The Joy of Teaching – Page 25 of 46

February 27, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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7 Ways to Use Skill Sharpeners Activity Books in your Homeschool

Are you looking for timesaving homeschool tips? Try Evan-Moor’s Skill Sharpeners activity books. Educational and entertaining, these colorful workbooks can be used in several ways in your homeschooling to build your child’s skills.

Skill Sharpeners units are ideal for:

Workboxes or independent work. We choose about one unit each month to complete. Kids can complete the activities on their own. Then they bring it to me to check and share what they learned.
Reviewing skills to see if the child understands how to use the skills in real-life ways. I can quickly assess if my child has mastered the skills or needs more work.
Homeschooling while traveling. I can bring the entire book or just take a single unit for the kids to complete while we are traveling.
Homeschooling when company is visiting. Even when we have houseguests and everyone could use a little down time, my kids can work on 1–2 pages each day.
Homeschooling when someone is ill (whether it is mom, dad, or another child). It is always nice to have a back-up plan for illness. For example, Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking includes many subject areas. We use this title for a quick homeschool activity to keep us in the routine even when someone is not able to teach that day. It also helps keep the other children doing schoolwork when someone else needs to rest.
Weeks when your homeschool schedule is interrupted with field trips, holidays, or birthdays. Some weeks just get busy quickly. On those weeks, Skill Sharpeners units can be completed in a 2–3 days to keep the homeschool routine going when you are at home.
To keep kids entertained while waiting at appointments, during ball practice, or on car rides. My kids really enjoy having something to do while they are waiting. I especially like having an option they enjoy that doesn’t involve watching a screen, too!

When kids can put their knowledge and skills toward things that interest them, both parents and kids are thrilled.

Skill Sharpeners activity books are available across subject areas for grades PreK-6. Each book is 144 full-color pages and includes an answer key. Browse all the Skill Sharpeners titles here.

Learn more about using Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking in your homeschool here.

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

February 20, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Top 15 books that teach empathy and kindness to children

As a parent, I feel that one of the most important lessons to teach my children is empathy. Have you ever had your child become saddened about the way another person is being treated in a movie or book? Stories are wonderful conduits for lessons and can extract empathy within your children just by reading them. Listed below are books that teach children kindness with caring and creative stories.

Ages 4–7

Fat, Fat Rose Marie by Lisa Passen
A little girl must stand up to the class bully who keeps picking on her overweight friend.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
This classic book teaches children about gift giving and love.

Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose
Give children practice looking at situations from another perspective with the story of an ant and a boy. The ending leaves the ultimate test.

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
Friends come in all shapes and sizes, and Amos McGee is a good friend to everyone. When he gets sick, his friends decide to take care of him.

The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
This story demonstrates how small acts of kindness can make people feel included and help them flourish.

Be a Friend by Salina Yoon
Teach children about self-acceptance and friendship even when they are a little different from everyone else with this heartwarming story.

Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss
This kind-hearted tale showcases the importance of respecting and caring for everyone despite their differences.

Ages 8–12
Children reach reading milestones at different ages. Please preview books to determine their suitability for your child. Some of these titles tackle difficult social injustices.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Readers are transported into the world of Auggie Pullman and how he navigates junior high with a rare facial disease.

Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
A young boy wants to help his grandfather by winning prize money in the National Dogsled Race.

I Am Malala: Young Reader’s Edition by Patricia McCormick
This book tells the inspiring true story of Malala, a young girl growing up in Taliban-occupied Pakistan.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Set in Mississippi during the Depression, this story chronicles the struggle of young Cassie’s family to maintain their independence in the face of social injustice.

Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson and Sean Qualls
Teach children perseverance and understanding with this true story of how a young boy in Ghana overcomes incredible physical and personal odds.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Set in World War II Europe, children are reminded how small acts of kindness can leave lasting legacies. Enter of the world of Annemarie Johansen as her family hides her best friend to save her from the Nazis.

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
A wonderful story of a young boy and his hunting dogs in the Ozark Mountains.

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
This author takes the reader into the everyday life of Melody, an 11-year-old with a photographic memory and cerebral palsy. Readers will fall in love with this inspiring character.

Your life will help determine the course of history. You may think you don’t have much of an impact. You do. Every action you take will reflect in someone else’s life. Someone else’s decisions. Someone else’s future. Both good and bad. – Bregdan Principle

What are your favorite stories?

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.

February 20, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Leprechaun Traps, Rainbow Crystals, and St. Patrick’s Day STEM Activities

St. Patrick’s Day is a great day to include a little magic in your daily lessons. What could be more fun than mischievous leprechauns, magical rainbows, and pots of gold? Make your classroom celebrations educational and engaging with these STEM, art, and writing activities. Check out these themed blogs for inspiration and free downloadable lessons.

St. Patrick’s Day STEM Activities

Make your classroom celebrations this St. Patrick’s Day educational and engaging with rainbow science crystals, leprechaun traps, and creative writing lessons. These activities will surely leave a lasting impression in your students’ memories!

Catching Leprechauns – Kindergarten Fun for St. Patrick’s Day

Trapping magical leprechauns appeals to the imagination of young children. Bring a little enchantment into your classroom this year with leprechaun lore, St.Patrick’s Day art, and themed lessons.

A Fun Idea for St. Patrick’s Day: Leprechaun Traps

Create an engineering project for your students this St. Patrick’s Day and build leprechaun traps. Pair this activity with some free downloads of St. Patrick’s Day activities for festive themed lessons.

February 20, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Grammar Games and Center Activities

The best method for building grammar and punctuation skills in students’ writing is with repeated exposure throughout the school year. Improve students’ vocabulary, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation with a mixture of interactive games and language review lessons sprinkled into your daily routine. Here are some ideas for grammar games: Grammar Games

1. Hands-on language centers are a great opportunity to review and practice skills that have already been taught. Your students have fun, hands-on games to practice grammar skills independently or in small groups. Take It to Your Seat Language Centers (grades K–5) give you mats and task cards to help students practice language skills. Simply laminate and organize these center activities in a folder. Get your free center on Coordinating Conjunctions in Compound Sentences for grade 3 here. 2. Synonym Scramble: Using index cards and a thesaurus, you can make your own game. 3. Very-Adverb Charades: Get students moving while reinforcing verbs and adverbs. Grammar Resources For daily practice of these skills, try Daily Language Review (grades 1–8). See this post for 3 reasons Daily Language Review became my no-fail method to teach Conventions of Standard English skills. Check out these individual language center activities on TeachersPayTeachers: Take It to Your Seat Language Centers: Multiple-Meaning Words Kindergarten Take It to Your Seat Language Centers: Using Context Clues Grade 1 Take It to Your Seat Reading and Language Centers: Parts of a Sentence Grade 2 Take It to Your Seat Reading and Language Centers: Homographs Grade 5

February 15, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Grammar and Punctuation Skills Made Easy for Homeschool

When it comes to teaching proper usage of the English language, including grammar and punctuation, many homeschoolers depend on a combination of two methods:

Teach the rules of grammar and usage
Review and practice language skills

Teach the rules of grammar and usage
Isolate individual language skills by introducing one rule at a time. We enjoy using Language Fundamentals. It is a complete language curriculum that is focused and fun and can be completed in just a few minutes at a time.

Review and practice language skills
The second method is reviewing and practicing language skills, which is equally important. We all tend to remember the skills that we use, so there is great value in helping our kids review language skills on a daily basis.

Keep practice and review short and sweet in your lessons. Daily Language Review is perfect for fast and focused review. As part of the ever-popular “Daily” series from Evan-Moor, Daily Language Review features focused skill practice in just 10–15 minutes each day.

Using Daily Language Review for homeschooling

In Daily Language Review, there is a short task that reviews specific language skills each day of the week.

Days 1–4 are each on a half-page format and have four sentences that need attention. The first task is to correct two sentences that are written incorrectly. Your kids can pretend to “Be the Teacher” and find the mistakes that need to be corrected. The last two sentences involve practicing skills for punctuation, verb tense, and conjunctions.
Day 5 is a one-page task that focuses on vocabulary and word meaning. It is a good mini-lesson for learning or reviewing how to use the word properly.

Daily Language Review is perfect for:

Morning warm-up work (while you are grabbing a cup of coffee or getting out materials for the day).
Quick assessments to see if your child remembers language skills taught previously. If not, you can quickly see what to reteach your child.
Consistent practice to help kids remember how to properly use what they have learned.

By using Daily Language Review in your homeschooling, you are certain that your child is getting consistent language skill review to help practice all s/he has already learned.

Check out the skills covered and try out a week of Daily Language Review sample lessons here. (You will receive a weekly unit for grades 1-8 in this sampler.)

Find it in TeacherFileBox

Daily Language Review and Language Fundamentals are included in Evan-Moor’s digital lesson plan library, TeacherFileBox.com. In fact, over 600 Evan-Moor titles are included in a TeacherFileBox subscription! Click here to learn more about TeacherFileBox.com for homeschooling.

You can also find these titles on Evan-Moor’s website in print or e-book formats. Evan-Moor makes it so easy and convenient to homeschool with their quality and affordable resources.

Do you use Daily Language Review in your homeschooling?

Let me know in the comments!

February 13, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Tips for Teaching Multiplication and a Free Multiplication Strategy Printable

Are you seeking ideas on how to teach multiplication tables?

Mastering multiplication facts can be a tricky hurdle for students in the upper elementary grades. The patterns are less obvious, and the numbers are larger, making those math timed tests feel like an insurmountable task. Help your students learn their multiplication times tables by providing multiple strategies to help them understand the relationships of these difficult numbers. Teaching multiplication strategies is all about using the best resources and ideas available. Multiplication charts, mnemonic tricks, and other multiplication strategies can be effective, and they are often part of a teacher’s math toolkit. Here are some proven multiplication strategy approaches to use in your class.

Basic Multiplication Strategies

Begin your unit by introducing four strategies of multiplication:

Commutative Property

Associative Property

Distributive Property

Known Equation

Download this free multiplication unit from Math Fundamentals: Multiplying Fluency within 100 for step-by-step models and instructions for understanding the strategies behind multiplication.

Tricks and Tips

It helps to have several strategies in your multiplication table toolkit because what works for one student often doesn’t make sense to another. Teach many different tricks and strategies throughout your unit and build a toolkit of ideas your students can lean on.

9’s

The nines are one of the most difficult multiplication families to memorize. Check out these strategies to make the process easier.

Mnemonic tricks

6 X 6 = 36
666

6 X 8 = 48
Six and eight went out to skate, and when they came back, they were forty-eight.

7 X 8 = 56 or 8 X 7 = 56
5678

8 X 8 = 64
Eight times eight fell on the floor, pick it up and it’s 64.

7 X 7 = 49
Football: the San Francisco 49ers

Multiplication Strategies Chart

Download this free multiplication chart from Building Math Fluency, Teaching Multiplication Strategies, grades 4–6. Print this chart and share it with students as a reference, or make a poster for your classroom.

Math Resources

Building Math Fluency

Math Fundamentals

Daily Math Practice

For more multiplication lessons, visit our Teachers Pay Teachers Store to purchase individual units:

Building Math Fluency: Multiplication Strategies Grades 4–6 Times 7
Building Math Fluency: Multiplication Strategies Grades 4–6 Times 8
Building Math Fluency: Multiplication Strategies Grades 4–6 Times 9
Building Math Fluency: Multiplication Strategies Grades 4–6 Fact Power Skill Builders

What strategies do you teach to help your students learn their times tables?

February 12, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Honoring Abraham Lincoln in Your Homeschooling

Did you know that several presidents of the United States were homeschooled? Abraham Lincoln was one of those homeschooled presidents. He began his life on a farm in Kentucky. His family depended on him to work to help support the family, so formal schooling was not a priority. He learned from books and experiences as a homeschooled child in Indiana. Yet Abraham Lincoln taught himself to do more than just read or write. As a young man, he studied law books and passed the bar examination without going to law school. When he moved to Illinois in 1830, he earned the nickname “Honest Abe” while working as a store clerk. He became interested in local politics, spoke out against slavery, and had great ideas of what the future of the United States could be. He was elected to be the 16th president of the United States in 1860. President Lincoln worked to keep our nation together during a very difficult time. He is regarded by many historians as one of the greatest presidents in United States history. In our homeschooling, we enjoy studying biographies of people who worked to make a difference in the world. Evan-Moor has numerous resources for honoring President Abraham Lincoln that work nicely with homeschooling kids of all ages.

Free Activity: Paper Portrait of Abraham Lincoln To honor homeschooler Honest Abe, Evan-Moor is offering this free activity. With 6 simple steps, children can create a paper portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Evan-Moor units available for purchase: Theme Pockets: Presidents’ Day, Grades 1–3 This resource provides five pocket projects help your class celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The engaging creative writing and art projects are a great way to enrich your social studies curriculum. Pocket Book for Two Great Presidents If History Pockets or lapbooking are popular in your homeschooling, Evan-Moor has a History Pocket dedicated entirely to Abraham Lincoln. The complete unit also features George Washington. Printable Lincoln Mini-book Even younger students can learn about Abraham Lincoln in this printable mini-book! Comparing Washington and Lincoln In our homeschooling, the conversations we have are quite valuable. This activity invites children to write a compare-and-contrast paragraph about the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. It is an insightful and quick way to get writing in your homeschooling while learning about our presidents! Pin It Now. Access all of these Presidents’ Day activities and more with TeacherFileBox. If you want the most bang for your buck, become a TeacherFileBox subscriber and get access to over 1,800 cross-curricular lessons and activities for grades PreK–6 for $12.99 a month. Learn more about using TeacherFileBox for your entire homeschooling curriculum here. How are you honoring Honest Abe this year? Let me know in the comments!

Chalkboard with Vocabulary Words and Games

January 31, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Vocabulary Journals and Games for Your Classroom

Vocabulary instruction is directly linked to reading comprehension and word knowledge. On average, students are expected to add 2,000 to 3,000 words to their vocabulary every year! (Effective Vocabulary Instruction by Joan Sedita.) Students need multiple and engaging opportunities to practice and learn new words. It takes multiple exposures over time before students can apply new vocabulary.
To keep your vocabulary lessons fresh and fun, try using vocabulary journals and playing vocabulary games. These vocabulary activities help students learn and apply new words and build their vocabulary.

Vocabulary Journals

One resource that every student should have is a vocabulary journal. These journals serve as a reference for students to use in their writing throughout the school year.

Journals should follow a set pattern so students can look back at previous notes and understand what they wrote. This procedure always worked well for my students, and the picture at the end is always a popular incentive. (If you teach ELLs like I did, the picture is an absolute necessity.) Provide each student with their own journal.

Introduce a word: write it
Define the word: definition
Discuss the word: adjective, verb, noun
Apply it: use it in a sentence/draw a picture

Vocabulary journals pair nicely with Evan-Moor’s A Word a Day vocabulary instruction. Each week provides four new vocabulary words and definitions along with examples of how each word is used. In addition, day five offers an informal assessment for the words learned that week.

Vocabulary Games and Activities

Games and interactive activities are another opportunity to reinforce learning. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Eye Spy

Provide students with a list of names to search for in a story. Award points to individual words with criteria such as:

Longest word
Words with the most consonants
Words with the most vowels
Words with the “silent e” rule

2. Matching Antonym and Synonym

This activity works best on 3 x 5″ cards. Ask students to pair up words with their antonym/synonym such as:

Large/small
Smooth/coarse
Combine/separate

3. Charades

Call up a group of students or an individual and give them a card with one of your weekly vocabulary words on it. Without speaking, have them act it out for their classmates to guess.

How do you teach vocabulary in your classroom?

January 23, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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Crystal Hearts Valentine Science Experiment

Incorporate science and math into your Valentine’s Day classroom celebration this year with a crystal hearts science experiment. This simple and easy salt crystal experiment is a great way to demonstrate how crystals form and to introduce the subjects of crystallization, solubility, and chemical reactions. This Valentine’s science experiment uses easy-to-find supplies and can be completed with small groups or with the whole class. Your students will enjoy the results – their very own crystal heart for Valentine’s Day!

Materials Needed:
Colored pipe cleaners
String
Pencils
Wide-mouth jars (beakers, coffee mugs, mason jars, milk cartons)
Borax
Boiling water

Before You Begin:
Before you start your crystal experiment, introduce the topic of crystallization with these key vocabulary words and concepts:

Chemical Reaction: a process where a substance changes to form a different substance.
- Chemical reactions happen everywhere, even in your own body (for example, when rust forms). Some changes can happen quickly, and some happen slowly over time depending on the substances.
Solubility: The amount of a substance that will dissolve in another substance (or become a part of another substance).
Crystallization: A process by which crystal molecules fit together to form a repeating pattern and unique shape.
- Most crystals form from liquids cooling and hardening.
- Crystals can form in different shapes (cubic, hexagonal, tetragonal, trigonal and more).
Crystallography: The science of the study of crystals and how they form.

Steps:

Shape each pipe cleaner into a heart.
Tie the string around each pipe cleaner and attach it to a pencil. Measure the depth and height of the jar and cut the string to a slightly shorter measurement.
Mix solution of boiling water and borax in a glass jar (3 tablespoons of borax to 1 cup of water). Students can measure the borax, but the teacher must pour the water and closely observe small groups of students to prevent any burns!
Lower the pipe cleaner heart into the solution and place the pencil over the top of the jar.
Wait 24 hours and pull out your crystals! (It works best to complete the activity at the end of the day and have students come back to check on the crystals in the morning.)
Tie a pink or red ribbon around your hearts and create a hanging Valentine’s Day decoration!

Reflections

Why did the water have to be boiling?
What shape are the crystals?
What would happen if you put your heart crystal into a pot of boiling water? (It would re-dissolve.)

Have students observe their crystal heart and record their observations in a journal. Ask students to describe the process of crystallization in their journals using key vocabulary.

For more lessons on chemical reactions, see this unit from ScienceWorks for Kids: Simple Chemistry: When Substances React Chemically (grades 4–6)

For more hands-on science activities, download these sample printables from Science Lessons and Investigations for grades 1-6.

For more free printables and lesson ideas, subscribe to our e-newsletter!

How to Inspire Young Readers and Improve Fluency with Readers' Theater

January 23, 2018
by Evan-Moor
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How to inspire young readers and improve reading fluency with readers’ theater

Have you used readers’ theater scripts in your homeschooling? It is a delightful reading activity to increase fluency and bring life to stories! Inspire struggling readers with interactive stories and dramatic voices! Give your children the chance to get up and move while reading—you may even discover a budding performer in your midst! What is Readers’ Theater? Readers’ theater is when the actors in the performance read their scripts instead of memorizing their lines. This style of reading forces children to pay attention to punctuation marks and read with inflection—no more monotone reading aloud! Why I Adore Readers’ Theater

It provides an audience and purpose for children’s reading—to project and entertain.
It encourages creativity—to create puppet shows, plays, and character voices.
It forces children to maintain their attention and read at appropriate cues. (Often, they are even reading the other parts as well to follow along.)

How I Use Readers’ Theater in Our Homeschooling

I use it to give children an authentic reason to read aloud for others.
I use it to improve reading accuracy. When children take on the voice of the character, they naturally want to read aloud with more accuracy, feeling, and excitement. This is a rich way to enjoy reading aloud for a meaningful purpose.

My Favorite Resource for Readers’ Theater in Our Homeschooling Evan-Moor has a terrific series of books called Readers’ Theater for grades 1–6. The scripts are interesting and short enough that the kids can focus. There are many fun plays in Readers’ Theater such as:

The Three Little Pigs (Grade 1)
How Anansi Brought Stories to Earth (Grade 2)
Space Camp is a Blast! (Grade 3)
The Girls of the Round Table (Grade 4)
Tall Tales from the Wild West (Grade 5)
Romeo and Juliet (Grade 6)

If you are looking for more readers’ theater options, the Leveled Readers’ Theater series of books can help you find the readers’ theater scripts that are on your child’s exact reading level, too! How to Include Readers’ Theater with Any Homeschool Curriculum

Fun Fridays—Introduce a new script every Friday for reading practice.
Swap theater scripts for your weekly reading lessons. If your child is able to read the script with ease, he or she is ready to perform it.
One performance a month—Practice and record one script a month and share it with friends and relatives.

Remember, you can have access to the entire series of Readers’ Theater books and over 400 other titles when you join TeacherFileBox for $12.99 a month or $99 a year per household. Click here for more information on TeacherFileBox for homeschoolers. Will you add readers’ theater to your homeschooling this year? Let me know in the comments!