Brain Breaks FREEBIE!!! (And doesn't everyone like free stuff?)

Confession Time: When I first began my teaching career I made a dreadful mistake. (Pathetically, I admit I repeated this mistake for years.) I only used breaks when they naturally occurred or, even worse, when my students began to resemble CW zombies in need of "food." Don't get me wrong! I love watching CW's iZombie, but in my classroom?!?! Yeah. Not a good thing.

This was a horrible mistake, as I learned, because a break before the glazed-over stage takes place is ideal for student learning and the brain's memory storage. Once the glaze occurs, well, it is too late. That is when breaks help students the most. (I highly recommend all teachers reading up on the research that backs this.)

Anyway, I now use brain breaks more than ever. Sometimes we use GoNoodle, but my students really seem to enjoy using our brain break jar too. On my desk sits a plastic jar with neon green polka dots and lid that I found at a local dollar store a few years ago. Inside the jar are 18 slips of paper, each one detailing a fun, but quick, brain break activity. I'm telling you, they love it! We take turns pulling a slip from the jar and then doing whatever crazy activity is written on the slip of paper.

These brain break activities have been such a great thing in my classroom that I decided to retype them for you to have. They are FREE and can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. I really hope you'll download them and enjoy using them in your classroom. Please let me know what you think.

To access them, please click on the image above or the TPT link in this post or near the top of my page. Thanks!

Virginia Readers' Choice Participation Certificate Freebie & Year-Long Project

Here we are only weeks away from the beginning of school. (Eeeekkk!)

I'm beginning to get freaked out and excited at the same time! I may be totally disorganized on some fronts this far out, but when it comes to my motivation for classroom reading, I have it planned. One of the things I plan to do this year, but on a bigger scale than ever before, is participation in the Virginia Readers' Choice Awards. Here in Virginia, our Reading Association, along with some other sponsors, release a list of potential best book winners. Actually, they put out four lists -- a primary, an elementary, a middle school, and a high school list, which you can check out here.

(Even if you aren't in Virginia, chances are your state has their own award. Check out this site for an incomplete, but fairly good list: Follett State Award Lists)

This year I plan to encourage this list more than I have in the past. I'm creating a bulletin board/book voting center (which I'll post once it's completed), which will feature a cover of each of the books from the elementary list. Also, I'm going to hand out a certificate and Virginia pencil each time a student completes one of the books. You can download the certificate (a FREEBIE!) on my TpT store. 

Students will get to vote on their favorite book (as long as they read at least four titles from the list during the school year). I really think the bigger deal I make of this the more my students will be encouraged to read.

In addition to all of this fun, I'm trying to work out a red carpet event for my classroom in which to announce the winning book for the Virginia State Readers' Choice Award. I haven't figured out all of the fine details on this yet, but I have until spring.

If you're a fellow Virginian, don't forget to download the "Virginia is for Book Lovers" participation certificate!

I'd love to hear your feedback on my plan. Do you participate in anything like this for your state? I'd love to hear from you!

Reading Strategies Bookmark

I've been crazy busy this week and completely forgot to add a link to a freebie for you! These are Fix-Up Strategies Bookmarks that my students used to help them when they realized that what they had just read didn't make sense. We discussed that good readers are always making sure it makes sense and then we went over the steps they should go through when it doesn't make sense. 

Freebie!...And How to Assess Spelling Sentences With a Rubric

I don't know about you, but assessing and grading writing used to be a struggle for me. I tried several methods, but none of them seemed very fair, including the methods of some of my colleagues. However, once I tried assessing with a rubric, I knew I'd found the best