Harry Potter

Just in time for Halloween, I found a few ideas for those of you teaching Harry Potter. This list from Scholastic includes ideas for many different grade levels including [Read more…]

Put writers in flight with Storybird

Storybird is a unique website bringing artists and writers together. Artists submit collections of their art and authors can use it to create storybooks for themselves or to share with others.

A guide to differentiating

Does effectively teaching 30 students in one classroom require teachers to develop 30 lessons, one tailor-made for each student? Or should teachers “aim for the middle” and hope to reach most students in a given lesson? The answer is not simple, but an article on Education.com examines the characteristics of differentiation and offers suggestions for how teachers […]

I am Ida B. Wells

You may have seen the “I Am” poem generator at How to Write an “I Am” Poem. It asks for how a person feels, what they dream about, worry about, and so on and turns these responses into a complete poem. This tool will offer a fun alternative to traditional pre-writing tasks for all learners, […]

Just a picture

Have you tried giving your students a photograph as a prompt for a writing assignment? How about giving them a photo and telling them they have the freedom to write in any style they choose? John Spencer at Education Rethink does exactly this with his students and gets many creative assignments in response-poems, short stories, […]

FUN FRIDAY: Adjectives in bloom

Click over to The Teachers Lounge to learn about these sweet visuals for learning about adjectives.

FUN FRIDAY: Books in boxes

What do you think of these clever little biographies-in-a-box? If you are a teacher interested in authentic assessments and if you are always seeing ideas that will bring out the creative sides of your students, read a bit about these pizza box book reports at TeacherGenius by TCI. I really like the visual aspect as […]

Journaling for even the smallest writers

It’s about time I honored those hard-working pre-K teachers again so today we are featuring a creative post on journaling from Preschool Daze. At the beginning of the year students decorate the front of their journal and every day during “journal time” they sit down to write in their books. It’s a great tool to […]

Thanksgiving mad libs

Yesterday, we recommended a geography game at National Geographic Kids. Today, we are recommending another cool tool on the same site. This fun Thanksgiving fill-in allows students to practice parts of speech while playing a game they likely already know and enjoy. Your students will have fun coming up with silly words and phrases for […]

A new spin on book reports

We found some great new ways of having your students complete their reading assignments from Teaching in Room 6. Below is a picture from the classroom; it is called a Circle Map and it illustrates the point of view of various characters. This activity will be a nice alternative to formal compare/contrast papers. Like this […]