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Reading

How to Host Your Own Book Debates and Battles

by BrainNinjasWP

Inspire a love of reading and encourage your students to choose new books by using book debates. We've outlined the process to use this in your upper elementary classroom today based on the format for Canada Reads. Come take a look.

If you live in Canada, you might have heard of Canada Reads. Canada Reads is an annual “battle of the books” competition organized and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). We have enjoyed the event for years and thought about how much fun it would be to do the same style of book debates in our classroom. Students love a good battle. Come learn about how it went and how you can host your own book debates.

[Read more…] about How to Host Your Own Book Debates and Battles

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Book Clubs, Book Debates, Book Recommendations, books, classroom celebrations, Professional Learning, read aloud, Reading, Reading Activities, Reading Buddies, reading comprehension, reading strategies, reluctant readers, strategies for reluctant readers

Inspire New Friendships With Classroom Buddies

by BrainNinjasWP

Classroom buddies can be much more than reading buddies. We've collected some of our favourite mentoring activities that you can use in your school to make the most of buddy time. Come learn about how you can foster these meaningful relationships.

One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching is fostering positive relationships between students. A powerful way to do this is through cross-age buddy programs. Pairing older students with younger students can create lasting friendships, enhance social-emotional skills, and promote academic growth. Buddy teachers can also become life-long friends. Come learn the benefits and collect these ideas to add to your classroom buddy time.

[Read more…] about Inspire New Friendships With Classroom Buddies

Filed Under: Classroom Tips Tagged With: Classroom Buddies, Classroom Community, Leadership, Mentorship, Professional Learning, Reading, Reading Buddies

15 Ways to Engage Readers During Your Read-Aloud

by BrainNinjasWP

If your administration thinks reading aloud to your students is a waste of time, you need to read this post full of ways to engage readers and teach your language arts outcomes. It goes far beyond listening skills. Come get a whole bunch of ideas on how to get the most out of your read aloud.

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

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: books, First Year Teachers, first-year teachers, fluency, Guided Reading, Guided Reading Instruction, Listening Skills, new service teacher, new teacher, new teachers, read aloud, Reading, Reading Activities, reading comprehension, reading strategies

Spring Classroom Activities To Make You Bloom

by BrainNinjasWP

Spring is here and we have collected our favourite spring classroom activities to help you get through spring fever. Come read our list a get some ideas you can use right away.

Spring is a great time in upper elementary classrooms. By this point in the school year, students understand the routines and things tend to start running smoothly. Of course, there is also the spring fever that tends to creep in and make students a little squirrely as the weather changes. Nothing says spring like the smell of damp socks and slushy halls after recess breaks.

We put together some of our favourite spring classroom activities that we use to keep students learning and moving forward. Come see which of these would work in your upper elementary classroom.

[Read more…] about Spring Classroom Activities To Make You Bloom

Filed Under: Engaging Lessons Tagged With: Classroom Community, Collaborative Posters, Holidays, Holidays and Seasonal, Logic Puzzles, Math Worksheets, Mathematics, Plants, Reading, Spring, spring cleaning, Spring Holidays, Spring Logic Puzzles, Teachers Pay Teachers, Writing Activities, Writing Prompts

Are You Missing Out on the Love of Drama Circles?

by BrainNinjasWP

Are you missing out on the benefits of using drama circles in your upper elementary classroom? Come learn how to use them to help with listening skills, reading abilities and for the fun of it.

Before learning about drama circles, we weren’t sure how we could incorporate drama into our classroom in a meaningful way that didn’t take away from all the work we needed to do. Putting on a play just didn’t seem like a good use of our learning time, but we knew our students enjoyed acting. That is when we considered some of the benefits of drama circles in our upper elementary classroom.

[Read more…] about Are You Missing Out on the Love of Drama Circles?

Filed Under: Teaching Strategies Tagged With: Classroom Community, Confidence, Drama, Drama Circles, Expression, Listening Skills, Poetry and Drama, read aloud, Reading, Reading Activities, reading comprehension, reading strategies, reluctant readers, Teachers Pay Teachers, Teaching Reading

Free Winter Classroom Activities Worth Scooping Up

by BrainNinjasWP

Are you looking for some simple and free classroom activities to keep your students busy during the long winter months? We collected many winter activities for language arts, math, scrience, art and some just for fun and put them all together in one big post. You can use these activities for instruction or give them to your students during indoor recess on those long winter days. Come take a look!

Depending on where you live, winter can be a very long season. In northern Canada, where we teach, winter can start as early as October. It continues up to the end of March. That means we are always on the lookout for winter classroom activities to use in class. More importantly, we use them during those dreaded indoor recesses when it is just too cold to go outside.

[Read more…] about Free Winter Classroom Activities Worth Scooping Up

Filed Under: Engaging Lessons Tagged With: Art, Holidays, Holidays and Seasonal, Math Worksheets, Reading, science, Teachers Pay Teachers, Winter, Writing Prompts

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Most Recent

  • Instead of teaching poetry by simply reading or writing it, how about encouraging students to act it out. Teach poetry using drama to add a new dynamic to your language arts lessons.
    How to Teach Poetry Using Drama
    Poetry is a beautiful and expressive...
  • Inspire a love of reading and encourage your students to choose new books by using book debates. We've outlined the process to use this in your upper elementary classroom today based on the format for Canada Reads. Come take a look.
    How to Host Your Own Book Debates and Battles
    If you live in Canada, you...
  • Are brain breaks taking up too much time in your lessons and interrupting learning? You're probably using them incorrectly. Come read this post to help put the best practices for brain breaks into your classroom.
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