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Lesson Plans

How to Make Patterns and Algebra Stick With Interactive Notebooks

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Using this patterns and algebra interactive notebooks unit changed how I teach math as much as how students learned and understood it.

You’ve taught patterns before. You know the routine. You explain repeating patterns, growing patterns, equations with variables, and your students nod along. But then you ask them to work independently, and something’s missing. They don’t remember what you just showed them. They can’t visualize the concept when it’s on paper. And when you ask them to explain their thinking, they’re stuck.

Here’s the thing about patterns and algebra in elementary: it’s abstract. Variables are abstract. Pattern rules are abstract. Equations are abstract. Our students struggle with abstract. What they need is something concrete, something visual, something they can hold onto and reference whenever they’re confused.

But we figured out the game-changer.

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Five Amazing Capacity Quests to Enliven Your Classroom

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Teaching students to measure capacity can be a fun and engaging hands-on activity for your upper elementary math class. Come learn about some of the different ways we help our students learn to measure capacity in metric units.

Teaching students how to calculate capacity using metric units is an essential skill in mathematics and in life. If you’ve ever tried to put your leftovers in the wrong container, you know it’s important to be able to use referents and measure containers properly. Finding resources that measure capacity in metric units can also be a challenge for teachers in Canada, but we have you covered. Learning about capacity is more than just using formulas. Come learn some of the ways we teach this measurement concept in our upper elementary classroom.

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Geography Skills Your Students Need to Know

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Teaching geography skills if a life skill your students need. Come learn some of the different ways we embed geography skills throughout our lessons.

Teaching geography skills is one of our favourite activities because maps are generally objective. Students who like math tend to do well with map reading because they’re so black and white (no pun intended). Come learn some of the ways we bring geography skills alive for our students without just reading boring maps over and over.

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Save Time With this Christmas Art Collection

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If you are looking for Christmas art projects that can be used for decorations, gifts or just for fun, then check out this post full of easy ideas for the Christmas season.

Does your school ask you to create Christmas art to decorate the halls or gymnasium during the concert season? Over the years we’ve taught at schools with all-out Christmas concerts and others that were more secular in nature. However, the artwork requests have typically been the same. Some years we create Christmas art while others are just winter. Come learn a few of the fastest projects you can get knocked out in just a few hours from start to finish.

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Make the Best of Your Natural Resources Lessons

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We have written resources to use to teach your students about natural resources. Students will learn how the resources are extracted, which are renewable and how they are used. Come take a look and get the lessons you need.

What do you think of when you think of natural resources? Forests? Oil and gas? Wind power? Teaching students about natural resources is easy when you have them examine all the objects around them. Humans rely on natural resources to make life easier. We use them to make shelter, provide energy and sustain our nutrition. Come learn about some of the lessons and activities we use to teach students about natural resources.

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How to Teach Human Body Systems to Young Scientists

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If you are teaching human body systems to your elementary science students, we've got everything you need to get your unit planned in record time. Come check out these activities, lessons, books, videos and so much more. It's perfect for the new Alberta science curriculum outcomes.

Everyone needs to understand the basic systems that help keep humans alive. The Alberta science curriculum focuses on four main systems: circulatory (cardiovascular), musculoskeletal (bones and muscles), respiratory and digestive. There are many more systems, but this post will focus on teaching these four to your Grade 5 students. Come learn how we teach this unit from beginning to end.

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How to Teach Students About the Earth’s Spheres

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Are you looking for resources to teach students about the Earth's spheres? We wrote some lessons, found some books and videos and put it all together for you in one post. Come have a read and inspire your scientists.

The new Alberta science curriculum asks students in Grade 4 to learn about the Earth’s spheres and how they interact with each other. That meant we got the opportunity to learn about them, too. We pulled together some of the best resources we’ve used to learn about the spheres and the resources we’ve written to help our students.

When we talk about the Earth’s spheres, we refer to the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. We know there are more spheres, but these are the ones focused on in our science curriculum. Learning about the Earth’s spheres helps students understand how our planet survives and thrives.

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Unravel the Magic of Fractured Fairy Tale Activities!

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How are you using fairy tales in the classroom? One of our favourite ways is to use fractured fairy tales to help students write their own stores. There are already so many great examples out there. Come read through this list of ideas you can use right away in your upper elementary classroom. Add some magic to your language arts lessons.

Once upon a time, there was a teacher who discovered her students didn’t know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Yes! It’s a true story. It is not a fairy tale. With each year, it is surprising that fewer and fewer students know the traditional fairy tales. It seems that reading classic stories before entering school has become less and less common at home. With the huge selection of stories, teachers just don’t have time to read them all.

Even in upper elementary, one of our favourite units is fairy tales. We start our fairy tale unit by reading some of the old classics. If you have older students who are a little twisty, you can even share the darker versions. We talk about why fairy tales were used by parents and how the stories have changed over time. Come learn about how we use fairy tales in our upper elementary classroom.

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Rich Financial Literacy Lessons to Save For Your Students

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Financial literacy is so much more than counting money, but things change regularly so it can be difficult to keep up. We put together all the information teachers need to add these lessons to their upper elementary classroom. Talk about saving, investing, budgeting and so much more with these activities and all the the background information needed for teachers.

Gone are the days when parents would teach their kids how to use their money. In fact, many adults don’t know how to use their own money. According to a recent poll in Canada, seven of ten adults consider themselves financially literate. However, nearly 65% of Canadians admit to being in debt or living from one paycheck to another. So, what does it really mean to be financially literate, and what does this have to do with elementary education?

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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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Are You Avoiding Teaching Art? How to Fix That

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Do you avoid teaching art because you can't handle the mess? Check out this list of ways to manage the mess and get some art lessons for your upper elementary students in the process.

If you are an elementary generalist in Canada, chances are, you are teaching art. That can be challenging if you don’t consider yourself an artist. Here are some tried and true routines we’ve put in place with our classes over the years that have saved our sanity.

Maybe you’ll start enjoying teaching art again!

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Uplifting Picture Books for Lunar New Year

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Do you need a list of books to use for Chinese New Year, Korean New Year or Vietnamese New Year? Luna New Year is on its way and we've searched for some great books you can use to learn about these traditions.

Usually, we talk about Chinese New Year. Did you know that many other countries celebrate the New Year at the same time? In Vietnam, it is called Tết. It is called Seollal in South Korea. We find one of the best ways to help our students understand different traditions is to read books about the different Lunar New Year celebrations.

These New Year celebrations are based on the lunar calendar. The lunar calendar is calculated using the movement of the Earth around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth. The lunar new year is usually celebrated sometime in January or February. This time of year is a time when families gather, share food and participate in local traditions.

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