­

Saturday, 29 March 2025

Mastering Plural Nouns with Fun, Hands-On Spring Activities! 🌸📚



Spring is in the air, and what better way to bring seasonal excitement into your grammar lessons than with engaging, hands-on activities? Whether your students struggle with regular or irregular plural nouns, this Spring Plural Nouns Pack makes learning interactive and fun! 🌼🎲


Why Teach Plural Nouns with Games? 


Let’s face it - worksheets alone can feel repetitive. Students learn best when they can see, sort, and play with new concepts. 

That’s why this resource includes: 
✔ Anchor charts to introduce plural rules (-s, -es, -ies, -ves, and irregulars) 
✔ Four engaging games that reinforce learning through play 
✔ Six quick practice sheets (color & black-and-white) 
✔ Answer keys for easy checking 




 A Peek Inside the Activities 


💡 Spring Nest Sort – Students match eggs (root words) to the correct nest (-s, -es, -ies, -ves, irregular)

 🎲 Four-in-a-Row – A fun twist on traditional bingo! Students spin a plural ending and find a word that matches 

🧺 Spring Picnic Pack – Help students “pack” their picnic basket by forming plurals correctly 

🌸 Spring Flower Fun – Build flowers by adding the correct plural petals 

Each game comes with student direction cards for single and partner play, recording sheets (in color and black & white), and easy-to-prep materials to keep your students engaged while reinforcing grammar skills! These activities are self-checking, easy to prep, and perfect for centers, small groups, or early finishers!




Practice and Review Made Easy! 


In addition to hands-on games, this resource includes six half-page worksheets designed for quick practice, review, or even assessment. These activities cover regular and irregular plural nouns in a variety of formats, ensuring students can apply what they’ve learned. Plus, each worksheet comes with an answer key for easy grading or self-checking. Both color and black-and-white versions are included, so you can choose what works best for your classroom!



Did I mention it’s just $1 until this Sunday? Grab it while it’s on sale!

Thursday, 20 March 2025

🌸 Welcome Spring! Understanding The Spring Equinox

🌸 Welcome, Spring!

After months of chilly weather, longer days and warmer temperatures are on their way. But have you ever noticed how daylight starts lasting a little longer around mid-March? That’s because of the spring equinox, the moment when day and night are nearly equal in length. It’s a fascinating event that connects science and literacy, making it a great topic for classroom learning. If you're looking for engaging ways to teach the spring equinox, I have got you covered! 

Let’s explore a few simple activities to help students understand this special day.

📚 Ways to Teach the Spring Equinox to Students 

1️⃣ Read About the Spring Equinox 

A great way to introduce students to the spring equinox is through reading comprehension. Nonfiction texts can help explain why we have seasons, how the Earth’s tilt affects daylight, and what happens during an equinox. It's a perfect way to blend science and literacy in your classroom!

There are many fantastic picture books to pair with your lesson. Click the link to view a list of my favorite picture books about the spring equinox.



Want ready-to-use reading passages and activities? 
✔ Nonfiction reading passages with key details about the equinox 
✔ Comprehension questions to build reading skills 




2️⃣ Hands-On Learning with a Simple Activity 

To make the Earth’s seasons more interactive, try a labeling activity! Give students a simple diagram of the Earth and have them label the spring equinox, summer solstice, fall equinox, and winter solstice. This helps them visualize how Earth's tilt changes throughout the year. You can also head outside! If the weather is nice, take your students on a quick walk to observe signs of spring—new buds on trees, birds chirping, and longer daylight hours. A short discussion afterward helps connect their observations to what they’ve learned. 

✔ No-prep, easy-to-print worksheets and crafts to help students understand the Earth's seasons and the spring equinox




 3️⃣ Create a Spring Equinox Craft 

Nothing helps students remember a lesson like a fun craft! Hands-on activities reinforce learning and keep students engaged. My Spring Equinox Reading Comprehension resource includes two fun and easy crafts that allows students to illustrate and describe what happens during this time of year. This is a great way to bring creativity into science and literacy lessons!




🌎 Celebrate the Spring Equinox in Your Classroom! 

The spring equinox is a wonderful time to explore Earth’s seasons and connect reading, science, and hands-on learning. Whether you’re using nonfiction passages, interactive activities, or a simple craft, your students will love discovering what makes this time of year so special! Want to make lesson planning easier? Check out my Spring Equinox Reading Comprehension resource - everything you need to teach this concept in a fun and engaging way! 

🌸 How do you teach the spring equinox? Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear your ideas!

Friday, 7 March 2025

Teaching Trickster Tales? Here’s How to Make It Fun & Easy!

Have You Ever Read Trickster Tales?

Trickster tales are entertaining stories that have been retold for generations as a way to teach lessons about human behaviour. These folktales, found in cultures around the world, feature clever tricksters who use their wit to outsmart others - sometimes for good and sometimes for mischief! 

If you’re looking for ways to bring these entertaining and thought-provoking stories into your classroom, keep reading for ideas on how to introduce trickster tales and a fully prepped Trickster Tales resource that saves you time while building essential reading skills. 




Why Teach Trickster Tales?

The tales are great ways to strengthen these concepts:
  1.  Characterization
  2.  Personification
  3.  Lessons or Morals
  4.  Cause and Effect
  5.  Author's Purpose
  6.  Compare and Contrast Similar Tales


Tales To Share

Trickster tales are folktales in which a clever character, often an animal, plays tricks on others to get what they want or to teach a lesson. These stories have been passed down for generations and can be found in many cultures. Some well-known trickster characters include:

ANANSI THE SPIDER is a trickster from West African and Caribbean stories, and is full of wit and cunning. Anansi and The Moss Covered Rock and Anansi and The Talking Melon are fun read alouds.

RAVEN is a trickster from the First Peoples of the Northwest Pacific Coast from Alaska to British Columbia. Raven is alternatively a clever and foolish  bird-human whose voracious hunger and greed give rise to humourous adventures. Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest is a great book to share.

COYOTE is a comic trickster character from North American Indigenous stories, who is lack of wisdom gets him into trouble, and his cleverness gets him back out. Students will enjoy Coyote: A Trickster Tale from the American Southwest.

LEPRECHAUNS play several roles in Irish folklore; he is principally a roguish trickster figure who cannot be trusted and will deceive whenever possible. Clever Tom and The Leprechaun is a delightful tale.

WESAKECHAK is a trickster character whose adventures are often humourous, but unlike Plains First People tricksters he is portrayed as a staunch friend of humankind. Wesakechak Tales will be devoured by your students.


How To Introduce Trickster Tales In The Classroom

1. Start with a Trick 
Begin your lesson with a harmless classroom trick or riddle. Ask students if they’ve ever played a trick on someone or been tricked themselves. This sets the stage for understanding the role of tricksters in stories. 

2. Explore Trickster Characters from Around the World 
Show pictures of famous trickster characters and have students predict what kind of tricks they might play. Discuss how trickster figures exist in different cultures and why people enjoy these stories. 

3. Compare Good Tricks vs. Bad Tricks 
Lead a discussion on the difference between harmless, playful tricks and tricks that cause harm - a theme often explored in trickster tales. 

4. Read and Analyze a Trickster Tale 
Choose a classic trickster tale and have students listen for key elements: Who is the trickster? What trick do they play? What is the result? What lesson (moral) does the story teach?




Ready-To-Use Trickster Tales Resource

Want to dive into trickster tales without spending hours planning? The Trickster Tales Folklore Reading Lesson Slides & Print Activities Resource is fully prepped so you can focus on engaging your students!

 ✅ 9 Ready-to-Teach Lesson Slide Sets – Each lesson introduces a reading skill (story structure, cause and effect, character traits, morals, and more).

 ✅ Engaging Trickster Tales – Featuring well-known stories like Anansi and The Moss Covered RockClever Tom and The Leprechaun, and more! 

15+ Printable Worksheets – Activities include story analysis, vocabulary, comprehension, and comparison tasks to build reading skills. 

No-Prep, Just Print and Go! – Perfect for whole-class instruction, small groups, or independent work. 

 📌 Ready to bring trickster tales to life in your classroom? Check out The Trickster Tales Folklore Reading Lesson Slides & Print Activities Resource  and save time while engaging your students in these classic, witty folktales! 



Monday, 17 February 2025

Let's Teach About Canadian Early Settlers

Teaching about early settlers in Canada is an exciting opportunity to bring history to life for students. By using hands-on activities, engaging stories, and primary sources, we can help students understand the challenges and triumphs of the people who built new lives in a vast and unfamiliar land. Below are some creative ways to engage students, picture book suggestions, and a ready-to-use resource to make this topic meaningful in your classroom. 


Engaging Activities to Teach About Early Settlers

 

1.  Let Students Step Into a Settler’s Shoes 
Encourage students to imagine themselves as settlers by giving them a scenario: "You have just arrived in Canada in the late 1800s with only a few supplies. What do you need to survive? Where will you build your home? What challenges will you face?" 

Have students write a journal entry, create a settler survival plan, or design a small model of a pioneer home using craft materials.


2.  Interactive Sorting Activities 
Help students understand the push and pull factors that brought settlers to Canada by having them sort reasons into categories. Use cards labeled with reasons like wars and conflicts, free land, job loss, adventure, and religious freedom and have students decide whether they are push factors (reasons people left their home country) or pull factors (reasons people wanted to come to Canada). 


3.  Picture Analysis And Artifact Exploration 
Show students historical photographs of early settlers, their homes, and tools. 
Ask: What do you notice in this picture? How is this different from today? What do you think this tool was used for? 

If possible, bring in replicas of pioneer tools or everyday items like a washboard, lantern, or tin cup. Handling objects helps students make real-world connections to what they are learning.


4.  Read-Alouds And Picture Books 
Books bring history to life! Here are some great books about early settlers in Canada: 

 📖  A Pioneer Story: The Daily Life of a Canadian Family in 1840 by Barbara Greenwood
 A mix of storytelling and factual information that helps students understand a pioneer family’s life. 

 📖  Pioneer Kids by Freida Wishinsky
Emily and Matt use their time-travelling sled to arrive on the Canadian Prairies in 1910. 

 📖 Discovering Canadian Pioneers by Marlene Gutsole
This books gives an overview of what life was like for a typical pioneer family in Upper Canada. 

 📖 Birchtown And The Black Loyalists by Wanda Taylor
Readers are introduced to the journey of Black American soldiers taken from Africa as slaves, their quest for freedom, the settlement and struggle of Black Loyalists on Nova Scotian soil.


5.  Make Teaching About Early Settlers Easy With This Ready-to-Use Resource! 
Bringing Canada’s early settler history to life doesn’t have to be time-consuming! 

My Early Settlers in Canada resource includes: 
✅ 8 sets of teaching slides - That is eight complete lessons - just present and you are ready to teach. 
✅ Interactive activities to keep students engaged!
✅ Engaging reading passages with easy-to-understand information. 
✅ Over 20 print activities for students to showcase their learning.
✅ Comprehension questions to reinforce learning. 
✅ Flipbook research report for students to write about pioneer life. 

This resource is perfect for Grade 3-5 students, whether you’re teaching a social studies unit or incorporating cross-curricular literacy connections. Make history exciting and meaningful—grab your copy today! ⬇️ 


  



Friday, 17 January 2025

Explore A Desert Habitat

Welcome to the desert! Let's find out how to make this habitat come alive in your classroom!


Learn About Desert Animals And Plants 

Students can learn about how desert animals and plants survive in the desert. The hot, dry dusty desert is home to spiky cacti and other plants. Birds, snakes, lizards, and roadrunners are some of the animals that live in this habitat. How have plants and animals adapted to live in the desert?

 


Locate World Deserts 

As a social studies and geography link, study a map together as a class. Look for the major deserts in the world. Which continent has the most deserts? Which continent does not have any deserts? Where is the largest desert in the world? Deserts are dry areas that receive little precipitation, but that deserts can be found in surprising places. 

Did you know that there are both cold and hot deserts? What continents have cold deserts? Does their pattern of rainfall differ from hot deserts? Polar deserts are arid regions that receive a little snow. Deserts can also be found the mountains. Have students research world deserts and how the people and animals who live there have adapted to the climate.



 

Create A Desert Habitat 

Have students create a desert habitat in a container using sand, soil, rocks, and cacti. This activity helps students understand how plants and animals adapt to their environment.





Study Desert Food Webs

A food web shows who eat who in a habitat. Learn about producers who make their own food, and consumers who get their food by eating other organisms.




Create A Flipbook Research Report

Write about what you have learned in this five-page flipbook! Each page has lines for writing and a placeholder to draw a picture!




Want To Have Your Desert Study Prepped?

Grab my Desert Habitat resource! It includes all the pages featured above and more. Students will love reading about the desert with the included 10-page interactive nonfiction reader. Interspersed throughout the reader are fun, educational activities. The students then show their learning in their desert research flipbook! Everything is prepped and ready to print.





Friday, 10 January 2025

Exploring the World Through Habitats and Communities

Wild Ways To Explore the World Through Habitats With Your Students


Ready to explore land and aquatic habitats around the world, from lush rainforests to arid deserts and everything in between? Teaching about habitats is an adventure waiting to happen, and your students are sure to love it! 

With the right mix of engaging activities and colorful visuals, you can take your lessons to the next level—and I have got just the resource to help. The Habitats And Communities Activities and Slides resource is packed with everything you need to teach topics like biomes, animal and plant habitats, food chains, and even conservation. These slides make it easy to create lessons that inspire curiosity while saving you precious prep time. So, take a walk on the wild side! Dive into these fun and creative ideas that pair perfectly with my slides to make learning about habitats a roaring success.



1. What is a Habitat?

Kick off your lesson with an engaging exploration of what a habitat is. Start by asking students to think about their own "habitat" at home or school. Discuss what makes it livable—food, water, shelter, and space—and compare this to the needs of plants and animals.

Teaching Tip: Use the Habitats And Communities slides to introduce the definition of a habitat with colorful visuals and examples. Then, have students create a "Habitat Collage" using magazines or printed images, categorizing their finds into aquatic or terrestrial habitats.



2. Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitats 

Teaching about terrestrial habitats (forest, desert, grassland, tundra, and mountain) and aquatic habitats (freshwater and marine) can be an exciting adventure! Use the Habitats And Communities slides to highlight the unique features of each habitat, from the icy tundra to the sun-scorched desert. 

Teaching Tip: Grab the habitat sorting mats from the resource! With digital and printable options, students can use a tub of plastic animals to sort creatures into their correct habitats. It’s a fun, tactile way to explore where animals live and why. Wrap it up with the slides to guide a lively class discussion comparing the different habitats. Tie it together, by assigning students or small groups a habitat to research. Have them create a "Habitat Travel Brochure" highlighting key features, climate, and animals that live there.   



3. Food Chains and Webs 

Food chains and food webs are essential for understanding the relationships between organisms in a habitat. The Habitats And Communities slides provide clear examples of how energy flows through ecosystems. 

Teaching Tip: Bring food chains to life with a "Food Chain Relay." Assign students roles like sun, grass, rabbit, and fox, and have them pass a "sunlight ball" down the chain to show how energy moves. Alternatively, challenge them to draw their own food web for a specific habitat using the animals and plants covered in the slides. 



4. Plant and Animal Adaptations Adaptations 

This is one of the most fascinating topics for students! Use the Habitats And Communities slides to introduce different types of adaptations—like physical and behavioral—and provide examples from animals and plants in various habitats. 

Teaching Tip: Host an "Adaptation Fashion Show"! Students can choose an animal and design a costume or props to show off its unique adaptations (e.g., polar bear fur, giraffe neck, cactus spines). They can explain how their adaptation helps the organism survive in its habitat. 



5. Interdependence and Conservation

Help students understand the delicate balance of ecosystems and why conservation is so important. The Habitats And Communities slides offer an excellent starting point for discussing how plants, animals, and humans depend on each other.

Teaching Tip: After reviewing the slides, brainstorm ways your class can help protect local habitats. You could organize a litter cleanup, start a pollinator garden, or create posters advocating for conservation. Tie in the concept of interdependence by discussing how their efforts support local ecosystems.


Inspire Curiosity with A Ready-to-Go Resource 

Ready to start exploring habitats and communities with your students? Check out the resource: Habitats And Communities Activities and Slides resource

What are your favorite ways to teach about habitats and communities? Share your ideas in the comments—I’d love to hear them!



Sunday, 8 December 2024

Bring Hanukkah Into Your Classroom: Book, Snack, and Teaching Resource!

As the winter season approaches, it’s the perfect time to teach students about diverse celebrations that bring light, joy, and togetherness. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday filled with meaningful traditions like lighting the menorah, spinning dreidels, and sharing delicious treats like latkes. 

In this post, I’ll share a beautiful picture book to introduce Hanukkah, a simple classroom-friendly snack, and a resource to make planning your lesson easy and engaging.

Read A Picture Book

“Hanukkah Bear” by Eric A. Kimmel is a great read aloud. This heartwarming and humorous story follows Bubba Brayna, who mistakenly serves her Hanukkah latkes to a hungry bear, thinking he is the rabbi. With charming illustrations and an engaging plot, this book introduces students to Hanukkah traditions like lighting the menorah and enjoying festive meals. 

Why It’s Great for the Classroom: 
  • The playful storyline keeps students engaged. 
  • Includes a recipe for latkes, connecting to the holiday’s cultural traditions.


Enjoy a Taste of Hanukkah Snack 

Latkes or applesauce bring Hanukkah to life with a taste of tradition! Latkes, or potato pancakes, are a beloved Hanukkah dish that symbolize the miracle of the oil. While making latkes from scratch might not be practical in a classroom setting, you can: 
  •  Bring in pre-made frozen latkes to heat and share. 
  •  Serve applesauce as a standalone snack, a popular latke topping.


Hands-On Activities with a Reading Passage 

To dive deeper into Hanukkah, my My Countdown to Winter Break: Winter Holidays Around the World Activities resource includes a dedicated Hanukkah reading passage and an engaging activity. Students will learn about the history of the holiday, its traditions, and its cultural significance while developing reading comprehension skills. 

What’s Included: 
  •  A two-page reading passage explaining Hanukkah in kid-friendly language. 
  • A matching activity that reinforces key facts about the holiday. 
  • Printable and digital options for flexible classroom use. 

Why Teachers Love It: 
  • This resource saves time with ready-made materials.
  • It provides a meaningful way to introduce Hanukkah in an inclusive and educational way.


Celebrate the Festival of Lights in Your Classroom!

Hanukkah offers a wonderful opportunity to teach students about resilience, faith, and the joy of sharing traditions. With a story like Hanukkah Bear, a taste of latkes or applesauce, and a hands-on resource, your students will walk away with a deeper appreciation for this special holiday. 

Ready to bring Hanukkah into your classroom? Explore my Countdown to Winter Break: Winter Holidays Around the World Activities resource featuring Hanukkah and nine other global celebrations. This all-in-one resource makes it easy to celebrate diversity and keep students engaged throughout the season! 

👉  Follow me on Instagram for daily countdown reels celebrating each of the ten holidays!