Thursday, November 4, 2021
Friday, October 8, 2021
Pumpkins, Veterans, Thanksgiving FREEBIES!
Happy Fall Season, me hearties!
Where did the time go? One day it is summer, hot and humid! Then all of a sudden, the air is cool, and over night the leaves have turned into red and gold gems!
Speaking of gems, you have come to the right spot! I have some autumn treasure for you.
First, let's visit the pumpkin patch.
This FREE product is a sample of an engaging and challenging Place Value Task Card practice set designed for a range of students. Use these task cards to differentiate for advanced second graders, to provide practice for third grade students, or to review with fourth graders at the beginning of the school year. There are 8 task cards. Each card contains a riddle involving two-digit and/or three-digit numbers.
If you want more task cards like the one above, check out the much larger set of cards. In the resource below, there are seven sets for a total of 42 cards!
Our next treasure celebrates our country's veterans.
Schools are closed on Veterans Day to honor veterans, but what do our students really know about this holiday? To help my students become more aware of veterans and their service to our homeland, I created a resource that explains Veterans Day and connects students to veterans.Your students will celebrate family members or friends who are veterans by creating a Veterans Wall of Honor. For each family/friend veteran, students will complete a Veteran Information Form that identifies the veteran, the branch of service, the veteran’s rank, years of service, and type of service. These forms along with veteran photos, if available, and blue or gold stars are displayed on a wall in your classroom or hallway.
Also included are:
• Parent Letter
• Veterans Day Book and Website Lists
• Veterans Day Circle Map and KWL Chart
• Veterans Day Cloze Activity
• Blue and Gold Stars/White Stars
• Veterans Wall of Honor Banner
Here is one more treasure for the Fall season. This creative resource is focused on Thanksgiving. There are two writing activities. Activity 1 gives students the opportunity to reflect on what they are thankful for. It also walks them through the process of writing a paragraph. Activity 2 is a couplet activity based
on the picture book, THANKFUL, by Eileen Spinelli.
Included are:
- Graphic organizers
- Paragraph sample
- Revision checklist
- Editing checklist
- Final copy sheets
- Teaching Tips
Thank you for visiting with me. I hope you found a treasure or two for you and your students.
Have a wonderful Fall season!
Saturday, August 28, 2021
Reading Fluency Fun
Reading fluency is the ability to read with accuracy and automaticity. When orally read, words come out effortlessly and sound natural. There is expression in the reader’s voice. Fluent readers recognize words quickly and group words into phrases. Because they do not have to decode words, fluent readers are able to put their focus on what these words mean. In other words, they comprehend what they are reading.
Dr. Jan Hasbrouck, Ph.D. of Gibson Hasbrouck & Associates is an educational consultant, trainer, and researcher. She suggests that we think of fluency as a bridge connecting word identification to meaning. Without a fluency bridge, there is no comprehension.
Dr. Rasinski’s recommendation is to designate fifteen to twenty minutes a day on repeated oral reading. However, the time frame is dependent on the length of the selected reading material. As a result, up to thirty minutes might be needed.
Reading poetry, singing songs, giving speeches, performing dialogues/monologues, and staging readers’ theater inspire students to practice repeatedly which will lead to fluent readers.
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Language Arts Sorting Activities + FREEBIES
Welcome back, Teacher Pirates! So glad you stopped by. Today I will share with you Sorting Activities for Language Arts!
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Language Arts Boardgames
Ahoy teaching pirates! Welcome back! In my last post, I shared ideas for games using a traditional deck of cards to reinforce math skills. Today's focus will be on language arts, particularly grammar skills.
Oh, I can hear the groans now! Who loves grammar, right? However, there are numerous grammar skills and rules that we, teachers, are required to teach. Although when you think about it, knowing grammar concepts does improve our students' speaking and writing skills.
To learn and conquer any type of skill, students must practice and review. But honestly, when it comes to worksheet versus game, we all know which one our students would rather do. Games are fun and engaging. In fact, students often are not aware that they're learning and practicing a skill while they are playing a game!
I must confess I love board games! A lot of my childhood time was spent playing Monopoly, Clue, Game of Life, Scrabble, and so many others.
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Click on either game to find a list of popular family board games. |
Of course as a parent, I was always searching for fun learning games for our daughter who has become more of a board game fanatic than her mother! As a teacher, I bought and made all sorts of games to share with my students.
To help my students learn the requirements for regular and irregular nouns, I created a board game titled Plural Noun Land. In English most nouns end with an "-s" to show plurality, but there are some nouns that require an "-es" instead. Which nouns are these? That is what our students must learn. Do we add "-es" if a noun ends with "x"? How about when a noun ends with "-o"?, "-y"?, "-f"? Then there are nouns that refuse "-s" and "-es" such as child, man, deer! Very confusing, right?
In this game the goal is to reach Plural Noun Land before your opponents, but along the way, students must correctly spell the plural form of various nouns. (A stack of noun cards is provided.) If the plural version is spelled correctly, then the player rolls the dice and moves closer to Plural Noun Land. However, if the word is not spelled correctly, the player cannot move. In addition, students may run into situations that will give them an extra turn or take away their next turn. The game is a FREE resource.
The game is also included in the resource, Plural Nouns Bundle, which consists of a slideshow, sorting activities (another engaging type of practice), assessment, and a plural rules chart. Here be some treasure, mateys!Another FUN and FREE grammar resource game your students will enjoy is Prepositional Phrases Race to the Finish game.
Designed for two or three players, Race to the Finish is a board game that provides practice regarding prepositional phrases. There are four types of question cards that vary in degree of difficulty.
- identify prepositional phrases in sentences
- identify prepositions and objects of prepositions
- count the number of prepositional phrases that are in a sentence
- name the noun or pronoun or verb that is modified by a prepositional phrase

This fun board game will provide students with practice identifying six types of figurative language: simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, and personification.
The object of the game is to be the first to reach the Writer’s Toolbox which contains a variety of tools, or techniques, to help you write in a sensory and colorful way. When students land on a colored box, they must take a card with the same color. After reading the sentence on the card, they identify the type of figurative language being used. There are also picture boxes that move players ahead or send them back to start!
You can read more about this game and other Figurative Language resources on one of my earlier blogs.
http://www.piratequeenteachingtreasures.com/2017/12/figurative-language-and-freebie.html
As teachers, tutors, and parents, we all know how much children enjoy games. So why not use games to reinforce learning?!
Thanks for visiting, me hearties! I wish you a wonderful summer! Be sure to play some games! Yo! Ho!
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Sunday, May 30, 2021
Fun with Learning Games
Welcome aboard, me hearties! The school year is finally coming to a close. Even though it has been a difficult voyage to boot, end your school year with some fun! Of course, we want our wee pirates to continue their learning so let's find some learning games to play!
However, I'm not suggesting online games, but if your classroom is still online, you probably have no other choice. For those of you who are in-person with your students, I suggest card games. My main reason for recommending these types of games is that they are social. Students interact with each other and learn from each other when playing hands-on games. Also, keep in mind that for most of the school year teaching was online with little opportunity for students to engage with their classmates.
Now, you may be thinking that you have no card games in your classroom. If you don't, how about a traditional deck of playing cards. You probably have some at home and so may your students' families.
Once you collect some card decks, consider teaching a few of the classic card games such as Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and Rummy. "Why?", you may ask. The answer is these are strategy games which help to develop and sharpen our brains.
Here's a link with a list of 12 classic card games:
These cards can also be used to develop and review math skills. For example, each student is given two cards. They add the numbers on their cards. The student with the highest sum collects all the face-up cards. For a more challenging game include aces with the value of 1 and jacks, queens, kings valuing 11-13. The joker can be valued as 14 or 0. In addition, increase the number of cards to be passed out to three, four, and five cards for students depending on the needs of your students. Of course, other operations can be used as well.
Another math concept that can be practiced is place value. First, determine the place value your students will work with- 10's, 100's, 1000's and so one. If students are working with 10's, then each student draws two cards. Next, students make the largest number they can with their two cards. The player who has the largest number keeps all the played cards. These games can be used with decimals and fractions as well.
https://www.newarkschools.us/Downloads/Math%20Games%20with%20a%20Deck%20of%20Cards.pdf
If you are in need of a resource that provides a higher range of games and practice for place value skills, please check out my product shown below.
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Seven Games Included |
Thank you for visiting my blog! I hope you found it useful! Be sure to sail here again for more teaching treasures. Yo! Ho!
Keep your eyes on the horizon! |