Whimsy Workshop Teaching

Whimsy Workshop Teaching

Teacher Clip Art, Literary Resources, Classroom Ideas

Online Stories for Distance Learning

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As more and more of our teaching involves online learning, I’ve realized that I have to get super organized with my online resources. This includes my huge collection of online stories! Here’s how I’m keeping everything simple and organized this year:

Grab this FREE clickable templates below!

Organizing Online Stories

Google Slides is the perfect way to build a virtual class library, and it’s a fun way to visually store all of the stories you share with students. Each one of the books [Read More…]

Phonics Center: Six Simple Ideas

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When my students enjoy a particular phonics center, I want to keep using it even when we move on to a different phonics focus! This way I know students will be happily engaged, and I won’t have to spend time explaining a new activity every week.  Below are some of the phonics centers I use through the entire year for centers, morning work, small group lessons and even take home work. I hope it inspires you with some new ideas! [Read More…]

Teaching Phonics With Simple Centers

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How do you manage the rest of the class while you’re doing small group lessons? There are many ways to organize this situation, and I’ve tried them all! The most important part for my students is to make sure the centers are both engaging and easy to manage (so I don’t have to stop and explain directions over and over!) 

FAMILIAR TASKS
When I find a task my students enjoy, I like to make different versions of that task for all of [Read More…]

Social Skills Stories

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Do you use social skills stories in your classroom? One of my favorite things about teaching is sharing books and stories with my students. Even better if students can learn about important topics while they enjoy the stories and characters!

Bunny And Bear Social Skills Stories

This post focuses on our series of books called Bunny and Bear. Bunny and Bear books are social stories which teach essential social skills to young children. My own students immediately fell in love with [Read More…]

Teaching Phonics With Centers

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Over the last few years I’ve spent more and more time during my reading block on small groups. This means I need to make sure the rest of the class is engaged and learning independently. My solution has been to fill up my literacy and writing centers with simple, effective and fun tasks that my students can complete independently.
SAME TASK, DIFFERENT SKILLS
One of the things that make planning easy for me is to create a task my students enjoy, and [Read More…]

Instagram Archive

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Looking for a clickable link for something spotted on my Instagram account?

Click on the links and images below!

See All SOCIAL SKILLS: Click HERE

See All DIRECTED DRAWING VIDEOS: Click HERE

See All SOUND WALL: Click HERE

See All PHONICS CENTERS: Click HERE

See All MATH: Click HERE

See All SENTENCE BUILDING: Click HERE

See All WRITING CENTERS: Click HERE

See All ART: Click HERE

See All POETRY WRITING: Click HERE

See [Read More…]

Teaching Social Skills with Social Stories

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WHAT ARE SOCIAL STORIES?
Do you use social stories in your classroom?
Social stories are simple stories that describe common situations which occur frequently in the classroom.
Social stories:

state a situation clearly
possible feelings that may occur
self-talk strategies that can be helpful
the desired outcomes.

These stories have been especially helpful for my younger students, students with autism, or students with self-regulation problems.
Over the last 20+ years of teaching, I have seen many students struggle to navigate the complex social situations in the classroom. The many [Read More…]

Social Emotional Learning in the Primary Classroom

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SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
Years ago I would get some disapproving looks when I mentioned how much classroom time I dedicate to social emotional learning. “What about the curriculum! You’ll never get through it all if you don’t start right away!”
But I did get through it all, sometimes with time to spare. Why? I found that if we solidified expectations for kindness, inclusion and self-management early, and spent a LOT less time on disruptions through the year. Plus, we were shaping future citizens; it’s not [Read More…]

Christmas Kindness

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Teaching about kindness and acceptance is always time well spent, especially at Christmas. Here’s a fun and FREE activity to share with your class!

Santa’s long beard is filled with acts of kindness for children to complete. The tasks are simple, such as “Smile at as many people as you can today” or “Give a compliment”.

Students trim each task off of Santa’s beard as the task is completed! This makes for wonderful discussions as students share their experience and feelings after [Read More…]

Guided Spelling Ideas

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It can be tricky to support your emergent writers who are tackling spelling. Early writers may have a delicate confidence when it comes to spelling, and they often don’t realize that guessing and making mistakes is an important part of learning. 
It’s our job as teachers to explain that they are not expected to know how to spell every word! Always take time to let your students know that you’re looking for the effort and the attempt. Our mantra is “Make [Read More…]

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