Let us help you teach like a ninja!
Every year in May we celebrate Asian Heritage Month. It started in the United States in the 1990s but eventually, it made its way to Canada. We recognize the history and value of Asian Canadians across the country. Asian Canadians strengthen Canadian society, whether they have been here for years or have newly arrived.
Explore Asian Heritage Month in Canada with us.
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We believe firmly in social-emotional learning (or SEL), self-regulation and teaching students about feelings. Students today struggle with identifying feelings, managing their emotions and staying focused.
Let’s not get into all the causes of why some students are unable to describe and manage their feelings, but more and more instructional time becomes wasted unless we intentionally teach students about to self-regulate.
[Read more…] about The Secrets of Social Emotional Learning for Kids
Every day in our classroom is Earth Day. It’s part of our science lessons to learn about energy conservation, so it’s easy to make sure we talk about the importance of conservation regularly.
One year a fellow teacher thought it would be a great idea to print a little paper globe for each student in our school (that’s several hundred) and write a “thank you to the Earth” type sentence.
I don’t often speak up at meetings, but I couldn’t resist this one. Isn’t it counterproductive to teach students about conservation by wasting all that paper?
Everyone agreed, but NO ONE had any suggestions on what we could do instead. And that’s how we came up with this list of Earth Day activities (and why you should try some of them).
[Read more…] about Easy to Use Classroom Activities for Earth Day
Writing emergency sub plans for a supply teacher is a big pain in the butt. Even more so, when some sort of family emergency comes up and you’re still legally responsible for two days of classes (or more depending on where you teach).
It’s strange that these certified teachers who come into our classroom don’t have to plan anything for two full days. At least, that is the rule in the province where we live. Teachers are responsible for leaving two full days of plans for their students regardless of the situation. This must be in the only job in the world where you do just as much work on the days you aren’t there as on the days you are.
I once wrote sub plans on my phone from a hospital bed. True story. And as crazy as that was, I learned a valuable lesson from it.
Emergency Sub Plans!
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Are you tired of wasting your valuable time searching high and low for the weather lessons you need for your upper elementary students? There are so many weather activities all over Pinterest, but we find most of the weather lessons are for preschoolers- not exactly what our students need.
We focus on creating materials for teachers who teach the same things to the same age we do. Most of what we create comes from not being able to find what we need. Weather worksheets are just plain boring and not at all aligned with our teaching style, so we’ve created weather experiments and activities that we use in our classroom. We want to help you by putting everything in one place so you don’t have to use all your time collecting lessons from all over the place.
Sometimes students don’t understand how time is of the essence when doing research. They lack the research skills to use text features, skim materials, and find items quickly. Not only does this slow down their work, it often results in incomplete research and general frustration.
It is a struggle year after year.
However, we have managed to find some activities that help students refine their research skills: scavenger hunts. It turns out that making research fun and game-like can have a positive impact on how students complete research.
[Read more…] about Disguise Research Skills as a Scavenger Hunt
