Twelve Strategies to Get from Working Memory to Long Term Memory

Brain research teaches us that the working memory can only hold 2 - 4 chunks of information at a time.  How do we get those chunks into the long term memory?

Come on over to Elementary Matters for some ideas on how to get them to remember what we taught them!

Sally 

Field Trip Fun & a Freebie

Field trips can be fun, fantastic and very memorable for the kids. Unfortunately, they can also be exhausting for us as teachers! After a great field trip recently, I was inspired to create some activities for the kids that would be easy to incorporate, even after a long day on a hot school bus.

Here's a student example of one of the ideas. 

I just love how she captured herself from this perspective! 

Click {HERE} to stop by the blog to read a bit more about how you can expand on your field trip experiences and even grab the sheet above as a fun freebie to get started!

Poetry Puzzle Cut and Paste!

Friends~We are having so much fun in class with Poetry!  We have spend the last few days talking about the music in poetry and how the authors achieve it.  We experimented with line breaks today and it was so much fun! 

We started by choosing an object in class to write about.  The students used many of our Mentor Poems to create theirs.  After lunch we went back to our poems and read them to partners.  We then headed back to our seats to copy our poems over onto construction paper.  The students then cut their poems apart and practiced moving their line breaks.  It was like watching them put puzzles together.

It was so fun to see them read their poem and then make changes to perfect just the right music for their poem. 

 They glued them right into their poetry books.  I then had them meet up with their partner and read both versions of their poem.  Their partner had to choose the best one.  It was fun to see how many of them made their music better. 

One of my favorites was written by this little sweetie above.  She took our tie died bean bag and created a super fun poem.  Give it a listen and leave a comment so that I can share it with her:)

If you are teaching poetry with your class be sure to check out my Shooting Off with Poetry Booklet!

It is filled with the templates that I use to teach poetry in class.  

Landforms Freebie and Giveaway Reminder!

If you haven't seen the buzz on my blog about Samson's Classroom, you simply must check it out!  Three lucky winners will receive a free year classroom subscription on Friday!  Check out THIS POST to learn more!

Also, I have a landforms freebie that I've just shared today too.  I hope you'll click the picture below to get your free copy!

The week is half done!

:)
Christina

 

Hamburgers and a Freebie!

Warm weather, barbecues... hamburgers!

With my new packet, your littles will learn how to write the perfect paragraph...

explain how to make a burger {and then create one!}...

and write and draw about the best barbeque!

Here's what's included:

*hamburger pics & patterns

*4 writing prompts

*24 vocabulary cards

Want to grab a copy?  Pick it up in my TpT shop for $2.00!

And here's a freebie for you:

Four buggy "can-have-are" sheets: bees, ladybugs, butterflies, caterpillars.

Click {here} to DL from Google Docs.

Come visit me!

Cupcake Math

This week, we've been using a LOT of Laura Numeroff's books to help guide our lessons.

Come on over to see what kind of math we did with these cupcakes yesterday and grab your freebie!

Making Predictions

Seven Brain Based Learning Principles

I'm teaching a workshop on Brain Based Learning tomorrow.  As I was going through my notes, I put together 7 key points I wanted to make.  Come on over to Elementary Matters and see those 7 points!Sally

Celebrating Earth Day with The Lorax

Hi everyone! This is my first post on Me and My Gang, and I am SO excited to join this fabulous group of teacher-bloggers!

This week, in honor of Earth Day, my class will be reading Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and participating in some fun related activities. My favorite activity is this Lorax craftivity.

Students will write about what they think the Lorax would tell our class if he came to visit. For a closer look at my Lorax unit, please click here.

I look forward to sharing more ideas with you! In the meantime, I'd love for you to stop by and say 'hello'!

End of the Year Gift Linky Party

I don't know about you but I love giving my students fun gifts at the end of the year. I've seen tons of great ideas on Pinterest but I would love to see what you do for your kiddos. So I'm hosting an End of the Year Gift Linky Party.

Head on over to my blog and join in on the fun.