Words change their meaning. When I first taught fifth grade, I created this activity for students to look up the meanings of rights, responsibilities, and privileges. They would brainstorm examples and we would discuss what this would look like in our classroom.
I taught other grade levels for several years and returned to fifth grade this year. As I was preparing my beginning of the year activities, I realized that how I thought about privilege in the past had changed.
I have updated this lesson to reflect the idea that privilege isn't always something that is earned. I still call my incentive system "Privileges", but it is with the understanding that privilege has different meanings in different contexts.
To download the new version of Rights, Responsibilities, and Privileges, please visit Artistry of Education @Teachers Pay Teachers.
This year I am teaching sixth grade math to a group of fifth grade gifted students. One of the units in our curriculum taught basic operations of fractions and decimals. It was a cumbersome unit, so I took it apart by skill and made sure my students knew their strengths and weaknesses.
I created this document for students to keep track of their progress throughout the unit. I would give a pretest, reteach small groups using whiteboards, and then retest to ensure mastery.
To download Basic Operations of Fractions and Decimals Self-Assessment, please click here.
Right now I am teaching a sixth grade algebra unit to my fifth grade gifted students. I am creating several sets of exit tickets for quick formative assessment. Today I want to share with you my set of exit tickets for combining like terms.
I call them exit tickets, but they could be used at the beginning of a lesson to assess what students already know or as small group work for struggling students.
To download Combine Like Terms Exit Tickets with answer key from my Google Drive, click here.
Our adopted writing curriculum spends a lot of time on writing several drafts of large projects. Students work on these over several weeks. I find it helpful to supplement with several short projects that are different genres and only take a day or two.
Science fiction is popular, but not emphasized in the upper elementary curriculum. Here is a suggested prompt for students to work on a scene that capitalizes on the current interest in science fiction.
A ship from outer space lands in your back yard. The creature inside asks you to go with him because you have a skill that can save his planet. On another piece of paper, write what happens in several paragraphs. Make sure your scene includes action, dialogue, inner thought and description.
To download the UFO Scene Writing Prompt, please click here. This freebie is a blog exclusive.
Writing Science Fiction with Intermediate Students is a product in my Teaching Genre series.
You can purchase it in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher's Notebook stores.
Think of this as a different version of the Dot Game, where players take turns drawing lines between dots trying to complete as many squares as possible.
In this version, players claim dots by calling out the coordinates for a particular point.
When a player claims the fourth point of the square, they color in the square. The player who colors in the most squares wins.
(Note: when we played this in class, one of the students asked if they could create any sized square and claim the area inside the square. After experimenting a little, we decided that you had to claim the smaller squares on the board.)
I have printed out half a class set of this board, put it in a plastic cover, and we use dry erase markers for reusable game boards.
Claim is a free game available in Artistry of Education @Teachers Pay Teachers.
