Morning work has become the staple lesson plan in many elementary classrooms. The short, focused lessons help transition students into the classroom environment while giving them appropriate review and practice. Morning work should be purposeful, manageable, and relevant. It should enhance your classroom instruction and reinforce concepts and skills your students learn throughout the school year. With consistent spiral review, students retain their learning and perform better on state achievement tests.
Evan-Moor’s line of Dailies provides short daily lessons across the curriculum. Whether you are looking for cross-curricular morning work or subject-specific practice, discover the books that work best for your classroom with these practice and teaching dailies.
Practice Dailies make it easy to practice and assess skills across the curriculum in just 10 minutes a day. The lessons support grade-level concepts and skills and reinforce lessons that are introduced in the core curriculum.
- Daily Fundamentals: cross-curricular morning work for math, reading, and language for grades 1–6.
- Daily Language Review: daily practice on grammar, punctuation, usage, and sentence editing skills for grades 1–8.
- Daily Higher-Order Thinking: helps students apply critical thinking skills across subject areas. The lessons develop students’ higher-order thinking skills and allow them to integrate their learning and make deeper connections between their learning and the real world. For grades 1–6.
- Daily Math Practice: provides practice of computation, problem solving, geometry, and measurement for grades 1–6.
- Daily Word Problems: offers standards-based word problems based on diverse real-life situations requiring numerous computational skills for grades 1–6.
- Building Spelling Skills: provides practice on grade-level spelling words and strategies for grades 1–6.
- A Word a Day: offers vocabulary practice to enrich and expand students’ receptive and expressive vocabulary for grades 1–6.
- Daily Paragraph Editing: provides mechanics and usage editing practice using varied writing forms and cross curricular topics for grades 2–8.
- Daily Handwriting Practice: provides handwriting, contemporary cursive and traditional cursive practice for grades 1–6.
Teaching Dailies make it easy to deliver focused instruction to supplement any core curriculum in just 20 minutes a day. Teacher pages reduce lesson prep time with suggested teaching paths and additional information. Skills are organized around weekly concepts, and activities integrate critical thinking into the instruction.
- Daily Reading Comprehension: direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies such as monitoring comprehension, making connections, visualizing, and determining important information are skills that help students read and respond to texts. For grades 1–8.
- Daily 6-Trait Writing: provides direct instruction on the six traits of writing—ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, word choice, and conventions—through scaffolded lessons that focus on specific writing skills. For grades 1–8.
- Daily Geography Practice: 36 map lessons introduce basic geography skills and geography terms with hand-on instruction. For grades 1–6.
- Daily Phonics: systematic phonics instruction in just 10 to 20 minutes a day for grades 1–6.
- Daily Science: standards-based science lessons, vocabulary, and hands- on activities for grades 1–6.
- Daily Academic Vocabulary: teach students key academic vocabulary they will encounter in multiple subject areas. For grades 2–6.
*Save time at the copier and order student books. The student book corresponds to the teacher’s edition but does not contain an answer key.
For more information on how to use dailies in your classroom instruction check out:
One Teacher’s Story: My Morning Routine
Meaningful and Manageable Morning Centers
3 Reading Comprehension Strategies to Teach Author’s Purpose
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.
Many science concepts can be demonstrated using simple ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry. For example, pull out ingredients for a cake you want to make. Ask your child questions, such as Where do these ingredients come from? Many kids will know milk comes from cows, but where does flour come from? Have your child touch the ingredients and describe the texture: hard, soft, bumpy, squishy, etc.
Many people think technology is all about computers and the latest app. But technology also includes any manufactured tools, such as scissors, whisks, microwaves, pots, and spatulas. Pick up some tools in your kitchen and have your child guess what they are used for.
Kids love to play with their food, so let’s do more of what they enjoy! Give your child pretzels and marshmallows and have your child connect them to build different shapes. You can also use those same food items, along with toothpicks and gumdrops, to build a house for a small toy. Another fun activity to do with your child is stacking paper cups to build a large tower. This teaches children about construction, stability, and balance.
The kitchen seems like it was made for math! Children can build their math skills by sorting fruits and vegetable by color or shape. You can even open a bag of trail mix and have your child sort the ingredients. Other simple math activities in the kitchen include measuring ingredients for a recipe or counting the amount of plates and cups that need to be set on the table.
Tiffany Rivera graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Family and Human Development and is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Elementary Education. She has over 10 years experience as a preschool teacher and has also taught elementary-high school English in South Korea. Tiffany is currently working for Evan-Moor’s editorial team, where she writes fun and engaging books for young children and classrooms.
Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com
The most important thing to do those first few weeks back to school is to teach your students the rules and expectations for your classroom. Laying a strong foundation of classroom teamwork, respect, and understanding will pave the way for a productive and enjoyable year for everyone. See the reference articles at the end of this post for ideas and free printables.
Check your work by explaining your reasoning. Does your answer make sense?
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.
Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.
Tiffany Rivera graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Family and Human Development and is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Elementary Education. She has over 10 years experience as a preschool teacher and has also taught elementary-high school English in South Korea. Tiffany is currently working for Evan-Moor’s editorial team, where she writes fun and engaging books for young children and classrooms.
