5 tips to change the atmosphere in your classroom

Your classroom may have become a static entity because you are so involved with hybrid learning, keeping your classroom disinfected, and oh yeah, formulating interesting and educational lessons.  However, changing things up a bit, even slightly will help engage your students and stimulate their creativity.  Here are some ideas:

1. Change the bulletin boards, seating arrangement, or virtual background as often as possible. Weekly might be a bit of overkill.  But every two weeks of change will go miles to helping kids feel like their education is evolving.  Yes, this is a bit of work, but just one change – a new poster, a new bulletin board background, or even a bouquet of flowers on your desk, will be appreciated by your students, even if they don’t tell you as much.
2. In the real classroom, there are some funky odors!  I’m currently retired, but my classroom was directly across from the gym. Ugh!!  The gym odors wafted into my room!  Then I started adding a bowl of orange rinds on the table just inside the door.  What a difference that made!  My students came in and remarked how fresh the room smelled.  Aha!  They do notice some things other than what’s on their screens!  So, in addition to raising my immunity because I brought an orange for lunch every day, the orange odor both calmed and stimulated my students.
3. Plan for active lessons.  Instead of keeping your students in their seats for a full period, or more than 20 minutes at a time, plan for lessons that make them get up to stretch, or when the COVID crisis is over (Will that ever happen? I hope so!), have them move around the room for various activities.  See my resource, The Kinetic Classroom, for ideas.
4. Add background music occasionally.  I found that when students have background music (think spa channel or “elevator” music), they tend to focus on the task at hand, such as math problems during a test or writing a rough draft. 
5. Finally, if you are having trouble engaging your virtual students during a zoom meeting, have them change their names from Fred and Keesha to their favorite book, TV, or movie character.  At the very least, you'll get a smile from them when you call their name!

Change is good!  Look around your classroom.  Is it the same as it was in September?  Ouch!!  Do yourself and your students a favor and change things up a bit.  Do more than change the seating arrangement.  Change other areas of your room as well.  And maybe you can't implement changes immediately, so make a list of things you want to change, and then as you get the time and energy, go ahead and revitalize your room every once in a while!

Wednesday Weekly 5 under $5 - 2/10/2021

Every week I put together a list of 5 great products from members of The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative (TBOTEMC) with the requirement that each product must be less than $5.  With a variety of subjects and a wide range of grades, there just might be something that you can use, so continue to read below and see!

In addition, if you're a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) who would like to get more information about joining TBOTEMC, contact me via email at ReneeHeiss@gmail.com or simply by leaving a comment on this blog post.

Women's History: Stories with Missing Vowels (Distance Learning) - $1.49

By Reading Spotlight

3rd - 6th grades

Worksheets

Fun! Effective! Timely! Easy to Use! Improve both comprehension and spelling while learning about Women's History. These eight short biographies of high-achieving women resemble cell phone texts. The students are provided the complete wording with blanks for most of the vowels that they then must supply, using both spelling and reading comprehension skills. Great for homework! Seat work! Learning Centers! Distance Learning!

Sentence Patterns Worksheets for Spring and Easter | Distance Learning - $3.50

By Charlene Tess

9th - 12th grades

Activities

This interactive digital resource for Google Drive will teach your students to rewrite sentences without changing their meaning. This is good practice for students to achieve sentence variety. At the same time, they will be reminded of things that are associated with spring and Easter..

S Blends Activities & Worksheets align with Jolly Phonics | Distance Learning - $4.95

by Primarily Learning

K - 2nd grades

Worksheets

Beginning blends need lots of practice. These printable S- Beginning Blends activities & worksheets will provide opportunities to learn, review, and get the extra practice they need! Included are: Peg-it Cards, Touch & Read Cards, Matching, Printing, Sorting & Sentence work... with support for Systematic Phonics!

 

I Am Malala Speech Analysis and Women's History Study for Grades 9-12 - $4.00

By History at Home

9th - 12th grades

Mini-lessons

An in-depth study of "I Am Malala" includes background history about Malala's life as an introduction to the speech she gave before the Youth Takeover of the United Nations. Great for Women's History Month or a communications class. Links are included for research plus a variety of activities. Available in PPT & PDF!

Snowy Words - A Winter Crossword Puzzle - $2.30

By Scipi

Printables

This resource includes two winter crossword puzzles; each with 25 words that all begin with “snow.” One crossword includes a word bank which makes it easier to solve while the more challenging one does not. Even though the same vocabulary is used for each crossword, each grid is laid out differently. Answers keys for both puzzles are included.

Other WW5U5 Team Members on TpT to Visit:

Kamp Kindergarten

Mickey's Place

Victoria Leon

Tammy's Toolbox

Urbino12

As always, I encourage comments below and any ideas or suggestions by emailing me at reneeheiss@gmail.com

Renee Heiss

All-American Teacher Tools

Check out my Store

 

 

 

 

The Mighty "IF"

 

The word IF is small but powerful.  Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about it (which, IF you haven’t read it since high school, read it again – it is meaningful even today!).  IF can be a conjunction with several meanings or a noun with only two meanings in Webster’s dictionary.  But to teachers who want to enlarge their students’ world of possibilities for creative writing, I offer you the “Educational IFs” for your students to ponder.  Combine these with my prompts (links below) and you will have a fun time reading a wide variety of stories, essays, and articles from your little learners.  

Ask your students to use one of these IFs in their assignment

• The “Curious IF” – What IF…?  (Example: What IF the snow was green instead of white? How would that change the world?)
• The “Conditional IF” – IF….. then…..  (Example: IF my dog gets into the garbage, then __________- fill in the blank with the many things that could go wrong.)
• The “Dictator IF” – No IFs, ands, or buts! (Example: When my mom told me to clean my room, she told me there would be no IFs, ands or buts.  How would you respond to that?)
• The “Regrettable IF” – IF only…. (Example: IF only I had tied my shoe before I got on my bicycle.  What happened next?)
• The “Sassy IF” – As IF! (Example: When my sister told me she was going to make a million dollars selling lemonade, I said, “As IF!)
• The "Simile IF" - As IF (without the exclamation point) (Example: My notebook fell to the floor, as IF it had a life of its own.)
• The “Sorting IF” – IF any…. (Example: IF any flowers bloom in my garden, I will be pleasantly surprised.)

So, offer your students the possibilities below for their writing assignments, while using one of the IF statements above and watch their creativity soar, as IF their words took wings!

For Middle and High School:

FUN Writing Prompts - Nonfiction - This collection of prompts is in the form of clickable images on PowerPoint interactive slides. Your students will enjoy exploring all the possibilities. (Also available on Google slides HERE)

FUN Writing Prompts - Fiction - This collection of prompts is also in the form of clickable images on PowerPoint interactive slides. Your students will enjoy exploring all the possibilities. (Also available on Google slides HERE)

Valentine's Day Story Starters - No lace or Disney characters in these prompts!

For Elementary and Middle School:

Weekly Visual and Verbal Story Starters -  A set of 40 story starters that will keep your young authors busy all year long with a variety of topics to explore and develop. Each picture also contains a question for your students to answer.

For Elementary School:

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 3 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word list.

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 2 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word li

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 1 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word li