Got Junk??

It's that time of year, where I get anxious to start cleaning out all of the miscellaneous items that I have collected throughout the year! Well, today I was in our 2nd grade hallway and noticed [...]

Transitions in Writing: A Smooth Move

Transitions, transitions, transitions. The goal of any writer is to create a smooth, flowing piece, filled with interesting information, that their readers will enjoy.  This week, my 6th grade [...]

March Madness in My Classroom = Happy Students

Test Prep- Day 2 Maximize Your Students' Exposure to Prompts

Today our fourth graders continued building off of yesterday's main idea sort. In this 20 minute lesson, the groups wrote a main idea sentence for each main idea blurb on a strip of paper. The [...]

Test Prep- Maximize Your Students' Exposure to Prompts

Hello fellow Texas teachers! It is impossible to predict the prompt that your fourth and seventh-grade students will be given for STAAR this year. The key is to expose students to as many [...]

April Lessons of the Month

WOW... Can you believe April is already here? This year is flying by! This month, the lessons are all about our planet! Whether you are studying space in K-2, or needing an Earth Day lesson for [...]

Test Prep: Run-On Sentences

Hey, Hey 7th grade teachers!! Are you looking for a revising and editing guide that you and your students will LOVE?? EW just released the 7th Grade Revising and Editing guide last month, and it [...]

Test Prep- Connecting with Details

As the 4th graders prepared to write to the new prompt "A hobby you are involved in," we looked at the difference between just writing down information or really making a connection with your [...]

Test Prep- Broadening Your Topic

After looking at the new topic that the 4th graders at our school were going to be writing to next, we noticed how easy it would be for students to get hung up on a specific topic.  Example topics [...]

Test Prep- Well Elaborated Details

Testing, testing, ONE.TWO.THREE.  Our fourth graders needed a little reminder of one of the first rules in writing detail sentences. NO GROCERY LISTS!!  I just happened to walk into Mrs. Reynolds' [...]