Twenty-one posts for the beginning of the school language arts classroom

Here They Come! Back-to-School Posts for Middle Grade Language Arts Teachers

Twenty-one posts for beginning of school year fb

There’s so much to think about as the new school year approaches!  The classroom, kids, back to school activities – and that’s just the beginning!  Organizing and revamping plans to use throughout the year are always on teachers minds at this season too, because everything you can do now to get resources in order and get them organized can only make your life easier when the time comes to use them.

With that thought in mind, I’ve collected together previous posts from several categories that might be helpful at this time of year.  Here you will find ideas for the first days of school and  getting the classroom ready as well as useful posts for getting organized to teach reading, writing, and vocabulary skills in the middle school and upper elementary language arts classroom.  (And links to some FREEBIES, too!)

Back to School

Ten Back to School Poems – Ten poems that work great with middle grade kids at this time of  year

Ten Back to School Poems

Starting the Day, Starting the Year – About a nice picture book to use at the beginning of the school year

Starting the Day, Starting the Year

Getting the Classroom Ready

Making Your Classroom Their Classroom  Ideas for personalizing your classroom so that kids feel at home and take ownership of the space.  (My guest post at Middle School Mob)

Making Your Classroom Their Classroom pin copy

Making Your Language Arts Classroom Their Language Arts Classroom – More ideas about setting up a room that kids will feel is their space, especially for language arts and reading teachers.

Making Your Language Arts Classroom Their Language Arts Classroom

Grouping Strategies – Ideas about grouping kids to start off the year, or at any time

Grouping Strategies copy

 

Work-saving Teaching Ideas

No-Copy Foldables – Simple foldables that kids can make from plain paper

Easy foldables with no printing or copying

More No-Copy Foldables – More ideas for easy foldables that don’t involve making copies or using templates

More No-Copy Foldables pin

Response Cards – Activities that use various types of simple response cards for high engagement without a lot of moving around the room

Response Cards May Be Just the Ticket pin

Using Task Cards for Individual, Small Group,and Whole Group Lessons – Lots of uses for task cards to incorporate into your lessons as the year rolls along

Using Task Cards

Teaching Reading

Story Elements Lesson Planning Ideas – Story elements is something that language teachers teach off and on throughout the year.  This post offers teaching ideas as well as picture book suggestions for introducing various story elements.

Story Element Lesson Planning Ideas

Middle Grade Classic Novels – A collection of helpful posts about often-used middle grade novels

Blog Posts about Middle Grades Classic Novels pin

Choosing Classroom Novels – Middle graders are a unique bunch, and choosing just the right novel for your group can be a tricky business

choosing-classroom-novels

Teaching Vocabulary

Organizing Vocabulary Instruction for the Year – There is so much that falls under the heading of “vocabulary” for language arts teachers – literature vocabulary, language arts terms, vocabulary skills.  This post is about organizing it all.

Organizing Vocabulary Instruction for the Year

Teaching Affixes and Roots Step by Step – More about organizing the skills part of vocabulary instruction – all those prefixes, suffixes, and roots

Teaching Affixes and Roots - Step by Step

Teaching Writing

Improving Writing Skills at the Sentence Level – A good place to start –  many kids can benefit from an in-depth review of sentence writing at the beginning of the year.

Improving Writing Skills at the Sentence Level

Informative, Explanatory, and Descriptive Prompts – A collection of free prompts, also see additional posts on the blog for free narrative and opinion prompts.

InformativeWriting Prompts

Word List

Literary Terms Word List – A useful list of terms for language arts teachers

Literary Terms List

Free Posters

Solving Analogies  – A poster that you can download for free that spells out for kids just how to solve analogies

Poster with Tips for Solving Analogies

Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots – A simple chart, reminds students which is which and provides examples

Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots Anchor Chart

Context Clues Chart – Steps for using context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words

How to Use Context Clues

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