projects together in groups. These are tried and true ways we've accomplished productive group work in our upper elementary classroom.

Some students love working in groups, while others prefer to work independently. There are many reasons students should learn to work in groups, but often we find teachers forget to teach the students what that looks like. Students need explicit teaching to understand the different group roles and processes. Here are some activities you can try to help your students get the most out of their group work.

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