If you picture back to school this year as including an unusually large amount of whole group instruction due to social distancing, don’t assume that you might as well not even break out all of those great task cards you’ve collected! So maybe you aren’t going to be doing small group or partner activities […]
For many teachers, it’s about that time – time to start collecting materials, buying new supplies, searching for free resources, and sorting through old stuff to see what will will work for the upcoming year. Back to school instruction may look different this year that it did last (in a way isn’t that how […]
As essential as Latin and Greek roots are to vocabulary growth, to a middle schooler or upper elementary student they can seem more than a little dry. For an English teacher, it’s easy to get interested in a new root that can open up a whole new selection of words, but for a kid, probably […]
Since I’ve been working an resources for teaching affixes and roots, I thought I would make a quick, free anchor chart to go with them. Well, somehow it turned into two! You can see the first one above. It’s a little chart for the classroom wall; post it on the side wall as […]
As teachers all know, kids don’t learn everything on the first try. With repetition and practice, they gradually gain a better understanding of the concepts and gradually pick up more and more of the facts. This seems especially true with vocabulary instruction. There are so many little details to learn – prefixes, suffixes, and […]
Vocabulary (cue the scary music) – In middle school and the upper elementary grades, it’s one of those topics that never goes away. Year after year, teachers teach story vocabulary, content vocabulary, affixes, roots, word connotations, and more. Why? Because it’s so needed! Vocabulary infuses everything we teach in language arts (not to […]
The basic rule of subject-verb agreement is hard enough to explain to kids! A singular subject takes a singular verb – but a singular verb looks like a plural noun because it ends with an -s, and a plural noun takes a plural verb – but a plural verb looks like a singular noun […]
Journey, the middle grades novel by Patricia LacLachlan, lends itself really well to related vocabulary activities, and it’s a great choice for upper elementary kids as well as those middle school students who do best with shorter easy-to-read novels for whatever reason. Actually, people of all ages enjoy reading this easy little story. Mainly […]
For a class of middle grade kids who love to work in groups and love to move around the room, task cards can be your go-to resource. They are so handy to have around and pull out throughout the year as needed. And task cards work great for any language arts skills – reading, writing, […]
Teaching affixes and roots can be a problem. First of all, where does it fit in among all the literature that you want to read, the reading skills that your kids need to work on, the types of writing you need to cover, and the composition skills you want your kids to pick up […]
Good vocabulary skills can make such a difference! Understanding the connotations and the multiple meanings of words and recognizing the imagery in a reading passage allows us to get so much more out of it. Figurative language and analogies add to our enjoyment of reading. And for kids, those advanced word attack skills can […]
Recognizing common idioms, proverbs, and adages is a useful skill – no doubt about that! For one thing, Common Core standards say that kids in the upper elementary grades need to be able to do it, but it’s also a practical vocabulary skill. That’s easy to see when working with students who are learning […]
Understanding how to solve analogies is an important language arts skill, but since analogies are basically little puzzles, they can also be a fun activity. Kids who have the skills to solve a variety of types of analogy have an advantage when it comes to reading and understanding figurative language as well as vocabulary. […]
Once kids get the idea that many words have two or more completely different meanings, they can begin to use this knowledge to increase their vocabulary. Playing a game with multiple meaning words is a great way to do this. A team challenge game not only provides students with exposure to lots of different […]
At first, kids learn that words have a meaning, one meaning, so it’ no wonder that multiple meaning words can be confusing for students when they first encounter them. But, once they get the idea, understanding multiple meaning words can be a big boost! Students who recognize multiple meanings of words have an easier […]
Connotations – it’s a tricky subject! But luckily middle schoolers and upper elementary kids are good at understanding connotations in their own gossipy way! Now they just need to apply that vocabulary skill to academic activities rather than just decoding the word nuances in a typical “he said . . . she said . […]
Picture books are great vehicles for clarifying one particular story element for the class. For example, the book Riding the Tiger, by Eve Bunting, is a great one for introducing theme. One way to do that, of course, would be to discuss the theme of the story after reading the book to the class. But […]
Vocabulary- how often does it seem like one more thing that you should fit more of into your language arts curriculum? But where’s the time? The main problem with vocabulary is that there’s so much of it! There is the vocabulary that you want to pull from novels and stories that you read with […]
Here’s a free mini-poster that I thought some of you might find useful. It’s an anchor chart all about how to solve analogies with an example that shows how the two sides of an analogy must match and a list of some common types of analogies to look out for. Post it on a […]
To solve analogies, kids need to know two things – the basic pattern that all analogies follow, and the different ways in which the pairs of words in the analogy can go together. Teaching these different types of analogies gives kids more tools to use when solving these little word puzzles on their own. […]
When you are planning spring activities, a word list can come be a useful tool. In case you could use a handy list, here’s one for spring. Having middle grade kids in mind, I’ve included some words that they’ll recognize from previous years as well as forms of those words that may be new […]
Since I’ve been working on some new resources for using parts of speech lately, I thought it might be a good time to post a couple of anchor charts. I made two different charts – both define the parts of speech but one includes a little more information and the other includes fill-in-the-blank sentences […]
At some point in teaching writing, middle grade teachers instruct their students to do a little revising and replace overused words with more interesting ones. So the kids pull out a thesaurus and pick something among the many choices available. The problem, of course, is that some kids just don’t have the experience to […]
Animalia, by Graeme Base, is an alphabet book that is entertaining people of all ages. And it would be a great mentor text for lessons in either alliteration or sentence building – or better yet a fun lesson that combines both! As with many language arts skills, kids have come across both alliteration and […]
Last fall, I posted an autumn word list, an alphabetical list of about 70 words that could be useful in a variety of autumn themed activities. This time, I thought I would update a little with some ideas for using those words in a variety of autumn activities. I’ll add the list again below. […]
This updated resource now includes 21 activities plus a large slide presentation for teaching Latin and Greek roots The activities include a game and a set of practice cards. The PowerPoint introduces LOTS of roots, divided into three groups for easier use. The Roots Are: Set 1: –meter-, -bio-, -man-, -ped-, -photo-, -hydro-, […]
Teaching literary terms – you have to do it so that you can talk about all those good things with your class. But just teaching the terms can be a big task in itself when you’re dealing with middle grade kids. The words can seem foreign to them, and it’s not the easiest topic […]
Word relays are a great activity to do with the whole class to practice identifying prefixes, suffixes, and roots and writing words with these elements. My favorite method is a whiteboard relay. It’s a simple, versatile activity that requires almost no prep, and it gets the kids moving! For the relay, divide your […]
Learning terms and definitions by themselves doesn’t provide much value to kids, but they need to know, and be able to use, certain terms in order to discuss and understand what they read about literature – story elements, types of figurative language, vocabulary terms, etc. What other categories of terms do you teach to […]
Why do we have so many words that mean the same thing? Because they don’t! Most “synonyms” actually have slightly different meanings, and that’s where we get into interesting vocabulary topics like connotations versus denotations. One way to demonstrate this with students is to have them replace a word in a passage with various […]
Could you use a nice, long vocabulary list for Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and other patriotic holidays? This list of over 75 terms was designed with middle grade kids in mind. Here it is: Patriotic/Military Word List appreciation veterans valor valiant memorial commemorate preservation patriot loyalty homeland patriotism independence colony alliance […]
This is a great idea for a card game to review prefixes, suffixes, and roots that I found on ReadWriteThink. Kids play the game in small groups, and it plays just like the old card game of rummy, but instead of matching numbers or suits on ordinary playing cards, they match a prefix, a […]
Here is my updated and expanded list of vocabulary words that might be useful for Earth Day puzzles, games, or other activities – along with a few suggestions for activities using the word list. Vocabulary List biodegradable renewable carbon carbon footprint fossil fuel organic renewable non-renewable conserve conservation ecology ecosystem habitat resources watershed wetlands […]
Do you need a word list for your Saint Patrick’s Day activities, games, or puzzles? Here is a list of around 40 words and terms related to Saint Patrick’s Day and all things Irish – Celtic Celtic cross Gaelic shillelagh Saint Patrick St. Paddy patron saint snakes leprechaun wee mischief shenanigans foolishness […]
Prefixes, suffixes and roots – it’s such a big subject to cover! Once the kids have the concept, that’s only the beginning – there are so many affixes or roots in each group to introduce the kids to that it can really be an ongoing project rather than a one-time unit. And just when you […]
Analogies can be confusing for kids. With four words to deal with, they may be left wondering exactly what they are looking for. Of course the trick is to look at the relationship between each pair of words, not just the four individual words, but that concept can be difficult at the beginning. […]
New from Classroom in the Middle – ten activities all about suffixes! The ten activities include: 1.Using Suffixes in Words and Sentences 2.Using Suffixes to Sort Parts of Speech 3.Choose Your Suffix – Cut and Paste 4.Identifying Suffixes 5.Make New Words with Suffixes 6.Identify the Prefix, Suffix, and Base 7.Suffix Change Up 8.Suffix […]
Need some fresh winter words for vocabulary or puzzle activities? Here is a list of about 50 winter weather words that might work well for middle grade kids. The words relate to cold weather, snow, activities on snow and ice, and cold-weather clothing. thundersnow blustery flurry slush hoarfrost rime sleet freezing […]
Need a list of vocabulary words to keep handy for autumn and autumn holidays? Use it for word games, vocabulary practice, writing exercises, whatever you could use a seasonal word list for. amber aromas autumn bale bonfire bounty brisk carving chestnuts chilly chili cider cinnamon colony cornstalk cornucopia costume cranberry crisp crunching family […]
These task cards are all designed specifically for the middle grades – four through seven. There is more content per card than on the typical elementary school task cards, so kids still get to move around when you’re doing an activity, but they also will spend a few more minutes on each card […]
Here is a handy anchor chart to show students how to search for context clues in a piece of text. The chart explains how to sue context clues and gives examples of three types of context clues that students can look for. You can download a copy here: How to Use Context Clues Related […]
I’ve been working on idioms, and I’ve ended up with three new resources – all about idioms. All three of these resources are for sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store now. Idioms Task Cards – FLYING PIGS is a set of thirty half-page task cards that provide students with various types of practice identifying […]
Parts of speech is one of those topics that seem to need a little something extra to get kids interested – especially kids in the middle grades! So I like to add two favorite elements – a picture book and a contest. With kids who have already been introduced to the parts of […]
For a little variety in your Christmas word finds, games, and other puzzles, try this word list – it’s all characters, and a few authors, from well-known holiday stories. And if you prefer a more general list of Christmas words, there’s one of those too – it’s called Sights and Sounds of Christmas and there […]
Here is a list of Christmas words that might come in handy as you make your own holiday games and activities. Festive Cranberries Wreath Jingle Cheer Sleigh Bough Reindeer Fruitcake Turkey Icicles Memories Manger Straw Poinsettia Sugarplums Fireplace Candles Carolers December Greenery Traditions Hooves Rooftop Polar Joyous Bells Tinsel Garland Wondrous Nativity Creche Greetings Holly […]
