Data and Graphs

New math resource! Perfect for distance learning or the face-to-face classroom, this math resource is an interactive presentation to help students understand data by collecting, describing, and representing statistical information. Students learn about different types of graphs and charts and how to represent the data. The Google Slides™ or PDF activities are suited for grade two, grade three, or grade four students. 

Distance Learning - Data and Graphs includes PDF and Google Slides. 

PDF Users: The presentation and activities can be presented as a PDF. Annotated notes are provided. 

GOOGLE Users: You can download the presentation and activities directly to your Google account with just the click of a button! Print: The slides can be printed as anchor charts or used as a presentation. 

The SLIDES explain: 

• Pictographs
• Bar Graphs
• Line Plots
• Line Graphs
• Tally Marks
• Pie Charts
• Charts
• Lists

EACH type of graph is presented in three ways: Example of the graph A questions for students to collect data and then represent in a graph. A completed graph for students to interpret data.

View the preview video to learn more! 

Mapping out the Year for Combined Grades

Teaching a split grade or combined grades? Unsure where to start? 

This video shows how to create a yearly plan! From looking at outcomes to mapping out a pacing guide, I outline how start planning.

Want a sample pacing guide and blank template as shown in the video? Join Eclectech Educator's Mailing List! After subscribing, the resources will be sent to you via email. The form can be found on the right column of the blog!

Enjoy the video! Please follow my video channel to receive more free printables and updates of new products and teaching goodies!

   

How To Teach A Science Mini Lesson

I did it!
I finally made my first educational video.


I wanted to share ideas for teaching science. Using examples from my Teachers Pay Teachers resources, I share how to engage students in scientific concepts using:

1. Connections
2. Teaching
3. Active Engagement
4. Linking

The video shows how science can be hands-on, inquiry-based, and FUN!

Please enjoy the video and post your feedback.

Science

Science is one of my favourite subjects! The students love to be engaged in activities that deepen their curiosity about the natural and constructed world.

When creating my science units, I aim to engage student in inquiry about a topic. The unit has ample opportunities to:

• ask questions about objects, organisms, and events in the environment 
• plan and conduct a simple investigation
• use simple equipment and tools to gather data 
• use data to construct a reasonable explanation 
• communicate investigations and explanations
• promote enjoyment of science

My science units often have a presentation to focus the inquiry and introduce each concept. It is often a discussion starter, so I display the relevant slide at the beginning of the lesson.

In my Motion and Position unit, the concept of friction is introduced. We had discussed the definition of friction as the contact force between two objects moving against each other. Now we needed to explore this concept with concrete examples. Sometimes friction is needed to slow us down. We talked about how running shoes help us on the gym floor during a lively game of tag and how winter boots help us when we step onto a patch of ice. The slide serves as starting point for our discussion and inquiry of friction. We then progressed to explore friction through hands-on investigations.

In subsequent lessons, we explored other forces that impact motion. As we explored gravity, we discussed how we need to pedal our bicycle harder on an incline. We then tested this theory of gravity using created slopes and toy cars.

Explorations help solidify students' understanding of a concept and clear up confusions. Hands-on experiments allow students to test predictions, gather relevant data, and communicate their scientific learnings. In this exploration, we are exploring air resistance or drag.

Students are often surprised that the lighter piece lands first. This is a great opportunity to discuss drag. Resistance and friction cause changes in acceleration. Air resistance (drag) slowed down the heavier piece. Drag opposes the direction that the object is moving and slows it down.

To culminate the unit, we like to complete a hands-on project to show off our learnings. In this unit, the students build a roller coaster that can move a marble at least 2 different ways. They are provided materials and design with the following questions in mind:

• What factors affect the movement? 
• Is there a pattern to the movement?

We also like to play a cooperative digital game! The unit contains questions for students to answer. The next slide shows the answer. It is a fun way to check what we have learned!

This unit, Motion and Position, is available in my TPT store. It includes slides, activities, and low-prep experiments featured in this post AND MUCH MORE to help students explore motion - how things move, their relative position, and forces that impact movement.  It is perfect for distance learning and can be easily uploaded to your digital classroom.

I hope this post shows how I teach science and helps you with ideas for your classroom. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I love teaching science!

Organizing Your Bookmarks

Visual Organization

I have included some tips for organizing your browser to help you find frequently visited sites quickly , obtain more space on your Bookmarks Bar, and to hide sites you may not want students to see when screen recording. Do students really need to see my Amazon order or that I bookmarked a wine lover site?

Boom Cards

Boom is a platform that allows teachers to purchase and/or create digital activities for students. Boom “decks” are made up of individual, digital task cards that are gamified for students to complete.

Why Use?

• Differentiating your instruction (you can assign different students different decks!) 
• Giving students immediate, automatic feedback 
• Getting students EXCITED about learning with badges and fun digital “rewards” for their work
• Holding students accountable for their independent work Saving time (less grading!) 
• Saving paper

What Do I Need?

• A computer, tablet, or interactive whiteboard 
• A free or paid Boom account 
• An internet connection to access the Boom decks

How can I use Boom cards that I purchase on TeachersPayTeachers? 

• Purchase decks or bundles from a TeachersPayTeachers store. 
• Once purchased, you will receive a PDF download. 
• Open up the PDF. Inside the PDF, you will find links to a Boom deck. Click the link to add the deck to your Boom library. You will have to create or log into your Boom account. Once a link is clicked, it will ALWAYS remain in your Boom library for you to access!

How much does it cost to use Boom? 

• You can use Boom for free. 
• However, a paid account allows you to: get reports about student progress and activity, easily assign students multiple decks to work on, and create an entire classroom of student logins

If I only have a free account, how can I use Boom cards with my students? 

• Once logged into your Boom teacher account, go to “Library,” find the deck you want students to use
• Click on “FastPin” and select “Generate New Pin.” 
•  You then have two options: Either: Copy and paste the complete link for students to play, OR Go to the Boom main page. Click on the “FastPlay” button. Enter the pin and click “play.” Important: A pin is valid for 5 days. After the 5 days are up, you can still access the cards, but you will need to generate a new pin for student use.

View the preview of my first Boom Deck entitled Nonfiction Text Features. The 39-deck has students practice the purpose and function of nonfiction text features, such as headings, charts, and timelines.

Distance Learning

Distance or remote learning is uncharted territory for most of us. We are planning and thinking about teaching in new ways.

To help you in this new journey, I have compiled tips and strategies to help make this process more effective for you, your students, and their caregivers.

Planning

• Weekly Planner - This FREE resource provides a week at a glance. It can be used as a planner for teachers or uploaded to your digital classroom as an organizer for students. The text boxes are editable, so it can be customized to your needs.

Morning Meeting or Starting The Day

• Flipgrid - Foster short video-based discussions on classroom topics. Great for Morning Meetings, as well as reading fluency, book talks, Socratic discussions, and check-ins.
• Zoom - Engage students: chat, screen annotation, polling, non-verbal feedback, and breakout rooms. Use the features of Zoom to guide different types of interactive activities.
• Google Meet - Meet is a replacement for Google Hangouts video chat. Using this video chat service to connect with classrooms across the globe. Connect with teachers, meet with parents, or have students meet together and with professional experts. 
• Kahoot - Run checks for understanding or exit tickets. If you don't have time to make quizzes, search millions of public Kahoots to play or remix. Go beyond memorization of facts and allow Kahoot! to introduce scenario questions/prompts with multiple decisions; stimulate conversation from the results.
• Screencastify - Create instructional videos to introduce or reinforce concepts. Alternatively, create videos to explain assignments and solutions or to provide feedback. Have students create videos to explain understandings, demonstrate fluency, or ask questions.

Reading

• Epic! - Epic! is a digital library of children’s books. The site presents book choices to students. Students can browse by their interests or categories, and see eye-catching book covers. Epic! makes listening to and reading books incredibly appealing. There are book videos and quizzes, as well!
• NewsELA - A library of high-interest, cross-curricular, adjustable nonfiction texts. Newsela's range of reading levels invites targeted intervention and differentiation. Assign articles to individual students or small groups, using the quizzes to track progress and make further recommendations. Select articles for targeted instruction on specific reading outcomes while modeling good annotation and close-reading strategies for your students.
• ReadWorks - Differentiate reading instruction with texts. Features, such as the ability to curate lists and view assignments over time, make it easy to monitor student progress.
• Dreamscape - Combines games with reading passages and interactive questions to create engaging activities!
• Google Forms - Create surveys, ask questions, administer quizzes, or use as a method for submitting work. Teachers have the opportunity to track an abundance of information and store it in one centralized location. 

Math

• Khan Academy -  The instructional videos help students learn new content, and the interactive quizzes help teachers track student progress, Khan Academy offers help in many subjects like math, science, economics, art, and computer science, as well as resources for test prep and teacher learning.
• Prodigy - Have students practice their math skills as they navigate a fantasy world. Built to captivate students and motivate learning, Prodigy has students practice math skills  through assigned and customized assignments.
• Math Presentations - I have created many presentations to help guide students learning in several mathematical topics: 

Fractions - Presentation and Charts

Mass and Capacity - Presentation and Charts

Patterns and Relations - Presentation and Charts

I hope that these tips help you navigate this new territory of home learning. If you have any additional tips or suggestions, please post in the comments. We are all in this together!

New Banner

St. Patrick's Day

On March 17th, people of Irish heritage celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades, wearing green, and avoiding being "pinched." Students love to hear tales of cunning leprechauns and fairies and their partaking in mischief.

So put on your green, stick a shamrock in your hair, and head on down to the end of the rainbow with this very lucky St. Patrick's Day post ! Complete with themed math centers, fun writing prompts, reading passages, craft ideas, and graphing ideas, I have shared my favourite St. Patrick’s Day activities for primary students.

Leprechaun Letters

Build excitement by leaving leprechaun "evidence" in the room before the students arrive. Mess up books, toys, papers, books, backpacks, etc. Leave glitter behind and footprints.  Leprechaun footprints can be made by stamping the side of your fist in green paint! 

Three days prior, read a letter each day left by the leprechaun and search for the leprechaun’s shoes, pot of gold, green treats, etc. that had been left behind.  See the letters in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource! As St. Patrick's Day draws near, make the messes bigger!

St. Patrick's Day Literacy

A favourite read aloud is  Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. The tale features a lazy man who is sure he'll starve to death after his wife becomes ill. A wily leprechaun intervenes, and one wish later, the man is the proud owner of a potato as big as a house! The story lends itself to making predictions and foreshadowing. 

Fiona’s Luck is another favorite St. Patrick’s Day read aloud.  An original folktale full of wit, magic, and leprechauns, that is sure to delight for St. Patrick’s Day as well as all year round. The luck of the Irish has waned after the greedy Leprechaun King has taken all the good fortune in Ireland and locked it away. It is up to one cunning girl, Fiona to come up with a plan to get the luck and good tidings back from the leprechauns to help the people of Ireland. Through clever charades, Fiona uses her wit to outsmart the powerful Leprechaun King and restore luck to the Emerald Isle. This folktale is perfect for introducing or reviewing theme as students learn that cleverness and intelligence is  advantageous.

Will your students be the first to catch a leprechaun? Catching leprechauns is no easy task!  An included reading passage shows students need need more than dandelion tea and four-leaf clovers! Pair the reading passage with the picture book How To Build A Leprechaun Trap - which shows builders need the perfect trap with precise calculations and proper engineering.

The reading passage and printables that accompany these book are included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

St. Patrick's Day Mathematics

St. Patrick's Day is a great time for students to practice their data management skills. The Irish are infamous for the many delicious ways they prepare potatoes, from pancakes to Irish candy style! Potato Graph Poll students to determine how they like their spuds: baked, mashed, tater tots, French fries, hash browns, or potato chips. Have students create a pictograph of their favourites.  The activity is included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

Lucky Charms cereal is perfect for St. Patrick' Day. In March, General Mills often features green boxes of Lucky Charms in stores which include a special, limited-edition marshmallow blend of pots of gold, green shamrocks and new gold coins.  Provide each student a handful of the cereal (regular or green box) and have them graph their results. The graph is included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

St. Patrick's Day Writing

Limericks are a type of nonsense poetry that are intended to be silly and fun. Limericks originated in England in the early 18th century. Legend has it that the name of the poetry originates from Ireland, which is why limericks are so popular during St. Patrick's Day.

Limericks depend on rhythm and rhyme. Lines one, two and five rhyme with each other. Lines three and four rhyme with each other (AABBA).

Share several limericks from Edward Lear's The Complete Book of Nonsense. Have students compose limericks. The limerick templates and exemplars are included in my St. Patrick's Day Activities resource!

As you can see, I always sneak many activities to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! I hope your students enjoy the activities.

Fiction vs Nonfiction

Readers approach fiction and nonfiction differently. Fiction refers to plot, settings, and characters created from the imagination, while nonfiction refers to factual stories focused on actual events and people. 

 The contents of the Fiction vs. Nonfiction Interactive Notebook:

• Bibliography 
• Anchor charts 
• Elements Interactive Notebook
• Book Sort Interactive Notebook
• Text Sort Interactive Notebook
• Genre Sort Interactive Notebook
• Summary Interactive Notebook
• Writing Activity

Reading and Interactive Notebooks

I have been thinking a lot about how structure my literacy block, particularly Readers' Workshop. I wanted to share the Reading Rotation and interactive notebooks that we use to keep track of our skills and strategies.

Minds-On

We start together with a Minds-On block. This block is a time for students to notice the author’s craft and to engender comprehension strategies.  . This can be an explicit modelling of the skill, modelled reading, shared reading, or an interactive reading of a mentor text. This block readies our minds to learn or develop a literacy skill.

Reading 

Next, we read! In the Reading block, each student or pair of students have an individual novel with aligns to the mode of reading we are currently studying, such as biographies or persuasive texts. It is time for students to note their reading progress and to read for a sustained period of time. As they read, students are encouraged to take notice of the literacy skills we studied in the Minds-On session.

Independent Task

Now we move into Independent Task block, students practice the skill by completing a task in the Reading Rotation. This block is a time for students to share and coalesce their thinking with a partner or small group. Students engage in reflective dialogue regarding their reading and comprehension of read texts.

Interactive Notebooks

I have created many interactive notebook resources to help students Examine the text. Please visit my store to see my Theme and Author's Purpose 

 

Reflect

The Reflect block of the reading block is a time for students to voice their new learnings and to revisit the teaching point. Students voice the “Noticings” and “Wonderings” shared with their partner to the larger group. Students name the reading skill or strategy they noticed, and perhaps used, in their independent reading. Teachers take note of the sharing on a class chart. The anecdotal records serve as an assessment tool, as well as means for determining A revisitation of the teaching point brings closure to the session

Division Bundle - Unit and Games

Division Bundle is complete!
To help your students master basic division facts, this bundle combines:

1.  A complete division unit 
2. Strategic division games or stations 

The Unit

The 116 page unit contains 13 lessons and an accompanying 28 page flashcard file will help in the teaching and student learning of strategies, tips, and models to solve basic division facts. 

Included in this resource:

• Anchor Charts 
• Lesson Plans
• Flashcards
• Activities
• Diagnostic Assessment

13 sessions are included:

1.  Introduction to Division
2.  Equal Groupings
3. Repeated Subtraction
4. Number Lines 
5. Arrays
6. Thinking Multiplication
7. Identity and Zero Property
8. A Number Divided by Itself 
9. Halving Strategy (Dividing by 2)
10. Dividing by 5 and 10
11. Halving Twice (Dividing by 4) 
12. Dividing by 3 
13. Learning Showcase

The  Games and Stations

The 114 page Games and Stations helps students grasp the difficult concept of division through strategic games and activities. It includes anchor charts, ten games, and reflection sheets.

To demonstrate their understanding of the basic division facts, students will play a game to help learn the following strategies or properties:

1. Zero Property 
2. Identity Property 
3. Making Models (Arrays) and Visual Representations (Skip Counting) 
4. Number Divided By Itself 
5. Halving (Dividing by 2, 4, and 8) 
6. Dividing by 5 and 10 
7. Tripling (Dividing by 3, 6, and 9) 
8. Think Multiplication 
9. Fact Families 

This resource includes the following for each strategy: Anchor chart(s) Flashcards Activity, and Reflection sheet

TPT Sale!

Resources at Eclectech Educator are being offered at 20% OFF, INCLUDING BUNDLES!! Plus, you can get an additional 5% OFF with the promo code: FEBSALE on Tuesday and Wednesday... 

Yesssssss! This is the perfect way to stock up on resources for the coming months, including BUNDLES which already include deep discounts!

Biography Unit

Biography Unit has been updated!

Biography means "writing about life." In this complete reading unit, readers learn only about a variety of notable subjects - their achievements, impact, struggles, and the world in which they live. Students will make arguments about the significance of the person's accomplishments and to extract life lessons. 

The resource is organized around TWELVE lessons or big ideas of biographies. Each big idea has the following: 

•  Session Synopsis (detailed lesson plan) 
• Anchor Chart Task (independent or group work) 

I have also included a bibliography and an overview of how I organize my reading block.

Word Work

Struggling to help students master the sounds and spellings of words? Word Work resources have been created!

Each week, my students follow a work work schedule to build routine and the familiarity with the procedure helps students focus on the spelling. We sort words and then complete an activity to help students spell, read, and write the words, as well as add the words to their vocabulary,

Each resource packages includes sorting cards, anchor charts, PowerPoint presentation, and ten NO PREP activities/printables to help students practice and master the focused spelling concept!

This Zip File includes the following activities/printables:

• Word Wall cards for class, small group, or individual sorting 
• Sort the Words worksheet - A cut and paste activity 
• Write the Words worksheet - Copy and write the words 
• Read the Words worksheet - Read a short story and find the spelling words 
• Writing activity - Write a paragraph using the spelling words 
• Vocabulary worksheet - Complete the sentences with the spelling words 
• Assessment printable - Spelling dictation 

Everything is prepped - just print and you are ready to help students master these tricky spellings.

The following Word Work resources have been prepared:

• Ew, Ui, and Ue vowel digraphs
• Ou and Ow 
• Oi and Oy
• Long U (U_e and U)