Digital Reading Choice Boards



I blogged recently about my reading choice boards, and what a fresh take they are on the average reading response. I love these boards! So much so, that I decided to make them digital, to better support teachers throughout this time of distance learning. 

If you aren't already familiar with my reading response choice boards, they are menus with a variety of reading response prompts that get your students interacting with texts in different ways! I have the digital versions of both the nonfiction and fiction choice boards, so your students can use them with any text you assign!


Here's how the digital versions work:

-When you purchase this digital file, you will download a PDF from my store that links to the file on Google Drive. You will need a google account to access this product, and any students you share it with will also need their own Google accounts!

-When you click on the link, you will be prompted to make a copy of the file. This is your own, personal copy of this product, so any typing or editing you do to it is completely yours. 

-The menus are the first slides that you see. When you click on the different boxes of the menus, they link to a different slide that has the response page. For example, if you students want to create a text message conversation between characters, they simply click on that prompt and it takes them to that page.

-Some of the response pages have a clipboard with directions. Your students will be directed to read those directions and then delete the clipboard so they can get to work. The directions help them to know which Google Tools they should be using to best interact with that page. 

-When you want to share this product with students, you will want for each of them to have their own copy. If they all have the same copy of the file, they will all be working on the same pages at the same time...and that would be a mess!
In order for each student to have their own copy, you will want to share the product with them, and teach them how to make a copy of the file into their own drive. This is done by simply selecting File-Make a Copy. :)

-As students are working, you will have access to their work. This means that you can login to individual reading responses and leave feedback to help your students' grow their writing skills, or simply take a grade! 


My hope is that these digital response menus make your distance-learning life a little easier, while also giving you something highly engaging for your students to work on! 

Shop Digital & Printable Reading Choice Boards HERE


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Independent Math Activities for At-Home Learning


I can’t even believe that it’s already APRIL. How did that happen? Granted, this blog post is being written in April of 2020, so this April looks different from all of the others, doesn’t it? We’re all home, and we’re not wrapping up the school year with the kids the way that we thought we would. 


This is where things are getting a little funny...some of us don’t know if we will see our kids before this school year is over. We don’t know how the end of the year will look...how we will clean out desks, pass out yearbooks, complete graduations, etc. We don’t know what next year will look like...but where I live, more and more evidence is suggesting that we are just going to put a pause on things this year, and send the kids to the next grade level. The next years’ teachers are going to have to figure out how to fill the gaps of the content that didn’t get covered the year before. 


I think the best thing we can do for our students (and their future teachers) right now, is to find ways to get them independently working on all of the domain that are in their grade level standards. 


Independent because moms and dads have a whole lot on their plates right now, and all they need from us is more assignments that give their children the chance to sit and work without help,


‘All of the domains’, because this is the time of year when we would normally be reviewing year-long content with our students, but we can’t. If we can’t be there to review what we taught them, we need to give families the tools!


Enter: Math Choice Boards for 2nd Grade and 3rd Grade! These boards work in the classroom as early finisher work, enrichment for gifted education, center work homework...but in an unprecedented time like this one, these boards are perfect as end of the year review!


This is how the boards work:
-Choose the domain that you want students to practice (you can assign different domains to different groups of kids, depending on what they need to work on!)
-Send the students the choice board for that skill, and allow them to choose the boxes they want to complete. (You can assign boxes to students as well, but the choice really makes it more fun!)
-Many of the tasks are open-ended, but tasks that can use an answer key have answers included. Students can complete the open-ended tasks the way that they choose, and submit work back to you.
-Use the completed work as a way to chat with your students about those math standards, and what they need to have mastered before they move on to the next grade!



My store has 2nd and 3rd grade math choice boards. See the different boards available below, or read about my mixed skill at-home boards here and here:


SHOP ALL BOARDS HERE

Or, buy the boards in bundles and save!

2nd Grade Bundle HERE

3rd Grade Bundle HERE


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Digital PBLs for Distance Learning


I recently blogged about distance learning, and how projects can be really helpful for kids and families during this time. But, the idea that there is a growing need for digital resources was also at the front of my mind. I put out some questions to teachers on my Instagram account, and got the overwhelming response that teachers really were looking for digital versions of projects that their students could complete from home. 

I wanted to be mindful by providing you all with resources that would make distance learning a little easier for you in this difficult time, and turning a handful of my Project-Based-Learning activities (PBLs) into digital, Google-slides projects, felt like the best fit. 

Here are some ways that Digital PBL Activities can make your distance learning efforts easier:

  • My digital PBLs are housed in Google Slides, and are compatible with Google Classroom. If you already have student Google accounts through your school district, or you have set up a Google Classroom for students and parents to access during this time, my Digital PBLs will fit perfectly! If you don’t have a Google set up, but you have a personal Google account, you can download the project as a Powerpoint from within Google, and share individually with your students! 
  • These projects are *differentiated*! There are pages with circles in the corner, which indicates on-grade level content for 2nd graders, and pages with squares in the corner, which pushes into the 3rd grade standards a bit. All you have to do, when you’re getting ready to share this project with certain groups of students, is make a copy of your master project, delete the pages you don’t want the students to do, and share with them! 
  • Videos are inserted into different portions of each project, to give your students extra guidance on the Google Tools they will need to use to complete it. You can choose to leave these videos in the project to share with students and parents, or delete them and use those directions to create your own tutorials, if you are live teaching this project!


By creating digital projects for you students, my hope is that you all will keep your students deeply engaged in their math standards, in a way that is fun for them! We want our students to keep growing, but we also want to make this an easy transition for all of us. These digital projects accomplish both: ease and engagement! Happy digital teaching, everyone!

Check out the video below to see a preview video of my Digital Build A Zoo PBL:

Shop Digital PBL Activities



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Free Project Calendar for At Home Learning



With so many of us facing several weeks out of school right now, I wanted to do something to offer you a little relief! This at-home learning situation looks so different from school to school. Some districts are taking control of what the schooling is going to look like, while others are letting each individual teacher decide what distance learning will look like for them.

No matter where you sit on the spectrum, the thread that is binding us all together right now is that the parents are shouldering most of the responsibility of making sure that kids are logging in on time, doing the work assigned to them, and helping them when they get stuck. One thing that can help our families in such an unprecedented time, is providing them with projects!

Projects:
  • require deeper application of skills
  • can be done over and over again, and get a different end result each time
  • are hands on, and therefore can be more engaging

For these reasons, projects can be a life saver when it comes to keeping kids busy, but working independently! I have a summer project calendar that I have offered in the past, because the summer months tend to be a time when parents are scrambling to keep their kids busy, keep their math skills sharp, and inspire creativity. We never could have predicted that we would all be living out that summertime schedule at home for all of the spring, as well, but here we are...and I want to help! 

I took my FREE Summer Project Calendar and shifted it to be something that you can use right now for the coming weeks of distance learning. Eight weeks of project ideas are included, with each day of the project’s work mapped out for you!

These projects can be adapted to use materials you already have in your house, and done with just family members...or with classmates, digitally! Teachers can send these calendars home to parents in packets or via email, or take the ideas from this menu and work into their lesson plans. I’m hoping that this versatile menu can help fill a need for teachers and parents everywhere as we all do our best to navigate this trying time!

GET YOUR FREEBIE HERE


If you're in the market for more Project-Based-Learning fun for your 2nd-3rd graders, check out the other PBLs in my store! You can find a topic for every kid in your class, and keep the learning fun going on for weeks at a time!



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Grow Your Students' Math Skills from Home


Parents everywhere are being asked to step up and fill the teachers’ shoes right now...and they didn’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how to do that. My heart goes out to the parents, students, and teachers who are all working to navigate a new normal during this unprecedented time. I have a resource to share with you all that I think could help! 


At Home Learning Math Menus (see 3rd Grade here and 2nd Grade here) are the perfect way for parents to engage students deeply in the math content of their child’s grade, without having to spend much time learning how to ‘be the teacher’. They provide the best of both worlds!

3 Ways At Home Math Menus Make Math Practice Easy on Parents (and Teachers):

Easy to Implement

These math menus can be presented to students by simply displaying the menu on the computer screen, or printing out the individual menu pages. Each menu set comes with recording pages and worksheets for students to display their work on, but they are completely optional! All work can be done with supplies lying around the house, making it the perfect solution for busy families, and families who can't make regular runs to the store...which is all of us right now! The less standing in your way, the quicker you can get students started on the project of your choice.


Fun for Kids (and parents, too!)


With projects such as: Plan A Disney Vacation, Create a Board Game, Pizza Fractions, and Paper Airplanes...there is no way that kids will be bored, while practicing their standards very closely! These projects are the perfect thing for pulling siblings and parents into, making it a family project. School work that inspires family bonding is the best kind, in my opinion, because it keeps kids working. The more kids are engaged in fun, authentic math work during this time at home, the less of a gap they will see when they return to school.

All Domains Are Covered:

The at-home learning menus for both 2nd and 3rd grade in my store, have activities that cover each of the standard sets in the CCSS math standards. 2nd graders will practice place value, telling time, regrouping, and more, while 3rd graders will work on elapsed time, fractions, multiplication, and the rest of their skills for the year. This ensures that, if students complete a project or two from home each week, they will have practiced every standard for their grade level!

Whether you are a parent seeking some engaging math work for your 2nd or 3rd grader to participate in at home right now, or a teacher needing 6-8 weeks of math work for your students...these At Home Learning Menus are the perfect fit!


Check out my 2nd Grade At Home Learning Menus and 3rd Grade Menus to get your students engaged deeply with the math standards today!






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3 Creative Ways for Kids to Respond to Reading At Home




One thing we’re all probably doing a bit more of these days is reading. Extra time at home means more time to catch up on good book, and to encourage our kids to read more than they normally do. Today, I wanted to share some creative ways to get students engaged with the texts they are reading. These are not your average response activities! 


Three Reading Response Activities Your Kids Have Never Seen Before:

Create a Theme Song
Have some students who are more musically inclined? After finishing a book, ask them to create a theme song for the book, as if it were a TV show. This can be as simple as just writing the lyrics, or they can add music if they have a favorite instrument! 

Character Emojis 

After finishing a book, ask students to make a chart of all of the major and minor characters. Then, ask them to scroll through the emojis keyboard on a phone or other device, and choose one emoji to assign to each character! They will draw the emojis on their chart, and then write about their reasoning for choosing each emoji. Their reasons should come from text evidence-things characters said or did throughout the story. 

Interview a Character
This activity digs deep into those inferencing skills! Students create an imaginary interview with their favorite character from the book they just read. They create questions based on evidence from the text (events that happened, conflict with other characters, the setting, etc.). Then, the students must pretend to be the characters, and answer the questions the way they think that character would answer them! This activity hits dozens of literacy standards at once!


These three ideas can get you started, but I have many more! My Reading Response Choice Boards give students engaging, unique response activities to do with texts from home, as early finisher activities, as projects in small groups, or however else you can think of using them! 




With distance learning in effect for many teachers and families at the moment, these choice boards can adapt to your teaching needs. You can email the choice boards to parents to print or project at home, and let students complete tasks with the paper and materials that they have at home, or you can post them in your digital classroom. For students without internet access at home, you can print and prep these choice boards as part of their ‘at home learning packets’ and include extra paper for finishing the tasks. Adapt the way these are used to best fit your teaching needs! 


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Math Choice Boards for Distance Learning


How’s distance learning going for you? My mind has been racing for days now about how I can offer you resources that take a little work off of your plate, but remain highly purposeful for your students. Math Menus are a great way to keep your 2nd graders engaged with the standards, and I wanted to share a little more about them with you all today!

First, how could math menus make at-home learning easier on you, as a parent, or an educator?

They alleviate planning stress. 

We are high in demand and short on time right now. The idea of distance learning started immediately for some teachers, where others were given a week or so to prepare. It’s difficult to prepare for something you’ve never done before, so my hope is that these learning menus give you one ‘grab and go’ solution for your math planning! Every 2nd Grade domain is covered in these menus individually, as well as menus that review all skills. (There are 3rd Grade Menus to practice those standards, too!)

They make differentiation a little easier.

One of the biggest burdens of this time of digital learning is trying to plan for all of the different types of learners you have in your classroom...but from a distance. It’s difficult to make our lessons fit every child’s needs right now, and I believe that learning menus are a great way to help, because they provide choice for the families. You can assign menus to students based on the domain they need to practice, limit the number of boxes certain students must complete, or let them choose which project they want to complete. Each option differentiates the expectations for your different learners, easing the burden on the kids, their parents, and you!

They are engaging, and review things students have already learned. 

I think we’d all agree that parents are hoping for assignments that will keep their students engaged, at the moment. Many are working from home, or are working in fields (like health care or food service) that are requiring grueling hours and new demands. One of the best ways we can help our families is to give the students work that they can engage in independently, and that they want to do. With assignments like planning a Disney trip, creating pizza fractions, and making your own board game...students are going to love the work they’re being asked to do. And the parents won’t complain about that one bit!




3 WAYS TO USE MATH MENUS IN DISTANCE LEARNING:

  • Post the menus digitally in your virtual classroom and assign certain boxes for completion each week (or let students choose one to complete). Students can complete any of these tasks on plain paper, with whatever they already have at home. They can take pictures of their work to submit back to you!
  • Include the menus of your choice in an at-home packet for students who don’t have access to technology. You can include the printables that go with them or just the menus that you want students to work on in their time home. 
  • Privately email or message different boards and directions to students (or include different boards with some boxes blacked out) whom you want to practice certain domains separately. You can have one group working on addition and subtraction, another on measurement, and another reviewing all standards! These boards can work alongside the data you collected on your students this year!



    Check out my 2nd Grade At Home Learning Menus and 3rd Grade Menus to get your students engaged deeply with the math standards today!

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Valentines Day Learning Activities for the Classroom


One of my FAVORITE things is incorporating the seasons and holidays into my classroom. Kids are so excited about them anyway, it's a great way to easily bring ENGAGEMENT to your curriculum! Obviously it has to be meaningful work and not just cutesy projects. So, here are 7 easy ideas for bringing Valentines Day into your classroom while maintaining rigor and real work.


Monster Valentine Bag

1. Build a Monster Valentine Bags

Do your students exchange valentines in your classroom? If so, you most likely have them build their own valentines bags. Why not take something that is normally just an art project and bring math into it?! Set up a store and have students buy pieces for their valentines bags. They will be so engaged they don't even realize how much math they are doing. 

Take it a step further - let them shop with manipulative coins, differentiate prices, or give them a budget! This takes a Valentines Day activity you were already planning on doing with your students, and brings it into your math block with a TON of rigor and math.

CLICK HERE to see the Monster Valentine Bag I love to use with my students. The menus are editable so you can change the prices so they are just right for your students.



Valentines Kindness Bunting

2. Spreading Love Bunting

I love taking the time in February to talk about kindness with students and strengthen that classroom community feeling. It's easy to take a few minutes to have a classroom meeting about ways to show kindness and love, and it puts it in students' minds first thing in the morning. Make an anchor chart or list as a class and hang it up for the month. Ask students to choose one things from the list each morning to do that day!

This quick printable bunting is a perfect way for students to write their own ways to spread love and kindness. It makes a fun classroom or hallway decoration for February that also reminds them to BE KIND!


Speaking of kindness...let your students practice friendly letter writing by writing notes of appreciation to classmates and staff members! You can let students choose someone to write to and have them draft a letter. Let students peer edit each others' letters before they write their final drafts. So. Many. Writing. Skills.

CLICK HERE to see my favorite Valentines - FOOD PUNS!! These are so fun and include writing papers, and they make the most adorable bulletin board. These will bring a smile to anyone who receives one!





Valentine Day Math Project PBL
I'm a big believer in incorporating PBL, or project based learning, into the classroom. I love letting students SEE how you can use your learning in the real world. This math project lets students plan a classroom valentines party - the food, decorations and entertainment. This is a thorough project that lets students work with differentiated menus and budgets to plan an EPIC Valentines Day party for their class.





Valentines Day Choice Board

5. Valentines Day Choice Board

Choice boards are a staple in my classroom - giving students' choice lets them take ownership of their learning and they are guaranteed to be more engaged when they have chosen what they're working on. I love using seasonal boards in my classroom because it brings some fun into our everyday routines, but all of the activities hit different math and ELA standards for a great spiral review and challenge. These are perfect early finisher activities for February!

This Valentines Day choice board is full of 9 no prep seasonal activities and printables that will keep your early finishers challenged all month long!





Valentines Day Writing Prompts
Do you have a writing center in your classroom? If not, you should! Letting students have daily writing time helps give them TONS of practice and exposure to different writing types. I love having seasonal prompts I can throw in my center to keep students excited to write. Mix in persuasive, narrative and informative writing so they get to interact with several types of writing.

THESE writing prompts have differentiated writing lines for students and print and go writing toppers that students can color when they're done with their writing!



Valentines Day Math Color by Code

7. Color by Code: Valentines Edition

Color by codes are one of my (and my students!) favorite morning work activities. I love them because they are FULL of practice, and one picture normally lasts students for several days or a full week. Students love them because they get to color, and it doesn't feel like just a worksheet. Also, I love letting students cut out the picture and mount it to black paper - I use them as seasonal decor by taping them to our classroom cabinets.

CLICK HERE for some Color by Code sheets that practice double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping!

These 7 Valentines Day activities for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students are perfect for keeping students engaged during February! Click the pin to find 7 different Valentines Day math and ELA activities that will keep students learning and challenged all month long. They'll love creating these monster valentine bags, writing kindness notes, the valentines choice board, Valentines Day PBL project, and MORE

Keeping students focused on learning during an exciting holiday can be challenging, so I hope you found some easy ways to incorporate the holiday into your curriculum! Leave a comment telling me how else you add in some Valentines Day fun to your classroom!

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