Teaching Tip of the Month

This month's Teaching Tip comes from TCR3075 Year-Round Classroom Tips.

Weekly Writing

Try some of these ideas for writing during the week. Write three questions on the board before students arrive. Tell them that they must answer all the questions in complete sentences. Remind them to use their best handwriting. Alter the activities on each day. See the examples below for ideas.

Monday Mumbo--On Monday questions should center around the weekend--places the student might have gone, a special event that happened, a kindness act the student saw or did, etc.

Tuesday Trivia--Tuesday's questions could be questions on what a certain vocabulary word might mean, an idiom or simile meaning to define, an off¬beat question, etc.

Wednesday Work--Wednesday's work might be simply to look up meanings of assigned words or a letter to a business or person asking for a particular job and telling why he or she would be the best one for the job.

Thursday Theater--Thursday's Theater work might be a script to be read by two people. It might be a simple creative thought or a list of actions for playing charades.

Friday's Funnies--Friday's Funnies might be jokes or stories of funny things that are either made-up or real incidents.

Whatever you do, make it interesting and a light challenge for each student. Give a set amount of time. At first, you will not get much from the students, but as days and weeks progress, you will see improvement in their writing.

Terrible Bs and Ds

Teaching the differences between a "b" and a "d" can give small children difficulty. Here is a well-used technique that works!

Hold your hands in front of you. Point the four fingers upward. Take the index finger and the thumb on each hand and form a circle. The left hand should look like a "b" and the right should look like a "d."

Download This Tip (PDF)