Writing

Writing Tip #3: Pictures Aren’t Just for Babies

A blank page is intimidating.  Don’t believe me?  Take a piece of paper and write three paragraphs about what you did last weekend.  I don’t know about you but I’m lucky if I remember what I ate for breakfast.  Yet, we often give students a prompt like this and then bemoan the fact that students …

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Writing

Teaching Writing Tip #2: Where’s the Beef?

These days anything worth doing is worth doing younger and first graders are sometimes asked to write paragraphs. Perhaps you have seen the hamburger model of writing (picture on left)?  Let me be clear, I love this model and have used it sometimes to assist in revising writing that is entirely unfocused.  However, this is …

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Writing

Teaching Writing Part #1: Don’t Fence Me In

All elementary school teachers are teachers of writing and yet many of them are not writers themselves.  I started my career as a writer and so this week I’ll be posting a few tips on how to teach writing in a way that resembles the real world. Tip #1 Not everything that you start writing …

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Writing

Peforming Arts Help Students Write Sensory Details

I was sitting in a grade level meeting recently and realized that I was surrounded by other former filmmakers and actors.  (This might sound unusual but remember I teach in Los Angeles). Our goal was getting students to include sensory details in their writing and here are several ideas that might help you. 1.  Have …

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Open Court Reading Writing

Teaching Parts of Speech

Here’s an engaging activity for teaching parts of speech through song.  This is particularly useful for English Language Learners. Post a large piece of butcher paper and have multiple colored markers available. Prompt students for a list of adjectives which you list on a color coded chart.  Do the same for nouns, verbs, and prepositional …

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Educational Technology Writing

Around the Blogosphere

Leila presents 21 Ways to Get Your Child to Write This Summer (or during the year) Speaker Sue offers Presentation Tips, encouraging presenters (and professional development providers) to treat adult audiences like adults and she encourages them to keep their cell phones ON. Jacquie gives Online Literacy Strategies.

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Reading Comprehension Reading Fluency Writing

Free Stuff for Teacher Appreciation Week

Learning A-Z is offering free resources this week. I’m not a big fan of worksheets but they’re not all worksheets. Today they have free downloadable books. You will need to log-in and create an account. May 05 http://www.readinga-z.com Thousands of printable books, including leveled readers and supporting materials May 06 http://www.raz-kids.com Interactive leveled reading library …

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Writing

Publish Students’ Writing

Student Treasures allows your classroom to publish a hard-cover book for free. You do have to offer copies of the book for sale to students’ parents but whether they buy or not your classroom gets a free copy of the book. I’ve used this company and although I normally don’t recommend commercial services, the book …

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Writing

Your Day in a Sentence

I have enjoyed guest hosting the Day in a Sentence feature this week. Thank you to everyone who participated in the first edition of 2008. It’s hard not to have the transition from vacation back to work on the brain. It’s on my mind too as I wish everyone a productive and happy return to …

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