Brain Ninjas

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

classroom tips

Must Know Tech Skills You Should Teach Your Students

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Can your students troubleshoot basic tech skills? Do you spend all your teaching time fixing tech issues? Come learn some of the basic tech skills we teach our students to save time when you have to use technology. This is perfect for elementary classrooms but we know lots of adults that can also use these skills.

Working in a school has taught us that many adults do not have basic technology skills. We still receive responses as “reply all” or emails without attachments. Since we are often asked to help out with technology, we are often the teachers asked to fix a problem when a student shows up at our door with a device question. This helped us identify the must-know tech skills every student should have.

We changed how we taught technology in our own classroom. Gone are the days where we teach students how to simply use a specific program. This wasn’t helpful because things change so frequently. Tech companies love to move stuff around just to keep things “fresh.” To counter this, we started teaching students that most programs use the same symbols and features to do similar things. We taught students how all programs function in general and how to troubleshoot. Teaching these must know tech skills made all the difference.

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15 Ways to Use Sticky Notes in the Classroom

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Are you looking for ways to use sticky notes in your classroom? We put together a list of some of the ways we use sticky notes because we love to use them. They are so easy to use, kids love them and there are endless possibilities. Come read!

Sticky notes are a versatile tool that can be used in a variety of ways to enhance classroom learning. It’s no secret that most teachers love sticky notes because they come in a variety of styles, sizes and colours. There are so many different ways to use them whether they have lines or are blank. We’ve collected our favourite ways to use sticky notes in the classroom and felt we had to share them with you.

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7 Fantastic Ways to Create Classroom Community

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Building a caring classroom community doesn't happen by chance. It takes skills to create a classroom community where students take care of each other. Come learn some of the ways to build classroom community in your upper elementary classroom.

Have you ever seen those students that just work together in a classroom like a well-oiled machine? Have you ever dreamt of a classroom community full of harmony where students are on track and work together to learn in the best possible environment? It can happen, but building a caring classroom community doesn’t happen by chance.

We work hard teaching our students how to work together, how to care about each other and how to create a strong community of learners. Come read some of the ways we do this in our classroom.

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Make Wellness Lessons a Priority in Your Classroom

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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.

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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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5 Things To Get Organized Before the School Year Starts

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Are you looking for things you can do to get your school year off to a good start? These are all things you can do that don't involve making lesson plans or decorating your classroom. These are things you can do to make your life easier during the school start up.

We firmly believe that teachers should enjoy the time off they have and shouldn’t be forced to work. It’s the time we all need to replenish and prepare, but if you’re a little like us, you thrive when you are well-planned and prepared. It’s time to get organized for the year ahead.

That’s why we wrote this post. These are the things we try to get done over the summer months so we don’t have to worry about them in the first days of school. Having a simple plan makes answering the bombardment of questions from students so much easier.

Are you getting ready to start a new school year? Well, keep reading because these common sense things are the things you should be thinking about. We’re sharing them because these are all things we messed up in the past and want to pass down our wisdom.

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Everything You Need to Know About Flexible Seating

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Flexible seating is not about buying lots of different seating options. It's about teaching students how to regulate their emotions and learn how they work best. Come learn how we implement flexible seating in our classroom.

Do you want to try flexible seating in your classroom but you aren’t sure where to start? Maybe it’s not the right fit for your classroom management style. Let us walk you through how to start alternative seating options in your classroom so you can decide for yourself if it’s the right fit for you.

Hint hint! It’s not right for everyone.

Our goal is not to convince you to try flexible seating, but instead give you a realistic idea of how flexible seating can be a benefit to your students, problems you’ll encounter and what you should think about before you go buying yourself flexible seating furniture.

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