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👻spoooky STEM challenges👻 You know I love m

👻spoooky STEM challenges👻

You know I love me some themed STEM challenges, but what makes them even better is when they are DIGITAL! Zero setup, prep or mess? Count me in. 🎃

I love these Halloween digital building challenges for a fun October station, morning work, or brain break. Students can work through the building challenges on a tablet or computer! 🕷

Each digital card gives students a different Halloween-themed challenge to complete by dragging and dropping the building blocks. The creative possibilities are endless! I like to have my students screenshot their creations and send them to me.

This set is in my @teacherspayteachers store - get there through the link in my bio, or head to my stories to get a direct link! 👻

#halloweenactivitiesforkids #halloweenclassroom #halloweenstem #stemeducation #octoberactivities

One way I looove to make lesson planning a breeze

One way I looove to make lesson planning a breeze AND get students excited about reading is to plan reading lessons with multiple texts around the same theme! It’s also SUCH a great way to help students dig deep and think critically.

CommonLit’s mini-units for grades 3-5 are each planned around an Essential Question that gets students thinking and is designed to last 1-2 weeks. I mean, lesson planning is a BREEZE with these supplemental units!

I liked to have my students read and talk about several of the paired authentic texts and complete a graphic organizer. Then, they’ll write an evidence-based response, where they answer the Essential Question with everything they’ve learned! Each mini-unit also has a creative writing activity to extend students’ thinking – sooo perfect for a Friday to wrap up the lessons!

CommonLit’s supplemental units are such a great way to get your students reading, writing, and discussing big ideas. Get started with @CommonLit by heading to the link in my bio, and using your teacher email to create a free CommonLit.org account!

#elementary #elateacher #elementaryteaching #5thgrade #4thgrade #3rdgrade #elementary literacy #elementaryeducator #readingteacher #onlinelibrary #teacherresources #elementarylibrary #teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teachers #iteach5th #iteachela #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #teachfifth #iteach345 #commonlit #iteachfourth

Halloween picture books! 👻 I’m a sucker for

Halloween picture books! 👻

I’m a sucker for a themed read aloud. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Swipe through to see allll my favorites for October! Want more info on each one? Head on over to my stories or my Halloween books highlight! 🎃

#halloweenbooks #halloweenbooksforkids #halloweenreadalouds #spookystories #octoberpicturebooks #picturebooks #picturebooksaremyjam #teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teacher #teacherlife #teacherspayteachers #teachertribe #teachers #iloveteaching #iteach5th #iteachela #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #teachfifth #teacherbsn #iteach345 #teacherblogger #iteach4th #iteachthird

Where are my upper elementary teachers?! 🙋🏼‍♀️ It is SO important to foster our students’ independence as readers, but I for one, am totally guilty of not actually giving them the tools they needed to succeed. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Enter @commonlit. ✨ Each CommonLit lesson has read aloud and translation tools to give my students lots of opportunities to comprehend the text. The read aloud feature allows students to have each paragraph spoken to them, with the option to make the reading slower or faster. The translation tool gives students the ability to translate the text into over 30 languages – amazing!

CommonLit’s texts even include highlighting and annotation tools, which is SO GOOD for teaching my students to read and analyze texts. I can see my students’ notes and reply to them in my teacher data dashboard. It’s the perfect way to give my students some independence, while still keeping my finger on their progress.

Turning on Guided Reading Mode is another great way to ensure my students understand as they read. Guided Reading Mode chunks the text into smaller pieces, with a comprehension question at the end of each section. Students need to answer the question correctly to read the next part of the text. I can even see how many attempts it took each student to answer the questions correctly in my teacher data dashboard. You know I am a huge proponent of working smarter, not harder!

Check out these tools and more on CommonLit – it’s free to create an account! There is a link to sign up in my bio. 💻

#commonlit #iteachreading #informationaltext #hybridteaching #virtuallearning #iteachfourth #teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teacher #teacherlife #teacherspayteachers #teachertribe #teachers #iloveteaching #iteach5th #iteachela #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #teachfifth #teacherbsn #iteach345 #teacherblogger #iteach5th #iteach456

No tricks, just a Halloween freebie! 👻 I know

No tricks, just a Halloween freebie! 👻

I know it’s not *quite* October yet, but I have sooo many good things to share with you for Halloween I just couldn’t wait to get started!

First up, this FREE parts of speech Halloween coloring activity. Print out this bad boy and use it for morning work, sub plans, Halloween stations - it’s perfect to grab when you need a quick but engaging activity! I know my students could aaaalways use a refresher on parts of speech.

Wanna download it right away? Head to the link in my bio! If you’re already on my email list, no worries - this will be spooking into your inbox Tuesday morning! 🎃

#classroomhalloween #halloweenclassroom #halloweenactivities #halloweenactivitiesforkids #teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teacher #teacherlife #teacherspayteachers #teachertribe #teachers #iloveteaching #iteach5th #iteachela #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #teachfifth #teacherbsn #iteach345 #teacherblogger #iteachfourth #iteachfifth #iteach4th #iteach456

Anyone else find planning for reading instruction

Anyone else find planning for reading instruction SO overwhelming?! Whole group lessons, close reading, guided reading groups, intervention groups - finding high-quality resources to reach all students can be so time consuming. I know I used to spend a ton of time searching for engaging, differentiated materials that aligned with our standards!

That’s why using @commonlit with my fifth graders was PERFECT. With CommonLit, a FREE digital library with over 300 lessons for grades 3-5, it’s easy to find the perfect text without using your entire planning period searching the internet.

You can search the CommonLit library by genre, theme, and more to find a text your students will love. Each text comes with standard-aligned and skills-based assessment questions, optional discussion questions, paired texts, and related media links to make planning sooo easy!

The lessons are perfect to assign digitally too. After students complete a lesson on CommonLit, all their data is aggregated onto an easy-to-read teacher dashboard. The data dashboard is full of useful information that makes it clear to see what my students understand and where they need more support.

Get started with CommonLit by using your teacher email to create a free CommonLit.org account – you can head straight there through the link in my bio!

#Teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teacher #teacherlife #commonlit #teachertribe #teachers #iloveteaching #iteach5th #iteachela #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #teachfifth #teacherbsn #iteach345 #teacherblogger #iteachreading #guidedreading #iteachela #iteach456 #iteachfourth

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