Save Time for Teaching Science!

When super busy days squeeze something out of the daily schedule in our primary grade classrooms,
it's very often science or social studies that fall by the wayside. That's sad, because we know how important both science and social studies are and also how much many of our students love them. 

But the reality is that literacy and math are at the top of the teaching (and testing!) list and we all know it.


So, what can we do about it? Well, one idea that I'm sure we all try to do is to choose our readalouds with an eye to the content area topics we're teaching.  Solid readalouds packed with the vocabulary of your science topic give your students' repeated exposure to content area vocabulary, and also address literacy standards for non-fiction. A great book can also be the springboard for some non-fiction writing, either whole class or in a writing center.


Integrating science into your math and literacy teaching (and vice versa!) is another idea for making the most of your teaching time. Integrating curriculum is also a surefire way to improve vocabulary understanding and retention and, in simple terms, to help the learning stick!

Here's an easy way to help you put more science back into your day. 

This set of 45 graphing and writing experiences to address eight of the most popular first grade science topics (in some curriculums, the landforms and bodies of water topics will bridge over into social studies).

Here's what's included! 

► 7 independent graphing experiences, including two read-and-graph reading passages (answer keys included)

► 9 student surveys (students interview their classmates and then record the data)

► 7 class graphs in color, for teaching/modeling or for a class book.

► 22 writing activities to use along with the data collection experiences. Writing formats include ...

                    * Personal narrative

                    * Lists

                    * Labeling

                    * Completing graphic organizers

                    * Persuasive writing

                    * Non-fiction

                    * Descriptive writing

                    * Friendly letter

You'll be happy to see how much teaching time you'll save with these one-page easy prep resources!

Are you ready to try this free set of three plant activities from this graphing and writing collection? You'll find it when you download the preview! Click here to get yours!

Winter Writing Freebie

Hello, Teaching Friends!

The housecleaning continues at my TpT store ... I should only be so energetic with the vacuum and scrub brush in our own house!

Here's the result of today's "spiffing up"!

I took two previous freebies previously posted separately, switched up some fonts and graphics, and combined them into one easy download. Here's what you'll get in your Winter Writing Toolkit.


Add a spinner to the Story Clock and you've got twelve winter story starters.

Print the story cube on cardstock, cut, and tape or glue it together, and your little writers will be on their way to writing five winter sports stories.

Lastly, here's a writing tool that with two rolls of a die will give your students 36 writing suggestions, mostly kind of silly, but, hey, don't we all know that kidlets LOVE silly!

Click on the cover pic or here to get the all-shined-up new version at my TpT store.

Happy Teaching!

Characters for Writing

Hello, Teaching Friends!

Do you remember these little cuties? Or maybe in your house, you're still tripping over them and listening to the ka-thumpity sound they make when they get sucked up in your vacuum.

Try putting a box of these little guys in your writing center. Have your students reach in (no peeking!) and pull out two or three and write a story using them as the main characters.

The more variety in your character box, the more variety you'll see in the writing! Throw in a few animals like this zebra, and maybe even a few vehicles. If you don't have your own, you can get them for a song at garage sales, or you probably have parents who'd be willing to donate a few. Less ka-thumpitys in their vacuum cleaners is a good selling point on that, you know. ;)


Happy Teaching!

Ed Emberley's Books: Using Drawing to Inspire Writing

Hello, Friends!

I'm linking up again this week at Deanna Jump's "Book Talk Tuesday".  Click the image to head on over and discover some great new books!





This week,I'd like to share what I guess you might call a "how-to" book ... how to draw! Ed Emberley is the king of this kind of book - he has a whole series of them! Do you know his fingerprint books? I also love this one about trucks and trains!

 

 



The step-by-step wordless directions make success attainable for non-readers, and successful experiences lead to more of the same! The trucks and trains are simply magnetic for some of the boys.



Why is it important for our students to be able to draw recognizable pictures?  Drawing a picture is more than just making lines and circles. It's following directions, and sequencing, and observing carefully. But above all, like writing, it's a way to convey a message. For non-readers or struggling readers, the ability to tell a story through pictures is very empowering. For more capable writers, a detailed drawing can be an entry point for the addition of more details in writing.


If you're looking for other drawing tutorials in various styles, I've assembled some on a Pinterest board.



For more ideas on using drawing as a springboard for writing, I'd love it if you'd click back to my post "Empowering Young Authors with How-to-Draw Lessons".

Thanks for stopping by - draw a good story today! :)
Do you have a special way of using drawing in your writing lessons? Please share!


Happy Teaching!

Holiday Roll-and-Write FREEBIE!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

What are your students writing this month?

They're writing...

... lists (they're writing lists of the presents they hope they'll get!)

... directions (they're writing directions for making holiday cookies!)

... letters (they're writing to you-know-who!)

... opinion pieces (they're writing about why they deserve the above-mentioned presents!)


You can't fight this. :) So, why not go with the flow? Here's a simple-to-prep freebie that will keep your little writers busy writing funny holiday stories. Nice and silly. Just the kind kids love best.

Download it free from my Teachers Notebook shop or here from my TpT store. Enjoy!


Happy Teaching!

Activities Like This Put the Energy Back in Writing!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Do your students write in journals every day? In addition to all of the other writing that's part of the daily curriculum, most first graders enjoy sharing some of what's going on in their own lives in an ongoing personal narrative.

Of course, "most" is the tricky word in the previous sentence ... there are always a few reluctant writers who will tell us that there's not one new or interesting thing (or even an old and boring thing) that they can write about. When forced to dig into The Teacher's Bag of Tricks at those moments,
I've tried many of the same things I'm sure you also have...

*  Have a little informal chat with the child and hone in on a topic that he/she can expand.

*  Put two children together to talk with each other for a few moments. If need be, throw a "conversational ball" (figurative or literal!) at them and let it get their mouths and brains going ... "talk about what you'll do at recess today", "talk about what you see on the way to school", "talk about what you hope is in your lunchbox today". Talk often morphs into a renewed enthusiasm for writing.

*  Send the child off to the classroom library to find a favorite book to write about.



Sometimes variety is just what's needed to get the energy back into writing. Enter, "Variety Journals"!



Variety Journals come in two types ... but I use, "come in" loosely, since this is an idea, not a product!

First, there are whole class journals, with each child writing an entry to complete a book that will be perfect for your classroom library. Half page size is nice for this - that's part of the variety! :)
It's very easy to just chop up some copy paper, stick on a cover (made by you or a student), and staple to bind it. Another more durable alternative is to use a composition book, sliced in half horizontally. I've heard that many of the gracious employees at the big home improvement stores will do this for teachers. Use packing tape to affix a bright and inviting cover.


The whole class journals are nice as a "special writing day", when each student writes in a different journal. I know, you'll need so many journals! But a few minutes spent as a class generating an idea list will yield plenty of results for journal writing experiences that will probably last you a few months. Besides, making a class list is shared writing!! Bonus points for you and your kiddos!



Another Variety Journal that I've used with much success is a Monday Journal. Each child has his or her own writing book for this one, and simply uses it for journal writing on Mondays.  They write about who they saw, where they went, what they ate, what they wished they had done (a lot of that, with many tales of woe about missed amusement parks!), or whatever that wanted that related to the weekend. A nice benefit of the Monday Journal is that it builds an expectation that you will definitely be writing about your weekend, so you'd better come prepared with an idea to write about. I found that there was a good amount of carryover of that writing skill into general journal writing, and self-selecting topics started to become easier for some reluctant writers.



The third type of variety journal is an individual themed journal. Sometime we'd take a week and do all of our journal writing in these. Here's a free download of a Snow Journal that also includes eight ideas for writing. You might want to cut apart the idea list, fold the pieces up, and put them in a hat (maybe a snowman's top hat, just for fun?), and have a different child pull out a writing topic each day. With you controlling the topics, you can steer the writing  in themed journals in the direction of your class' needs or your current teaching topics - writing directions, lists, fantasy, labeling, persuasive writing, descriptive writing, math writing, friendly letters, etc.

Individual themed journals are great to use throughout the year. Connect them to your work in social studies and science to infuse more daily non-fiction writing into your curriculum. Will you share some of your ideas for themes in the comments? Thanks!


Happy Teaching!

Are You Fed Up with Lunch?

Dear Teaching Friends,

Did you know that this week is National School Lunch Week?

I came across an interesting book at our public library the other day. It combines my interests  in school, blogging, and healthier eating. Fed Up with Lunch is a grassroots expose of school lunches - grassroots as in, written by a teacher! Which, in my opinion, was a pretty gutsy move on her part!

Sara Wu, aka Mrs. Q, started noticing how sluggish many of her students were in the afternoon. After she forgot her lunch at home one day and resorted to eating a school lunch, she started to wonder about the connection. She made a decision to eat a school lunch every day for a year and to blog about it. The blog developed a following and a lot of attention from celebs like Jamie Oliver, and the final result was this book.

A quote that summarizes her mission:

"I wondered if any researchers had looked into the connection between inadequate school lunches and academic performance. And I wondered if parents and the general public knew what the schools are feeding kids. Sure, the parents might be receiving monthly menus, but the descriptive power of plain text pales in comparison to the grim reality of school food. The colorful names of the entrees put a very optimistic spin on the food-like items that the children are consuming on a daily basis."

That made me think of years ago when the food service in a district I worked in added nutritional info to the back of the monthly menu. The fiber content of the chicken nuggets was so sky-high that  it confirmed what we'd long suspected - those babies were probably just wood chips held together with a little chicken!

Wu's book is loaded with interesting sidebars on topics like positive nutrition education programs, school gardens, childhood obesity, and food additives. Here's an eye-opener...  according to Wu's research, food dyes are petroleum-based and all of the food dyes found in American products (and school lunches are full of them!) have been banned in Europe! Yikes!!


Although it's fact-packed, Wu's writing is also witty, with chapter titles like these: "Pizza with a Side of Paranoia", "Put a Spork in Me; I'm Done!", and "Mrs. Q goes Undercover (Like a Beef Patty Masquerading as Meatloaf)".


You've got to love a teacher who dedicates her book to "lunch ladies everywhere". Maybe your school has crossed the great divide and is already serving nutritious and appealing lunches. Whether that's true or there's still work to be done, thank a lunch lady this week and wish them "Happy School Lunch Week". After all, they're not the ones making the decisions, they're the ones out there in the trenches and getting the kids fed.  Kind of like teachers in a lot of ways, actually, don't you think?

 

 

Here's a free and easy way to give an extra thanks to the lunch ladies this week. Have your students choose and complete one of these writing ideas, and bind them up into a little book or put in a specially kid-decorated envelope to present as a thank you!

Do you have a favorite school lunch that you remember from growing up? What do you think of the lunches served now as compared to that lunch?


Happy Teaching!

Writing Freebie for Back to School

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Are you busy preparing center activities for fall?  Here's a little freebie to add to your collection! If a student ( or 2, or 3, ...) is stumped for a story idea, have them spin the story clock spinner to help get started. Need an additional boost? Pair a student with a partner, have them sit knees to knees, spin the clock, and share ideas in a brief conversation. Chances are that your reluctant writer will be ready now with an idea about his new crayons, or the playground, or what's in his lunchbox.

The story clock is also a fun way to choose a topic for a shared writing mini-lesson, or for whenever you might be creating a Morning Message together.

Just download, add a spinner, and it's ready to go!

Click here to download your story clock!

Happy Teaching!

Free Writing Templates for Summer

Hi, Teaching Friends!

If you're working hard to keep your young writers actively engaged as the days of school slip away, this pack of 14 writing templates may be just what you need.  Each page has a small "story starter" illustration, with room for your students to add to it, along with primary lines for writing. Whether you use these pages for a directed writing exercise or simply print up a bunch for variety in your Writing Center, opportunities to write about seahorses and sand buckets (and more!) may be the motivation your students need!

Do you make a summer writing booklet to send home with each of your students on the last day? This set will make that task a simple print-and-staple!

If you're looking for more ways to keep your little learners writing right up to the very last day, check out these two resources at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

The first includes four cubes, a story clock, and ten task cards for writing.

 

 

The second is a set of 14 picture prompts for writing, along with questions to support and guide your students as they write lists, letters, descriptions, and personal narratives.

 

 

 

 



Happy Teaching!

Free Spring Picture Prompts for Writing!

It's that time of year, even for your best writers, whose skills have grown tremendously (good job, Teacher!!).  All of your writers might need a bit of inspiration for writing ideas!

If your students are running a little low on ideas, here's a set of spring picture prompts for writing. They're full page, perfect to use for whole class lessons on your document camera, or to print for your writing center.

These prompts are unique in that they give writers more than just a picture or a word list. Each picture has a set of questions to guide thinking, great for pre-writing discussions and conferences.

Click to get your free copy!

If you like using this guided writing format, here's a set of 16 spring picture prompts for writing! The download includes each prompt in both full page and task card format. Click to see it at my TPT store!

Happy Teaching!



Thinking and Writing - Freebie!

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Are you working hard to get greater depth to your students' writing,  when you still have some who want to write "I like..." stories every single day? Some days it is truly like pulling teeth, don't you think?

Sometimes, you need to pull back, take a deep breath, and rethink things. More modeled writing combined with modeled thinking / think-alouds (like you do for modeling comprehension) is always a good beginning.

Here's a little set of thinking/writing prompts to help you with that. The three pictures and accompanying questions will guide your students in "pre-thinking" as a way of adding interest to their writing. Nice for use with your document camera!

 

 

Two announcements today:

 

1.  My friend, the amaaaazing Charity Preston, is launching another new project today! It's an e-magazine, packed with great organizational tips and tricks for your classroom. Click on the image below to get your copy of the very first edition FREE!! I just finished reading it, and I think it's somethng you'll really enjoy.

 

 

 

2.  Watch this blog on Saturday for some BIG NEWS! As Primary Inspiration nears its 500th follower, I've been thinking about a special way to say thank you. Those of you who like freebies are likely to be verrrrrrry happy with this celebration. Those of you who don't like freebies... well, sorry, I don't think we've met! :)

If you're not yet a follower, why not join now, so you won't forget to stop back on Saturday?


Happy Teaching!

 

February Writing Freebie

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Happy long weekend! Isn't it crazy how it seems you just get back to school , and - poof!! - you're exhausted again. Let's think of Monday as a "refueling day",  a day to get some rest,  to get you and your classroom back up in high gear again!

Part of that high gear is, of course, getting ready for February, the month of (take a deeeep breath...)Groundhogchinesenewyeardentalhealthblackhistory100thdaymardigrassuperbowlvalentinepresidentsday - so many celebrations that the holidays just seem to run right into each other and off the page!  And just for fun this year, let's have an Inauguration Day, too, okay?

Here's a little bit of most of those holidays, all rolled up into a freebie for your writing center. There are 14 seasonal writing papers in the set, and each page has 6 sets of primary lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Happy Teaching!



 

Turning an Enemy Into a Friend... A Reading & Writing Project

Dear Teaching Friends,

This post contains an affiliate link, for which I would receive a small compensation that would not affect the amount you pay.

I'd like to share a Valentines Day reading/writing project with you. The idea came from Writing Fix,
one of my favorite online writing resources. The lesson there is called "Scheming Against an Adversary: Writing an Original Tale of Non-Violent Revenge", and it's based on this book by Derek Munson. Do you know it?  It's a great story about a very smart dad who helps his son turn an enemy into a good friend - without either of the "enemies" realizing exactly what's happening!

If you're using Six Traits writing, the focus of this lesson is idea development. It's aimed a little high for where my particular group of first grade writers were, but should be fine as described at Writing Fix for second grade and up. We just adapted it a bit, and also turned it into a successful lesson on conflict resolution!

Before reading,  we talked about the word "enemy", with of course a few vivid examples of "Enemies I Have Known" eagerly discussed! We identified these as self-to-text connections that would help us understand the plot and characters of the story.

During reading, we stopped to discuss the dad's plan as it developed - why it might or might not work. We noted changes in the characters as the story progressed. We made predictions, and revised them as the story continued.

After reading, we partnered up to do quick-writes of lists: ingredients for our own "enemy pies". everything from soap to mud to dog food and bugs would appear on those lists! Then we partnered with a buddy to share lists with each other.

The next day, for our writing follow-up, we'd do a shared writing of a chart list of other ways to turn an enemy into a friend. The kids would make suggestions like sharing at lunchtime (basically a no-no at our school because of food allergies, but a nice thought, no?),  inviting the enemy for a playdate, or just simply smiling at them every day (that'll get any enemy going, right?). In other words, there was lots of good thinking and discussion about getting along, conflict resolution, and even dealing with bullies. Then, each child chose an item from the chart list as an idea to write about and expand upon as able. We took it through a short process of sharing with a small group, revising, and editing.


Each child made a self-portrait with hands to hold the finished writing piece and there you have it - a writing display ready for your hallway or bulletin board!

 Here's a very cool bonus that I found when writing up this post. Derek Munson has a website devoted to this book.  I seriously love children's authors' websites, because so many of them are now aimed at young readers and writers, and because it makes authors more real to our young readers. I love to watch kids' reactions when they see some of the pure silliness at these sites... proving once again that reading is FUN!


In case you'd like to make a display like ours, here's a simple version of the sign you see in the first picture above.
Enjoy!

If you've used this book with your class, please share your ideas and activities in a comment!

Click the cover to buy Enemy Pie at Amazon.

Happy Teaching!

Picture Prompts for Winter Writing Freebie!

Hello, Teaching Friends!

Well, it's 65 degrees today here in NJ and the petunias are still blooming in pots on my patio, but nonetheless it's time to write about candy canes and snowmen! This set of Picture Prompts for Winter Writing will help keep your class productively engaged, even though we know that all they really want to think about is the big guy in the red suit!

This set of 14 prompts will have your students writing from now until spring. There are graphic organizers, labels, lists, persuasive writing, directions, descriptive pieces, and more. Click on the picture below to see it at my Teachers Notebook shop.

Here's a sample - 4 of the prompts from the set! Enjoy!

Happy Teaching!