Brain Ninjas

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Writing Activities

Spring Classroom Activities To Make You Bloom

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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.

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15 Free Activities for the First Month of School

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Are you looking for free activities you can use during the first month of school? We gathered up some of our favourite writing, math, reading, art and classroom community activities just for you. Best of all, they're all free! Come check it out!

The first month of school is filled with so many new adventures. There is so much to do regarding setting up classroom routines. We don’t start teaching content until a few weeks into the school year. Up until that time, we see what our students can do. We generally assess reading and writing, and review math. This is a great way to get to know your students so you can plan your lessons for their needs. Here are nine free activities we use for the first month of school.

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How to Include Different Types of Writing in Your Classroom

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Are you looking for ways to include the different types of writing in your classroom each day? Come see how we do it in our upper elementary classroom.

Over the years we’ve attended hundreds of hours of professional development for teaching students to write. Our school has tried out resources from Ruth Guthrie and the 6+ Traits of Writing, Barbara Mariconda and Empowering Writers and even Lucy Calkins and her Writers’ Workshop model. None of these were perfect. Some students did well with some of the lessons and some students didn’t see a lot of growth in their writing. Some students learned to follow a formula but struggled with being creative. How do you include different types of writing in your daily writing?

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9 Easy Valentine’s Day Ideas for Upper Elementary

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Valentine's Day in upper elementary isn't quite the same as the little kids or the older ones. It's this weird time in a kid's life where they are too old to care about paper cards but also want to be included in getting paper cards. They are just starting to have crushes but the maturity level is all over the place. We've spent a lot of time watching our Valentine's Day ideas flop. Come read some of our students' approved Valentine's Day ideas.

Valentine’s Day in upper elementary isn’t quite the same as the little kids or the older ones. It’s this weird time in a kid’s life when they are too old to care about paper cards but also want to be included in getting paper cards. They are just starting to have crushes but their maturity level is all over the place. We’ve spent a lot of time watching our Valentine’s Day ideas flop. But not anymore!

Over the years, we’ve watched students in our Grade 4 and Grade 5 classes to see how they respond to different activities for Valentine’s Day and we’ve settled on focusing on friendship and kindness. Some of these activities can be done any time of year because they are not specific to Valentine’s Day. These are the best Valentine’s Day ideas that were approved by our students.

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Challenge Your Students with Writing Activities

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Are you looking for some ways to get your upper elementary students writing every day? We've created this list full of ideas, resources and time-savers so your students can write something every single day. We've even got a few free writing ideas that you can take straight to your classroom. Come take a read!

There are generally two reactions that students give when it is time for writing activities in the classroom. Half are usually excited and the other half is filled with dread. We’ve been through lots of different writing programs over the years, been to hundreds of hours of professional development to teach writing and have seen the same pattern over and over again.

Most teachers don’t feel like they know how to teach writing. Is that you? Keep reading.

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