Experienced educators share short videos with effective strategies for anyone teaching or wishing to teach elementary school classes.
Explore “The Writing Roadmap” with Margit Boyesen, a second-grade teacher from Cardiff Elementary in Cardiff, California. This powerful tool guides students through the writing process, from drafts to revisions. Whether it’s a narrative or a research report, this roadmap ensures students stay on track.
Unleash the potential of “Think-Pair-Share” with Jan Ferrer, a seasoned teacher and consultant. This dynamic routine amps up class discussions, promoting active engagement, collaboration, and critical thinking. Jan’s approach adapts to any grade level, subject, or class size, making it a versatile tool for both traditional and virtual classrooms. Elevate your teaching game with this proven technique!
Join Cassandra Hayes, a math teacher in Fortuna Elementary School District, Fortuna, California, and a teacher consultant for the Redwood Writing Project, as she introduces an exciting math lesson to build algebraic thinking skills using “Visual Emoji Math Puzzles.” Suitable for third grade through high school, this math lesson fosters algebraic thinking. Replace variables with emojis for a fun twist.
Learn the engaging “Counting in a Circle” or “Sparkle” activity from teacher leader Kara Holtzman. This versatile routine is perfect for practicing counting and can be adapted for all elementary grade levels. Discover how to use it for multiplication, skip counting, spelling, vocabulary, and more. Keep the pace fast and fun to boost fluency while building classroom camaraderie.
Robin Walker, an educator from the Santa Maria-Bonita School District, shares the “Did You Know That..?” activity, a powerful tool for connecting with students from second grade to high school. In this simple exercise, students write freely in small notebooks, sharing thoughts, concerns, or experiences. The teacher responds, fostering open communication and building trust. It’s about giving students a voice and nurturing meaningful connections in the classroom.
Julie Kanel, a reading specialist, shares three interactive “Listening Word Games” for young learners, promoting phonemic awareness. These games, suitable for grades TK to 2, help improve students’ reading and spelling skills. The activities include “I Spy” for beginning and ending sounds and rhyming, “Guess My Object” where students deduce the object based on clues, and “Rhyming Categories” to reinforce rhyming and sound discrimination. These games make phonics practice engaging and enjoyable.
Kate Bowen, an experienced Elementary Consultant, shares an effective strategy called “Sentence Stretchers” to enhance students’ writing skills. Using four sentence strips labeled A, B, C, and D, students construct detailed sentences by adding descriptors and rearranging the strips for variety. This approach improves writing quality, engages students in creative sentence construction, and suits various grade levels.
Maria Montes Clemens, an elementary school Spanish teacher at Prospect Sierra, shares three classroom management strategies to help you create an orderly learning environment: the “Voice-O-Meter”, the “Give Me Five”, and the “Classroom Bell”.
Gloria Hurtado, 8th grade math teacher at Hillsborough Junior High School, tells us how to utilize the “Three Reads Protocol” to help students better understand what a math word problem is asking them to do.
Danielle Della Gala shares best practices and tips for anyone wishing to teach Elementary School P.E. (This is the second video of the four-part Physical Education video collection.)
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