❄️ What is the hardest time of the school year? For me, it’s January, February, and March. There’s so much going on August through December. There’s the anticipation of back to school, starting fresh and looking forward to the year ahead. Then there’s fall and all the upcoming holidays. In April and May, summer’s on the horizon. The days are getting longer again, and students are getting antsy. But January, February, and March… these seem to drag out the longest. You know the next break is spring break, but that seems so far away. If you’re feeling it as a teacher, just imagine how your students feel. Let’s go through some activities that will help keep your students engaged. JANUARY — You’re just back from winter break, it’s cold outside, and it can be tough to get the kids excited about school again. These activities can be spread throughout the whole month. This New Year’s resolution writing resource includes FOUR fun goals activities to start off New Year’s in January. Create a Happy New Year bulletin board with the pennants and football that students make. Get your students engaged right away when you return from break! (Updated every year!) This…

❄️As a teacher, I know I don’t need to tell you about the weeks leading up to winter break! And the few days before, it can seem like a lost cause trying to get students engaged in any learning. It’s not just the days before the break, but the days you go back in January can be just as hard. Do you like to do holiday activities whole group? Maybe you set up centers with parents helping students. How about giving some work that students can complete individually? I know one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with in my classroom is having work for early finishers! Keep reading if you want to see some AMAZING resources that can be added to your lesson plans TODAY! Below you’ll see activities for Christmas, but you’ll also see a lot that are winter-theme and work well for the new year. These resources are perfect for reviewing important math, grammar, and writing skills. MATH — These activities were made with key 3rd grade math skills. If you need differentiation for your 2nd graders who excel in math, these could be a great addition to meet their needs. If you teach 4th grade or…

Do you need some fun Thanksgiving activities to get through those hectic days leading up to Thanksgiving break? I’ve got you covered with activities for math, grammar, and writing! These are perfect for students in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. They’d also work well with older students who struggle with certain concepts and need an extra review. Before I start, scroll down to the bottom to find some TURKEY IN DISGUISE examples and ideas! Have you ever heard of Collaborative Coloring Posters? They are so FUN! Students each get a small part of the full poster to color. Once the poster is put together, you can use it as part of a bulletin board. Check out this fall-themed collaborative poster! 🍁 Collaborative Coloring Poster Fall Bulletin Board – 25 individual student pages that go together to create a 30 x 30 inch poster. Each student page includes multiplication problems (2s-12s). Students solve the problems and color based on the code provided. Build a positive classroom community as students complete the blocks and put the poster together. The end result will look great on your fall bulletin board where you showcase your students’ math skills! I know how crazy November can…

🖍️ Do you use color by number/code activities in your classroom? I’ve heard some say they have no educational value, and they’re considered busy work. I completely disagree! These activities can definitely be a great addition to your classroom. You just need to get creative! The most common type of color by number activities go along with math skills. But what other subjects could benefit with these types of worksheets? What if I told you grammar, or even…..reading comprehension?! Have you ever heard of collaborative coloring posters? I’m hooked! Some people use them with positive growth mindset phrases, where students get to color their section however they want. Personally, I enjoy putting an educational component to them. And, they look great as bulletin boards! Keep students engaged in their learning. They’ll be getting LOTS of review of important skills while coloring and having FUN! Here are some examples of activities you can start using in your classroom TODAY! READING COMPREHENSION Use color by number activities to build your students’ comprehension! Each resource has students read a passage and complete several activities to show their understanding of the reading. Presidents’ Day BUNDLE Students read passages about both presidents. There are several…

Do you need some fun Halloween activities to get through those hectic days leading up to Halloween? I’ve got you covered with activities for math, grammar, and writing! These are perfect for students in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. They’d also work well with older students who struggle with certain concepts and need an extra review. These can be used for whole group activities, centers, early finishers, and for your sub folder! 🎃 Halloween Math Skills Review Worksheets 👻 Halloween & Fall-Themed Grammar Skills Review Color by Code Activities Keep students engaged with these fun color by code activities that are perfect to do in the fall and around Halloween. Students practice identifying nouns, adjectives, verbs, and more! You’ll get 10 color by code activities. You can use these as independent practice after teaching/reviewing a skill, complete one or two each week during September and October, and/or put them out for early finishers! Students review nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, contractions, adverbs, synonyms, antonyms, homophones, syllables, and rhyming. 💀 Halloween Writing Activities Bundle — SEVEN amazing resources to get your students writing! Including – 🍬 ESCAPE ROOMS Do you decorate your house for Halloween? Here are some fun ideas to do…

How do you address character education in your classroom? Do you put up a few posters and point out the traits a couple times a year? Are you looking for meaningful activities to teach students what it means to have good character? When I first started teaching in 2001, it seemed like character education was part of our weekly routine. Our district focused on Character Counts! Somewhere along the way, though, it seemed to slowly go away. I have a feeling it was when everything became driven around standardized testing. In more recent years, it seems it’s made a comeback. There are several different books and resources available now, and it’s not hard to implement. However, I think it really depends on the teacher. I’ve seen it. Some, like me, make it a priority and know it MUST be included in our curriculum. Others just don’t seem to care. I truly believe that character education will make a huge difference in your classroom. We want students to be caring, respectful, and responsible, but what if they’ve never really been taught those things? What if we’re just assuming they’re coming into our classroom understanding what a person of good character looks…

Do you find it hard to teach students writing? ✔️ Do you expect students to know how to write a paragraph when they enter your classroom? ✔️ Have you been told to differentiate for students, but you’re not sure how to do it? ✔️ LOOK NO FURTHER! 😊 For years I taught 3rd grade. Each year the students came to us knowing less and less about how to write proper sentences. When I started my first year in 3rd grade, we were able to work with the students on writing multiple paragraphs. After several years, we had to work on teaching them how to write a complete sentence. I knew I had to change the way I taught writing, so I decided to focus on teaching students how to write a GOOD 5 sentence paragraph and about paragraph structure using the following guide: But what do you do if some students can write a paragraph and others can’t? You differentiate❗ At first, all students will write on the same topic, but you can differentiate how they get to the final draft. Some students will need sentence frames to help organize their five sentences. Others will get to the point where…

Our grade level won a prize from our PTA one time. It was an escape room. A mom got it all set up, and while she had the best of intentions, it was way too hard for the third graders. Add in the fact that the first class that got to experience it ruined it for the other two classes at recess, and it just wasn’t successful. I do think escape rooms and scavenger hunts can be successful activities to add to any classroom. You just have to make sure the puzzles are age appropriate. I’ve taken a few courses to help me put together the best resources I can. I’m having a lot of fun making them, and I plan to make many more in the future. These types of activities work great for reviewing important concepts, practicing reading comprehension, or working on team building skills. They also can be planned as a reward or end of year activity. All you have to do is familiarize yourself with the puzzles, print, and copy. That’s it! See below for some FUN activities you can do with your class today! Most of these Escape Rooms would be best for 3rd-5th grade.…

Third grade isn’t just about memorizing multiplication and division facts, although those are VERY important. Teaching 3rd grade math means you’re introducing and expanding on rounding, fractions, telling time, elapsed time, perimeter, area, quadrilaterals, mass, two-step word problems, subtracting across zeros, and more. Add in the fact you have to DIFFERENTIATE because students are all at different levels, and it can become very overwhelming… for both the teacher and the students! What helps? SPIRAL REVIEW Spiral review doesn’t have to look the same for every activity. It doesn’t have to be something done at a certain time of day. A lot of teachers do a review in the morning to get the day started. That’s a great option. But for me, it’s sprinkling in spiral review all the time. Students MUST understand these basic concepts before moving on to upper grade math. I’ve bundled all of the math resources in my store to help teachers with all of this. Why bundle? Bundles save teachers money! This bundle saves you almost $42! That’s NOT including the $42 saved with the 12 FREE Task Card Review Games! (You’ll see those below.) That means this bundle saves you $84! 💲 💲 💲 What…