April is the perfect time for celebrating nature and the beauty of our planet. Also, it is the perfect time to remind our students of our responsibilities to keep our planet healthy. Why not incorporate some fun Earth Day activities for elementary students to help learn more about taking care of our Earth? My family and I live on a small farm, and a big part of farm life is striving to be good stewards of the land. We strive to take care of the earth, conserve, and do our part in preserving our beautiful world. Encouraging students to change their habits to keep our planet healthy and beaut ..read more

With April and springtime comes National Poetry Month! While poetry is wonderful to teach anytime throughout the year, spring is a great time to focus on poetry. The season’s beauty can offer our students much inspiration for writing poetry. Read about these seven spring poetry writing activities for simple and easy ways to incorporate spring poetry writing into your upper elementary classroom. 7 Spring Poetry Writing Activities Writing poetry doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. These easy ideas are a great way to encourage your students to write poetry this spring. Spring Poet ..read more

Biographies can be a great resource to use in your upper elementary classroom. Whether you are using them in reading, history, or science, using biographies in upper elementary can be beneficial to your students. Biographies written for children have changed over the years. Today, there are many wonderfully written and illustrated biographies that children will love and enjoy that are excellent to use in your classroom, and there are several reasons why incorporating biographies into your lessons can be beneficial. Read on to find seven great reasons for using biographies in your upper eleme ..read more

In upper elementary reading classrooms, reading comprehension is at the center of our focus. Helping our students master comprehension is a complex task, and one tool that can greatly help is graphic organizers. What are some ways to use graphic organizers to improve reading comprehension when reading fiction? Well-designed graphic organizers can help students organize their thoughts, make connections as they read, and help them construct knowledge which can help students better understand what they are reading. Here are nine ways to use graphic organizers to improve reading comprehension. Wa ..read more

Would you like free reading fiction graphic organizers? If you know me, you know that graphic organizers are my jam. I just love a good set of graphic organizers, and I have spent years creating and perfecting hundreds of different graphic organizers. Graphic organizers are visual tools that help students organize, understand, and share information. Graphic organizers can be very beneficial to students as they read and comprehend. That is why I am offering you free reading fiction graphic organizers to use in your reading classroom. Graphic organizers can be used in so many ways! Use with in ..read more

The winter months are a great time to get a lot accomplished in the classroom, but these months can seem so long! Why not mix up the learning with a few fun and engaging winter classroom activities that will keep your students excited? Here are 10 simple ways to engage your students in your ELA and reading classroom and make learning fun during the winter months. Winter Classroom Activities: Poetry Quilts Don’t save poetry until spring. The winter months are an excellent time for your students to be inspired to write poetry. Even in the south where we rarely get snow, students are always in ..read more

If you are a reading/language arts/writing teacher, you may wonder why you should even bother teaching adverbs. With all the other important skills and strategies that must be taught, why should adverbs be part of those lessons? Let’s look at three benefits of adverbs instruction in upper elementary and how this instruction can help your students. What are adverbs? Adverbs are modifiers. Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs and answer the questions of how, when, and where. She spoke slowly. Yesterday, we went to church. I looked everywhere for the folder. While adverbs ..read more

As the holiday season approaches, why not infuse some festive cheer into your classroom with these seven fun Christmas poem ideas for upper elementary? Poetry does not have to be saved and only taught in the spring. Christmas poetry writing is a wonderful opportunity to embrace creativity as well as the spirit of the season. From rhyming poetry to haiku, December is a great time to use poetry writing in your classroom to inspire and motivate your students. Embrace the magic of poetry this December and discover poetry writing that you and your students are sure to love. Santa’s Diary Poetry J ..read more

Tall tales are stories that include extreme exaggerations and characters who solve problems in unbelievable ways. These characters usually seem much larger than life. Unfortunately, tall tales often get overlooked in upper elementary. Why then is using this genre and teaching tall tales in upper elementary a good idea? Why Should We Be Teaching Tall Tales in Upper Elementary? Tall tales are a great way to add some fun to your reading. Plus they are fabulous for teaching story elements like characters, setting, and plot in a creative way. For even more ideas for teaching reading and story ..read more

With fall in the air and Halloween approaching, it is the perfect time to sprinkle in a little writing magic into your classroom. What better way to spark your students’s imaginations than with spook-tacular writing prompts? Read on to find some fun writing ideas and Halloween writing prompts for 4th grade that are perfect for October. Around my house, October usually means that candy corn begins to appear. My oldest daughter likes this sweet treat and cannot resist getting at least one bag during the month. While this sweet treat is a little too sweet for my taste, it can make for fun classro ..read more