sprinkletoppedteacher

Truth bomb incoming… regular math facts worksheets are boring! Most teachers know that students dislike repetitive math facts worksheets, but continue to hand them out because they think it’s the only way to practice those important skills. But rows and rows of addition and subtraction problems might be hurting students, not helping them. Boring math assignments can actually cause students to dislike math. It can also stress them out! The last thing you want to do is turn students against math. You[...]

Whether you teach younger or older students, children of all ages need extra handwriting practice from time to time. However, it’s more common for a student to find handwriting practice boring than fun. I struggled to find a solution to this problem for a while! Luckily, I have discovered some amazing activities to improve students’ handwriting over the years. Some of these ideas might be surprising. Students don’t need to write words over and over to improve their penmanship. A lot of other activit[...]

Back to school season is in full swing, teachers! While we settle into the first few weeks of school and get to know our new students, there is another to-do waiting around the corner: parent teacher conferences. Parent teacher conferences are brief meetings meant for reviewing each student’s progress with their parents or guardians. These conferences can get tricky, especially if you are new to them. Lots of teachers find it difficult to fit everything they need to say about a student into a short t[...]

Have the words “cursive handwriting” ever elicited a chorus of groans from your students? You are definitely not alone! Handwriting practice is typically boring for students, and cursive handwriting is no exception. Cursive tends to be tedious work for kids, especially younger students. Good cursive letter formation requires a lot of control and excellent fine motor skills, which can be tricky for little hands. However, the skills that students learn through cursive handwriting practice are so impo[...]

With September just around the corner and all of the back to school excitement in the air, you may not have had the chance to plan your lesson for Patriot Day. After the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11th, 2001, that day was made a holiday named Patriot Day. Every year, schools honor the events of 9/11 and remember the Americans and heroes who lost their lives on that tragic day. Teaching younger students about 9/11 is a big responsibility, but an important one. Kids these days were not alive[...]

One of my favorite units to teach in 2nd grade is butterfly science! I always look forward to bringing butterflies into the curriculum. Not only because they are cute and beautiful to look at, but because students can learn a ton from the butterfly life cycle. My kids definitely get excited to learn about butterflies, too. The butterfly life cycle is one of nature’s greatest miracles, and the transformation truly seems magical to young learners. It does to me, at least! As fun as butterfly scienc[...]

I’m sure that you know how important handwriting is for students of all ages! The digital age may have some thinking that handwriting is a lost or unnecessary art, but that is far from the truth. Handwriting is a timeless skill that helps students retain information, develop great fine motor skills, and be the best learners they can be. Some studies even show that good handwriting skills can lead to success in other subjects in school, including math. Plus, standardized tests often include writing as[...]

Getting students engaged during math facts practice can be a challenge, to say the least! Most of the multiplication and division worksheets I’ve come across are pretty straightforward. In this case, straightforward also means fairly boring, which is the last thing you want when you’re teaching crucial math skills.  When students reach multiplication and division up to 12, it’s even more challenging to keep activities engaging. This is typically the point where students start to struggle, so[...]

Kids’ natural curiosity never fails to amaze me. Their imaginations and observation skills run wild, especially at the elementary level. And the classroom is the perfect place to explore and exercise their curious minds! When it comes to introducing younger students to scientific concepts like drawing observations and conclusions, the scientific method is a great place to start. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. I’ve seen some pretty intense resources that teach the scientific method for kids, a[...]

Do your 2nd graders struggle with learning fractions? Fractions can be super difficult for kids to understand. The concept of dividing up a whole number into smaller parts is hard for some students to visualize. Even more complicated is simplifying fractions, adding and subtracting them, and learning about other operations. As will all math concepts, different fractions lessons build upon the basic lessons learned in these introductory years. That’s why it is super crucial to get them down now and se[...]