The Joy of Teaching – Page 29 of 46

July 17, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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DIY Paper Bookmarks

These paper corner bookmarks are simple and easy to make in the classroom or at home – and perfect for a summer reading activity, icebreakers during the first week of school, or a fun classroom activity break. All you need is colored paper!

This paper bookmark craft also works well as a quick lesson in proper book treatment. (No folding page corners of classroom and library books.) Choose any solid or patterned paper.

Directions:

Measure a square paper 3¼ inches by 3¼ inches (you may also use larger dimensions as long as the paper is a perfect square).
Fold paper in half diagonally.
Fold the top point of the first layer down to the center.
Fold each side in to the center.
Refold each side up to the point.
Finally, tuck the two flaps underneath the fold.

For more activity ideas like this, see The Never-Bored Kid Book series, which offers fun and educational activities for ages 3–10.

Click here for the free bookmark activity, which includes bonus paper projects from The Never-Bored Kid Book!

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.

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July 11, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Building a Homeschool Math Curriculum

At the end of this post, you will find a link to our homeschool math curriculum guide for you to download and print.

Building a homeschool curriculum for math can be quick and easy with Evan-Moor, so let’s explore some options!

WARM UP
Reviewing math skills is important to help both kids and parents see what math skills have been mastered and which math skills still need more practice.

Yes, you can get out flashcards, but Evan-Moor’s Daily Math Practice provides a 5-minute math warm-up activity for each day of the week. It covers multiple areas of math with zero prep.

Use Daily Math Practice for frequent, focused practice to improve math skills. Students complete five short math problems on days 1–4. The day 5 activity provides more extensive practice and asks students to think critically.

TEACH
After a quick warm-up, your child is ready to learn new math skills. My kids are thrilled with Evan-Moor’s Math Fundamentals.

The lessons and the practice pages are both focused and easy to follow, so it decreases the amount of time we spend practicing math skills.

Math Fundamentals is ideal to teach new math skills to your child. Each unit focuses on a skill or concept and provides math models to help your child learn to solve problems. The math model pages are genius and make teaching (and learning) so simple!

The last activity in each unit uses both the math skills and problem-solving strategies together in one story problem. It is a great way to see if your child can apply his or her new math skills in a real-life story problem.

PRACTICE and EXTEND
Once your child has been taught new math skills, it is wise to help him or her practice these skills in new ways to strength math fluency and confidence!

Evan-Moor has several options that you can use.

Use Daily Word Problems to invite your child to solve math problems in real life situations. One word problem a day is a quick way to build confidence!

The kids enjoy the weekly topics of the word problems, and it is fun to see them excited to complete one word problem a day successfully while keeping problem-solving skills sharp.

If you are looking for colorful, hands-on activities for independent practice, use Take It to Your Seat Centers: Math as assignments for practice and to apply skills in new ways.

Each center activity is listed by topic, so you can easily click on each title you would like your child to practice.

The center activities can be completed in any order, as long as the skills have been taught to the child. Each center activity includes a follow-up activity for your child to complete.

Finally, Building Math Fluency is one of my two absolute favorite Evan-Moor books (the other is Hands-on Thinking Activities) because it shows kids multiple strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

The goal is not for kids to master all of the strategies, but rather to give them options to find strategies that match how their brain naturally thinks about math.

Building Math Fluency has given my kids confidence to solve math problems in more than one way. It also teaches them to check their own work using a second method – just to make sure they get the same answer both ways.

You can use any of these Evan-Moor titles to supplement something that is missing from your current math curriculum.

Access all of these resources as a TeacherFileBox subscriber:

I prefer to access all of these titles for one price per family as a TeacherFileBox subscriber.

Just in case you aren’t familiar with TeacherFileBox, it is the single most valuable resource in our homeschooling! It provides all of our curriculum resources for academic skills, and it saves us both time and money.

TeacherFileBox is a digital collection of lesson plans and learning activities from over 450 of Evan-Moor’s publications. One of my favorite features of TeacherFileBox is that you can browse for lessons by Evan-Moor title.

We print out some titles (like Math Fundamentals and Take It to Your Seat Centers). We often go “green” with Daily Math Practice and Daily Word Problems by just reading the problems on the computer screen and answering on our dry erase boards, on our chalkboard, or orally.

Being a TeacherFileBox subscriber gives me access to all grade levels of teaching resources. Other curriculum resources require you to pay per grade level. However, all available grade levels are included in your subscription!

Your Homeschool Math Curriculum Guide:

We have put together a quick homeschool math curriculum guide for you that shares some additional information about the resources in this blog post. Click here to download your homeschool math curriculum guide!

For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

What questions do you have about building a homeschool math curriculum?

Do you want to know how to use these resources with a curriculum you already have?

Post your comments and questions below, and let’s simplify your homeschool math curriculum!

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.

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July 5, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Different Children = Different Learners

Differentiated learning is a phrase that classroom teachers use to describe how they modify their teaching to accommodate students’ learning needs. In homeschooling, we all modify our curriculum and lessons daily to fit our children’s learning styles.

As a homeschooler, how can you avoid having to buy multiple curricula for the same grade level if your children learn differently? You can do two things—you can either differentiate learning using the same books, or you can buy curriculum that has multiple levels already included in it. One good example of this is Evan-Moor’s Nonfiction Reading Practice books (available for grades 1–6.)

It’s easy to build a language arts curriculum around fiction, but learning how to read and understand grade-level nonfiction passages is really important, too. This series by Evan-Moor includes 17 topics in each grade level. There are three leveled passages for each topic, with coordinating questions and a writing topic. The topics are on social studies, science, math, technology, and the arts. The topics are interesting and the books are reproducible, so you only need to copy the pages needed for each child. The writing paper has wide, clear lines for easy writing and reading.

I’m going to be using the grade 6 book from this series this upcoming school year with my middle daughter. I plan on using one passage from this book each week. Here is my lesson plan.

Monday: Read passage silently and then reread together. Highlight important sentences.
Tuesday: Paraphrase sentences and write a summary.
Wednesday: Complete comprehension questions that include a mix of response and multiple choice.
Thursday: Complete graphic organizer and prepare for written response.
Friday: Written response.

I’m looking forward to using this book. It will make my life as a teacher easier. I have three children at three completely different grade levels, so it’s a lot to juggle! Books like this series by Evan-Moor make life simpler for me, and I’m very grateful!

Another option that can give more flexibility and save time and money over the long run is to subscribe to Evan-Moor’s TeacherFileBox. A lot of parents find this to be a good solution to meet their children’s different learning styles. There are PreK-6 lessons across the curriculum for a low monthly or annual subscription. (The best deal can be currently found through Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op.) The nice thing about services like this is you can try it out for a month and you even get a free 30-day trial. I think it definitely can be a great thing to check out!

Please note that I did receive a copy of the grade 6 Nonfiction Reading Practice book from Evan-Moor for review, but these opinions are entirely my own.

Suzanne Sniffen is a homeschooling mom of three children. She has taught students ages 3–60 in a variety of settings in the past 17 years. Suzanne has been homeschooling for the past 11 years, after previously teaching in public and private schools. Talking with other parents about homeschooling and how children learn is something she enjoys every chance she gets. She also leads a homeschool chess club and maintains a blog of homeschooling resources. Since her kids were very young, she has been blogging about homeschooling, books, and life at lovetopaint.blogspot.com.

June 8, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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3 Tips for Summer Homeschool Success

Who wants to keep their kids learning this summer, but still have time for summer fun?

Let’s put together a simple plan for summer homeschooling success!

Tip #1: Start with “wake-up work”

“Wake up” the brain when it is time to start learning. We want to ease our kids into learning mode with something fun. Choose a review activity that is something quick and fairly easy for your child to do.

Wake-up work can be a 5-minute story, one math problem (like the ones in Daily Word Problems), or a sudoku puzzle – just make it something your child enjoys doing!

Wake-up Work Resource Ideas:

Who likes colorful activities? Evan-Moor’s Skill Sharpeners series features full color units that include fun ways to review and polish skills that your child has already learned. I recommend completing one page a day (unless your kids are like mine and beg to do more).

I also keep Evan-Moor’s Take It to Your Seat Center activities in one place for quick review. The kids pick one, and it keeps things fun and easy for all of us!

Tip #2: Provide an opportunity for your child to learn something he or she is interested in learning.

Use your child’s curiosity to keep her wanting to learn more for summer homeschool success!

Your child might want to know how to plant a garden, study history, or learn about animals. Child-led learning is a terrific way to keep kids interested in learning more!

Child-Led Learning Resource Ideas

Let your child take the lead on what he learns this summer! Maybe your child likes history, art, or science?

Summer offers us more time, which is perfect for trips to museums, science experiments, and art projects! We often take messy projects or experiments outside in the morning before it gets too hot! Anyone else do that?

Evan-Moor has books for hands-on learning activities to teach or use as a follow-up from field trips, outings, or summer travel! History Pockets, U.S. Facts & Fun, Giant Science Resource Book, and Art for All Seasons work great for this.

Tip #3: Encourage your child to do some creative thinking!

Kids enjoy learning new things, so encourage them to think about ways to be creative or solve problems in a different way.

Evan-Moor has a fun series called Critical and Creative Thinking Activities. There are several units on topics kids enjoy, and my kids are happy to do a page a day (and often ask to do more!).

If your child prefers full-color pages with themed activities, Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking is another fun option to consider for grades PreK–6!

My kids were thrilled to find units focused on their favorite animals. They enjoyed reading activities, math puzzles, drawing, and more! It is a great option if you want a fun activity book that will keep kids enjoying learning new things!

You can also get your children curious by asking them questions to guide their thinking if they get stuck. “What would happen if you tried…” or “I wonder how you could…”

Let’s simplify your summer!

By just focusing on these 3 types of activities, summer homeschooling will be focused and fun!

Remember the 3 tips for keeping things simple and fun when you homeschool this summer is:

Tip #1 – Quick and fun warm-up work
Tip #2 – Let children choose what they want to learn
Tip #3 – Invite them to join a challenge or creative activity

More tips on Evan-Moor summer resources:

If you want ALL of these types of activities for your summer homeschooling, then be sure to check out a subscription to Evan-Moor’s TeacherFileBox. It is a lesson plan library where you can search for the exact subjects or skills you need for your child. It is my go-to resource for homeschooling lessons year-round. Currently, the best deal is through the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op.

If you would prefer to use a single printed book, Daily Summer Activities ($12.99, grades PreK–8) are full-color books that can keep summer homeschool simple!

Each book has 10 weekly study units that cover 10 areas of study with pre-planned practices each day. Your child can do a quick practice to keep learning all summer long!

How do you keep learning fun during the summer? Tell us in the comments!

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May 15, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Creative Writing Prompts for the End of the Year

Summer is just around the corner, and everyone is antsy…including you. Freshen up your weekly writing routine and keep students engaged with some creative writing topics. There are a range of skills practiced in these prompts, such as: letter writing, compare and contrast, narrative, and persuasive.

Plan a picnic. Think about what you will eat and what games you will play. Make a list of things you will need.
Finish this story: The waves crashed against the sand. I plopped my pack down and spread out my towel. It was going to be a wonderful day. Just then…
Think about your favorite foods and then imagine a new flavor of ice cream that tastes just like them. What would you call your flavor? What would it look like? Write a slogan for it.
Write a story about a door. Be sure to describe the door, tell where the door is, and explain what is on the other side of the door.
Impossible. Think of something people thought was impossible that someone did. Think of something you did that you thought was impossible. Think of something that is impossible now but you believe might be possible in the future. Explain why. Write a story that shows how the impossible might be possible.
Compare summer days and summer nights. Listen and list sounds on a summer day. Listen and list sounds on a summer night.
Compare yourselves to an animal. Write how you are alike and different.
Write a want ad for a good student (review examples of want ads).
Pretend you are a spring flower just about to bloom. Describe the experience.
Write a letter to your mother. Tell her why you love and appreciate her.

Get these ideas and more from Giant Write Every Day: Daily Writing Prompts!

May 11, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Homeschooling Overseas: How I Built My Curriculum

Ten years ago, I began homeschooling my daughter by accident. She is now a beautiful, clever, imperfect, and soulful human being, and I am proud to have her as a citizen of our beautiful planet.

I began homeschooling my daughter when she turned six years old. As a family, we spoke both English and French fluently, and we lived in Singapore, which was our adopted country at the time. I had no friends or family who knew anything about homeschooling. The only guides I had were my commitment to raising my daughter surrounded by possibilities and my natural intelligence and curiosity to continuously learn.

Singapore provided a large array of educational materials and books. There was also a wide selection of learning materials from all over the world. I created a foundation for her learning and began my quest to seek the books and learning materials we would need. At the start of this expedition, there is a certain sense of excitement in discovering something new, especially when it concerns the wellbeing of your child. However, at the end of two hours of constantly searching curriculums and workbooks, I was swimming in a dread of information overload.

Most of the books offered repetitive and boring exercises until I discovered Evan-Moor workbooks. It was not the cover of the books that invited me to them, but the range of books offered that prompted my first purchase. The Daily Practice range of books covered my foundations in math, reading, geography, language, science, and writing. Although there was a required repetitive pattern in the daily exercises, each day of work brought about a new way of learning the same core concept. This important distinction won us over as the facilitator for my daughter’s learning. It was clear that I would not be bored with the learning materials available to teach my daughter if I was to continue homeschooling her.

The other range we both loved within the Evan-Moor materials was the History Pockets. My daughter loved her active role in cutting, choosing, and pasting parts of the book to retain key factors she was learning within each history topic.

My top Evan-Moor resources are:

Daily Practice (available in math, language, geography, science, handwriting, and reading)
History Pockets

In Singapore, the Evan-Moor books were high-priced. But I found them to be a lot more information-packed, and therefore a good value. If you’re homeschooling overseas, consider purchasing Evan-Moor e-books or subscribing to TeacherFileBox, Evan-Moor’s online lesson library. With TeacherFileBox, you can print or project the lessons that you need and have access to every Evan-Moor title!

In the four years since we last used them, every time I come across Evan-Moor books, I cannot help smiling at the memories they evoke of my daughter and me having fun with learning.

Lara Jay Hequet is a life entrepreneur, certified and qualified in many fields of knowledge. She is a single parent to a fifteen year old daughter who is ‘lifeschooled’ for the last ten years. Together, they travel the world creating life stories and capturing stories of other wonderful people via film and the spoken word.

She is the founder of wowageing.com, a community of people who choose to Live Older instead of growing older. She intends to inspire and support unique individuals and their parents in the art of homeschooling.

April 27, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Kindergarten Readiness Checklist: What Does My Child Need to Know for Kindergarten?

*Updated January 2022*

Preparing your child for kindergarten can be a stressful experience. With new learning standards, children are expected to enter kindergarten with a higher skill set than previous years. You may be asking yourself, “Is my child ready for kindergarten?”

This is a valid question and a kindergarten checklist such as the one provided below, is a sure-fire way to assess your child’s readiness for this big educational step. Our kindergarten ready checklist covers five main areas of child development and learning skills. All skills on the checklist meet common core standards, and these skills are a good starting point for early educational growth.

Set your child up for success and start practicing some basic kindergarten prep skills that will give your child a strong foundation.

Here is a list of skills your child should practice before entering school in the fall. Print the kindergarten checklist.

Listening/Speaking

Listen to stories without interrupting
Recognize rhyming sounds
Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
Follow 2-step directions
Speak in complete sentences
Make comparisons between objects such as big/little

Social/Emotional

Understand actions have both causes and effects
Start to follow rules and share
Separate from parents without being upset
Speak understandably
Manage bathroom needs independently

Motor Skills

Cut with scissors
Hold pencil correctly
Trace basic shapes
Hop, jump, run, bounce a ball

Math

Count to ten
Identify numbers 1–5
Correspondence counting (one-to-one counting)
Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape
Identify basic shapes and colors
Understand more than and less than

Phonological Awareness and Print Knowledge

Recite the alphabet and identify most of the letters
Identify rhyming words
Identify the beginning sound of some words
Write name
Retell a story

More Kindergarten Resources

Did you find our kindergarten readiness skills checklist helpful?

Visit Evan-Moor’s kindergarten site for recommended activity books and flashcards. These activity books are ideal for preschool, transitional kindergarten, and kindergarten.

For skill practice in subject-specific books, check out:

The Smart Start series for early learners includes Read and Write, Phonics and Spelling, Sight Words, Math, STEM, and Beginning Coding activity books
Social Skills Activities for Today’s Kids helps children learn important rules about friendship and school. The meaningful activities give children a safe space to think about how to handle social situations and provide guidance and suggestions for them to consider.
Homeschool curriculum bundles for PreK and Kindergarten include 11 colorful activity books and flashcards plus a downloadable Teaching Guide for parents.

How-to Videos

For additional tips on getting your child ready for kindergarten, download the self-care and social skills checklist in “Life Skills Kids Should Know Before Kindergarten.”

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April 12, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Dinosaur Fossils: Earth Science Activity

Creating miniature fossils is a dinosaur activity for kids that is sure to capture the imagination! Dinosaurs are a great topic to sneak into your earth science fossil unit. They engage your students’ interest easily and often produce the best writing samples of the year. This souvenir activity is a memorable way to wrap up your study and will enrich your students’ learning experience. The top 5 dinosaurs by popularity: Tyrannosaurus (T-Rex), Diploducus, Velociraptor, Triceratops, and Brontosaurus. Other dinos of interest include: Pterosaur (a flying dinosaur) and Stegosaurus. Materials: Tupperware (one per student), modelling clay, shells, plastic dinosaurs, plastic plants, Plaster of Paris, water Directions:

Press a little modelling clay, about 2 cm, into the bottom of a Tupperware container.
Carefully press shell or other object into the clay.
Remove objects from the clay.
Mix a ratio of 1-part water to two parts Plaster of Paris.
Pour the plaster on top of the clay and let it dry for 24 hours.
Remove the plaster from the Tupperware and leftover clay. (If you have students remove all of the plaster pieces from the clay, you may reuse the clay.)

Writing Extension Activities: Looking for a fun, science-based, writing activity for kids? Write a short story about a dinosaur fossil. There are all sorts of mysteries about dinosaurs that are waiting to be solved with some research effort and exploration. Include key vocabulary and specific descriptions of the fossilization process. What does the fossil tell you?

Research a type of dinosaur.
When and where did they live?
What did they eat (carnivore, herbivore, omnivore)?
What does their name mean?
What is the theory of how they died?

Download your free lesson from Read and Understand Science Grades 2–3.

For more dinosaur lessons and ideas, check out Theme Pockets: Dinosaurs Grades 1-3

April 11, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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5 activities to get active boys and girls ready for kindergarten

If you have an active preschooler, getting your child ready for kindergarten with workbooks and seatwork can be a challenge. Here are some fun activities and games to help your child learn important kindergarten readiness skills—without sitting down!

Musical Letters Dance

Kindergarten readiness skill: Letter recognition

Inspire and entertain the dancer in your child while teaching letter recognition.

Write the letters of the alphabet on 8 x 5 construction paper and cut them out. Tape them, in random order, on the floor of a room. (Start with 8-10 letters at a time.)
Create matching 3 x 5 cards with one letter on each card.
When the music plays, everyone dances around the room.
When the music stops, hold up a 3 x 5 card with a letter on it. (Make sure it is on the floor, as well.) Your child should find the same letter on the floor that you are holding up on the 3 x 5 card.

This game also works well outside with chalk.

Matchbox Car Counting

Kindergarten readiness skill: Correspondence counting

Start teaching one-to-one correspondence counting with objects your child enjoys.

Tape the numbers 1–10 onto 10 matchbox cars. Have your child count out loud and put the numbers in order from least to greatest. (Increase numbers when appropriate.)
Tape letters to the top of matchbox cars. Have your child create simple three-letter words (sounding out the beginning, middle, and end sounds). Start with words that end in the letters “at,” such as bat, cat, sat, mat, rat, pat.

Scavenger Hunt Directions Game

Kindergarten readiness skill: Follow multi-step directions

Learning to follow multi-step directions is an important skill to learn for kindergarten. Help your child learn listening skills by playing direction games. Make it fun with a direction scavenger hunt.

Hide 5–10 fun objects around the house.
Give oral 1- to 3-step directions for finding the objects. Start simple with one step and work up to three steps.

Sight Word Target Practice

Kindergarten readiness skill: Recognize sight words

Introduce beginning sight words with some target practice.

Write sight words on paper plates. Beginning sight words to use: can, see, the, a, we, look, to, me, go, here, I, is, for, it. (Start with two sight words and work up.)
Line up the plates on the floor, wall or pavement.
Have children read a word and throw a beanbag at the word they identified.

Dinosaur Dig

Kindergarten readiness skill: Fine motor skills

Discover you inner paleontologist with this fine motor skills game.

Pour rice into a deep pan or dish.
Bury miniature colored dinosaur figures in the rice.
Have your child pull out the dinosaur figures using a pair of tweezers. (Ask your child to count the figures for cross-curricular practice.)

Final tips on getting your active child ready for kindergarten: Keep learning fun and positive the entire time! If you are able, try incorporating some fine motor skill practice. Holding a pencil and scissors properly is difficult and requires frequent practice. Keep these practice sessions short, but regular.

For more ideas about preparing your child for kindergarten read 5 Tips to Help Your Child Get Ready for Kindergarten

Recommended resources for active learners

Zoo Phonics is a multisensory language arts program that combines movement and learning.

Alphabet Puppets teaches alphabet and phonemic awareness in letter formation in a unique and entertaining format.

March 27, 2017
by Evan-Moor
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Create Independent Learning with Take It to Your Seat Centers

As homeschoolers, we know it is quite important to create independent learning experiences for our children. Parents know the value of our children learning to complete tasks on their own.

Since we want our kids to be able to thrive independently, it is essential that we create independent learning opportunities to guide them through the process.

One of my go-to resources that I use to create independent learning experiences is an Evan-Moor series called Take It to Your Seat Centers. The full-color activities in these books are designed for children to practice skills on their own!

Step-by-Step Method to Create Independent Learning

I wanted to share this simple step-by-step method to create independent learning:

Teach the new skill (I highly recommend Evan-Moor’s Language Fundamentals and Math Fundamentals as your baseline curriculum).
Make certain children understand the skill. We check for this understanding to make sure they are ready for practicing using the new skill correctly.
Choose an activity that will help your child practice this skill. My kids really enjoy the full-color activities from the Evan-Moor series called Take It to Your Seat.
Introduce and practice the independent learning activity with them. Why? Even though children may understand the skill, it still may be new to them. Let children try the activities on their own. Once kids have success with guided practice on their own, they will naturally move toward learning on their own.
Follow up by having children repeat the activity again as a review in future independent work time such as workboxes or centers.

How I Use Take It to Your Seat Centers

Evan-Moor’s Take It to Your Seat activities are so fun, colorful, and engaging that children will be motivated to work on their own.

There are Take It to Your Seat books for math, geography, language, literacy, phonics, reading, science, vocabulary, and writing!

One of the secrets to creating independent learning experiences for children is to practice with them FIRST. If we are working with skills that are new to children, we do the Take It to Your Seat activity together. Then I put the Take It to Your Seat activity in their workboxes as a review within the next 3–7 days.

If the Take It to Your Seat activity is a skill that children have already been taught, then I make sure they understand the directions and let them have a go on their own!

BONUS TIP: I like to print these activities out and keep them in an envelope or plastic bag. We use them to review all year long!

Have you checked out the Take It to Your Seat series yet? If not, head over there right away!

Remember, you get the BEST price by joining TeacherFileBox for $13/month. You will have access the entire series of Take It to Your Seat books and tons of other publications covering grades PreK–6 in reading, phonics, math, science, and MORE!

How do you set your child up for success for learning independently? Share your ideas in the comments!