Write all About It

Are Your Students Given Opportunity to Write in a Variety of Genres?

Are you assigning your students the same type of writing over and over again? Change it up and keep it authentic. Here's a list of unique things to write:

Advertisements,  observations,  announcements,  metaphors, awards, movie reviews,  bedtime stories newspaper articles and advertisements, billboards,  nursery rhymes,  bumper stickers,  menus,
cartoons,  opinions,  captions,  plays, conversations, puppet shows, definitions, postcards,

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diaries,  questions,  directions,  quizzes, epitaphs,  quotations,  encyclopedia entries, (Wikipedia) recipes, explanations,  fairy tales,  riddles,  jokes, filmstrip dialogue,  signs,  fortunes,  slogans,
game rules,  songs,  graffiti, grocery lists, thank you notes,  headlines,  labels, tongue twisters,  history letters,  journals, how-to manuals, want ads,  wishes, lists, interviews,  introductions invitations, weather reports.

Educators tend to be creative individuals so let's stir it up a bit with our requests for written work!

• Design a billboard advertising your favorite cereal, chocolate bar or holiday destination (connect it with social studies with a billboard about the country to be studied)
• Make a riddle book about mystery animals, students, places
• Write a postcard to a student from another school telling them all about your school experience
• Make labels for everything you're wearing
• Make a grocery list for an upcoming party
• Design a menu for your favorite kind of foods
• Write a letter to a person who lived 200 years ago
• Write a help wanted ad

See all of the writing worksheets here.

Social Emotional Learning

Social Emotional Learning Teaching Ideas and Activities

Many of us educators already know that we embed social emotional learning into the many things that we do on a daily basis. However, I'm going to share a few of some of those ideas here.

Initiative: To support initiative, a child must feel confidence and have a good sense of self-esteem. Therefore by boosting their confidence levels and enhancing self esteem, you'll be setting your students up to take initiative more often.

Collaboration and Cooperation:  These skills are important, especially in group work.  Do you provide opportunities to work together? Do you help your students develop a code of conduct for group work? Students need to have opportunities to respect the ideas and opinions of others even though they may not agree with them.  Ongoing opportunities for pairs, triads and small groups enhance collaboration and cooperation skills.

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Persistence or 'Stick With ITness':  Sometimes this is also referred to as 'grit'. For a student to develop persistence, they need to learn from mistakes and see success. They need to have opportunities to overcome distractions and move on despite obstacles. Help children see the learning in the errors. Celebrate the learning from mistakes, help them to see that sometimes, the most permanent learning stems from making errors. Soon your students will not fear failure and develop persistence.

Communication and Relationships: A language rich environment is usually evidenced in all good teacher's classrooms. Relationships are supported by providing opportunities for collaboration and cooperation. Social skill strategies also help with relationships.

Leadership: Children have to work within various group sizes to develop negotiating skills which leads to leadership. Leadership also happens when students are able to be empathetic regarding others. The willingness to make compromises is another avenue to help children develop leadership skills.

For a few worksheets on social emotional learning, view them here.