Student Portfolio Conferences

I've been waiting on pins and needles for my turn to post because I'm just so excited to share my student portfolio conferences with you!At my school, we have two conferences each year.  The first is where we'd like all parents to attend and is your typical parent-teacher conference.  The second conference is held in February and is on an as-need basis.  We are contracted to stay from 3:30-9:30.  Last year, out of the 7 conferences...

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Free For All Linky Party...Again!

 It's that time again! Another awesome linky party for grades 3-6 full of FREE resources for you to download and use immediately!Link up your freebies below and grab some freebies from others! Link up a blog post or the TPT product page. After you link up, make sure you follow the rule of 3! Leave comments on the two posted before you and then come back and leave a comment on the one after you.One more thing...don't forget to promote this linky...

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Another day, Another set of goals...

As many of you know, I have changed positions recently and with that came a whole new way of making things work for not only myself but also for my students. Let me give you a little bit of background.I work with Texas Virtual Academy as a Special Education Teacher. I have a caseload of 25 students (19 7th graders and 6 8th graders) who all are in Special Education for one reason or another. It is my job to make the virtual education work for them...

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Response to Reading ANSWER method

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Number of the Week for Upper Grades

As the school years goes on, my third graders are getting deeper into learning about fractions and other higher-level concepts. Year after year, I've watched as their basic number sense begins to slip during this time of the year. For example, I'll ask something like, "Who can tell me if this number is odd or even?" And then my students will look at me as if my horn is showing. Instead of continuing to pull my hair out, this year, I've tried a more...

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The Power of Podcasting!

**PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL BE POSTING ON MONDAY'S MOVING FORWARD!**Greetings Friends! I hope that this finds you enjoying your holiday...that is if you were given today off. This is the first time we have had this holiday off for a few years and it is nice to have an extra day added to my weekend. Today, I wanted to share a brief post about pod-casting in the classroom. Probably four years ago, I used some of my yearly allotment of...

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Teaching Students to Justify in Math

Hello friends! The weekend is almost upon us!Today, I wanted to share with you an answer chart that I saw in a middle school classroom that I was in a few weeks ago for professional development. This chart was fantastic for scaffolding the students through justifying their work in math. Take a look!I loved this chart because it broke down justification into looks like/sounds like. This shows the students in an explicit manner how justification should...

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Science Notebooking

As requested, I'm posting about my science notebooking. Last year our district adopted FOSS kits for our science curriculum.  FOSS has notebooking imbedded into their curriculum. We took what they had to offer and adapted it to the needs of our district.Just like the math notebook, the students make their cover page.Table of ContentsWe start each unit by making a page for a word wall / word bank.Following the word wall is a double page spread...

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Guest Poster: Teaches Third in Georgia

Hello everyone! This is Randi from over at TeachesThirdinGeorgia. I am so excited to be guest posting today. For just a little background knowledge, I thought I would let you know a little about me. Right now, I'm a third grade teacher in..you guessed it! Georgia! I absolutely LOVE my job and all the fun that comes with it.I am an avid educational technology lover! If it can be used in a classroom, I'm the first to buy it! I use all sorts of techie...

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Calling Guest Posters!

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 When Jennifer Findley posted on Teachers Pay Teachers about the creation of a collaborative blog dedicated to sharing upper elementary resources, the response was overwhelming.  It was an idea that was long overdue!  Each one of us, the 14 collaborators here on All Things Upper Elementary, is touched by the support you, our followers have given us as we...

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Fun 4 All Linky Party: Love is In The Air

Welcome to another fun Linky Party here at All Things Upper Elementary! This week's Linky Party is for you to share any product that you have for the month of LOVE!Now you ask, does it have to be themed? Nope! Can it be something I personally LOVE? Yep! See how easy that is? Simply link up your products (yes, products- limit yourself to 3, paid or FREE), give a grade level and put a $ or FREE to indicate in the title.Example: Valentine's Word Problems...

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Close Reads

We are super pumped to share with you one of our favorite strategies to use with our students while reading, and the coolest part is that you can do this during science, social studies, math, or reading time! If you haven't heard of Close Reads yet, please let us introduce you!What are Close Reads?Close Reads is an instructional strategy that focuses on the "four corners of the text". Students have to read a selection of text carefully, reflect,...

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Checking 'Under the Hood' for Students' Reading Strategies

Processing information while reading is such a complex task!  I compare it to my car.  I know there are a lot of things going on underneath the hood when I start my car up and send it into reverse.  There has to be a highly elaborate system for what seems like a simple thing for me to do.  For me, starting my car is easy; I have even been having my 13 year-old start it in the morning because it’s been so cold out and...

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