Free Online Teaching Activities

So many teachers, instructors, and professors will find themselves teaching online during this pandemic.  Few are given any strategies or activities for engaging students online. Building a community of learners is central to student learning. As technology improves online learning platforms, it is still a challenge to build community among students.

Surviving to Thriving LjL would like to share a new product: Teaching in the New Normal: Teaching Strategies for the Online Classroom. It includes eight Getting to Know You activities and five Student Reflection activities. The platform you use determines how you might share these activities with your students and among your students.

If you have an account with Teachers Pay Teachers, go to our store, Surviving to Thriving LjL. It’s free! If you do not have an account with Teachers Pay Teachers, email us at survivingtothrivingljl@gmail.com and we will gladly email you a free copy.

Good luck to all of you and stay safe and healthy.

 

Back to School with Best Practice Resources

August is here! While there is still summer left, teachers everywhere start thinking about their classrooms and the opportunities that await in a new school year. There will be new teachers and administrators to meet, old colleagues to connect and celebrate with, new students to build relationships with, and new goals to set for a successful school year. It really is an exciting time!

The newspaper and social media are advertising Back to School sales. It’s time to get ready.

Surviving to Thriving LjL is dedicated to providing high quality curriculum based on Best Practices for today’s classrooms. We have products for grades K-12, and we too are “throwing a sale” on TPT on August 1 & 2. Visit our store to check it out.

Our most popular products are perfect for the first days of school. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Surviving-To-Thriving-Ljl

 

Try our lesson plans for the First Days of School.

Z is for Zing!

Z is for zing. Synonyms for zing include energy, enthusiasm, and liveliness. These are traits that we found middle school students want in their teachers. “Ask the Real Experts about Good Teaching,” an article published in the April 2014 issue of AMLE magazine, elaborates on these traits. And that’s what we think about when we are designing discussion and activity guides, lesson plans, and units—what will engage students and make learning fun and meaningful. And, so we are guided by our vision that our professional work is motivated by the possibility that every child will have great teachers.

ALL OUR PRODUCTS ARE ON SALE 20% OFF JUNE 21-23!

Y is for Yummy Cranberry Learning Centers

Y is for yummy because two of our products focus on food, the Enrichment Activities for Esperanza Rising and Crazy for Cranberries Cross-Curricular Learning Center Activities.

Crazy for Cranberries has eleven hands-on learning center activities. In addition to being an outstanding cross-curricular unit, it’s a blueprint for how to set up and use learning centers. This product includes:

19 page Teacher Guide including materials list and picture guide for each center
Answer Key for Student Journal
Optional QR Codes or Print Resources
14 page Student Journal
11 Center Signs
Optional QR (Quick Response) Code Reader

Just a reminder, these learning centers require fresh cranberries, which makes it a great activity for November—just saying!

SALE 20% OFF June 19-20

Crazy for Cranberries and Enrichment Activities for Esperanza Rising

X is for Xerox

X is for Xerox because all of our products comes with reproducible components that can be adapted to teachers’ styles of teaching, content, and/or students’ needs. And, if paper copies are not needed, components can be loaded on tablets—whatever the need.  

When I started teaching, schools were still using stencils and mimeograph machines (I do miss the pleasant aroma of the mimeograph purple ink). Then copy machines started popping up and what a godsend they were, although no more purple fingertips—a badge of teaching! Now we have super-duper copiers and kids have tablets—what’s next?

SALE: All of our products are 20% off June 17-18

W is for Wonder

W is for Wonder, one of our favorite novels, recommended by my granddaughter, 5 years ago, shortly after she came into our lives. Her third grade teacher started reading Wonder aloud in the last few days of school. Since Taylor was hooked, I thought it would be great if I read it too and that way we could talk about the book together, which has become a long-standing practice—but that’s another story.

I wanted to do something for the teacher who introduced Wonder to us and a tradition for sharing books, so I decided to create a literature unit for the novel.  As I created questions, prompts, and mini-projects, I prevailed on my granddaughter’s expertise as a kid to determine if all of this made sense to her.  It did! Taylor is in high school now and we still share books and she still is my number one expert on kids!

From there we created four products:

• Wonder Unit Plan
• Wonder Discussion and Activity Guide
• Wonder Mini-Unit (English Only)
• Wonder Mini-Unit (English and Spanish Activities)

SALE 20% OFF June15-16 Wonder Unit Plan, Wonder Discussion & Activity Guide, Wonder Mini-Unit (English Only) and Wonder Mini-Unit (English & Spanish Activities)

 

V is for Vocabulary

V is for vocabulary. Meaningful vocabulary study facilitates students learning academic language of specific content areas. It is not enough for students to copy definitions of vocabulary words; they must describe the meaning of those words, use those words in context, and draw or use graphics to represent what those words mean. Providing multiple opportunities for students to encounter academic vocabulary increases the likelihood of students owning academic language.

Colorful Word Sort (CWS) gives students an opportunity to categorize and play with academic language. CWS is a great way to introduce students to the academic language of a specific content area at the beginning of a semester or terms essential to understanding the concepts of a unit. It helps teachers gage the background knowledge of their students while students are engaged in a team activity.

SALE 20% OFF June 13-14 Colorful Word Sort

U is for Understanding Friendship

F is for understanding friendship. Friendship plays a part in many of the novel studies we constructed and so we developed a stand-alone lesson plan about friendship. In Friendship Investigation Lesson Plan, students identify elements and benefits of friendship as they analyze their own friendships. The purpose of this lesson is to enhance and extend students’ understanding of what it means to be a friend.

 

SALE 20% OFF June 11-12

Friendship Investigation Lesson Plan

T is for Thriving in the High School Classroom

T is for Thriving in the High School Classroom, an E-book that provides practical suggestions, tips, and strategies for building a community of learners in the high school classroom. It’s researched and classroom based. Here’s what you will find.

• Chapter 1: Rest, Reflect, Renew
• Checklist for Last Week of School
• Checklist for Summer—Personal and Professional
• Checklist for New Teachers or Teachers with New Positions
• Checklist for Month and Week before School Starts
• Checklist for Home Visits
• Chapter 2: Family Engagement
• Sample Course Syllabus (Includes Letter to Parents and Students)
• Help Me Get to Know Your Child
• Parent Questionnaire
• Help Wanted Form
• Sample Newsletter
• Sample Unit Letter to Parents
• Chapter 3: Beyond the Classroom Walls
• PIN Handout
• Conference Note Taking Form
• Student Input for Conferences
• Student Portfolio Choices
• Teacher Conference Sheet for Individual Students
• PowerPoint Presentation for PIN
• Chapter 4: Engaging in School Culture
• Substitute Feedback Form
• Substitute Folder Checklist
• Movie Activity 1 & Activity 2
• Chapter 5: It’s About Time
• Unit Calendar
• Task List
• While You Were Absent
• Grouping Techniques
• Chapter 7: Building Relationships with Students
• Alphabet Squares
• Class Bill of Rights Lesson
• Classroom Bingo
• Student Assistant Application
• Game On
• If You’re Looking for…
• Inventories—Reading, Writing, and Math
• Not Just a Number
• Questions to Prompt Student Thinking
• Student Information Sheet
• Sign the Brick Wall
• Student Interview Activity/Collage Activity
• Student Search
• Team Statistics Group & Team Statistics Individual
• Team Building Activities
• Getting to Know Your Students PowerPoint Slides (Stand Like Me and Dragon
• Introducing Yourself to Students PowerPoint
• Chapter 8: Responding to Student Behavior
• Problem Solving Plan
• Teaching Tolerance Anti-Bullying Pledge
• Chapter 9: Professionalism and the High School Teacher
• What is Professionalism?
• What is Professional Behavior
• Chapter 10: Last Words, Next Steps
• Books that Inspire and Teach
• Movies that Inspire and Teach
• Quotes to Contemplate
• Questions to Ponder
• Renewal

SALE 20% OFF June 9-10

Thriving in the High School Classroom

S is for Student-Led Conferences

S is for Student-Led Conferences, for both elementary and middle school. One of my responsibilities while transitioning a junior high school to a middle school was the implementation of student-led conferences. I admit I was worried that teachers, parents, and/or students were not going to be happy with this new concept, but the feedback we received from teachers, parents, and students was overwhelmingly supportive of student-led conferences.

From this we developed student-led conferences in three easy steps followed by guidelines for implementing student-led conferences at the elementary level. We also knew there was a need for some practical guidelines and advice regarding parent conferences at the elementary level. All three guides are complete, practical, and ready to go with everything you need for conferences.

 

SALE 20% OFF June 7-8

Student Led Conferences for Middle School: A Guide for Planning & Implementing

Student-Led Conferences for Elementary – Guide for Planning & Implementing

Elementary Parent Teacher Conference Packet – Everything You Need