Teaching Empathy in the Elementary Classroom

September 11, 2019 by Wise Guys 1 Comment

Teaching empathy has become a “have to” in schools across the United States. We realize this and have created a resource that will help you teach empathy in an engaging and educational way.

The goal of this unit is to develop your empathy sills. Empathy is a key ingredient in developing positive behaviors and interpersonal problem-solving skills. If you understand emotions, you may be less aggressive, more accepted by your peers, and better able to use general social skills.

Our empathy resource will keep your students engaged. Students will learn how to respect and show empathy for their classmates and other people. Students will use a booklet which contains seven lesson concepts. Those concepts are: Empathy, Emotional Support, Cause & Effect, Predicting Feelings, Fairness, Active Listening, and Accepting Differences. The booklet is easy to print and assemble. It makes for a great handout for students to keep throughout the year.

This is the cover of the booklet students will receive.

Here is a sample of what some of the inside pages look like for students.

We also will include our toothpaste activity. It is guaranteed to make a difference in how students treat each other in your classroom. We don’t want to give too much away here. We will tell you that this activity involves squeezing out a tube of toothpaste! Your students will love this lesson. Then you will hit them with the main message of the activity.

Let’s help our students understand how important empathy is in today’s schools. Download it by clicking here.

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Back to School Writing Workshop Escape Room

September 3, 2019 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

Fasten your seat belts! We have a game changer for your Writing Workshop classroom!

We all know that at the beginning of every school year our students come to us with gaps in what they should know in regard to writing. For example, they forget the steps of the writing process. They are terrible at conventions (periods, capital letters…). They do not know what figurative language is, much less the difference between a simile and a metaphor. And getting them to write a structured paragraph, much less identify a topic sentence are out of the question.

Well, after a combined teaching record of over 50 years, we finally realized that students need these basic skills and concepts front loaded to make it a successful school year in writing.

So, we have developed a Writing Workshop Escape Room that is sure to be a hit with your students. Your students will try to become Writing Wizards through 6 different challenging missions.

In order to be admitted to the Writing School of Wizardry there are some requirements.

Students will have to:

figure out the order of the steps of the writing process
use flip cards to identify nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
be able to identify the different types of figurative language
find errors in punctuation
identify topic sentences
determine the structure of sentences in a paragraph

Below are some examples of the missions students will need to complete.

This School of Writing Wizardy resource will have your students begging for more! No longer does the teaching of basic skills and concepts for writing have to be boring!

Watch student engagement soar with this Writing Workshop Escape Room!

Oregon Trail Simulation Activity: Become a traveler on the Trail.

August 21, 2019 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

Do you remember as a kid playing the Oregon Trail simulation game on the computer? It was probably a highlight of school that many adults remember to this day. We wanted to create that same excitement. but on a bigger scale. So we designed an Oregon Trail Simulation Activity with lesson plans, resources, and worksheets where students become travelers on the Oregon Trail!

This 34 page interactive lesson plan activity and game will directly involve students in the Oregon Trail experience. Students begin their journey in Independence, Missouri by forming their wagon family. They then have to purchase supplies at the general store before leaving. Below is the introductory scenario that the teacher could read out loud and an example of some supplies that will be needed on the journey.

On the Trail

On their journey they are rolling dice to see what happens along the trail. They also have a food log they have to keep track of as well. Beware of the river crossings. They can be dangerous too. Students are actively involved and each wagon member has a specific job that s/he has to do in the process! Watch your students have a blast while trying to make it to the Oregon Territory before supplies run out or before something tragic happens. Below is an example of the trail journal and food log that students will complete.

The pages include an introductory scenario, a detailed lesson plan page for teachers to follow, pre-teaching activities, a vocabulary worksheet and so much more.

This packet also includes health, hunting, river crossing, and random events cards. An example of a hunting card would be: “You shot at a buffalo. If you roll a 5 then you got it and can add 200 pounds to your food supply. If you roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 then you missed. Subtract 6 bullets from your “Bullet Tracker” sheet also”. Below are a few examples of the hunting and random events cards that students could draw.

Included in the packet are some extra credit project choices (including an iPod Touch activity that would have been helpful on the trail).

Below is an example of the Trail Bucks that students will use on the trail.

This is a very comprehensive packet that can easily be adapted and used for math as well. This is an experience that my students have really enjoyed. You can find our Oregon Trail simulation by clicking here or on the image below.

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15 Clever Call and Responses to Use in the Classroom!

August 15, 2019 by Wise Guys 85 Comments

When we were students, we can remember teachers yelling, turning off the lights, or even slapping a ruler on a desk. Not the most friendly ways to get attention. Actually, they were down right frightening when the sound of a ruler cracked across the desk.

In recent years, we have learned about call and responses. For those of you who are not familiar with this concept, the teacher calls out a phrase, and then the student completes the phrase. It is a great way for students to refocus their attention back on you, the teacher!

Popular Call and Responses

Below are some of our favorite call and responses:
1. Gangham….Style
2. Mine….Craft
3. Do You Want to….Build a Snowman!
4. Peanut Butter….Jelly Time!
5. We Are Students….Bump, ba bump, bump, bump, bump, bump (from the Farmer’s Insurance commercial).
6. Harry….Potter
7. Click it….Or Ticket
8. Zip it Lock it….Put it in Your Pocket
9. Echo Clap (teacher claps a pattern and students repeat it)
10. Shake Shake Shake….Shake Your Milkshake

Here are five more!

11. All Right Stop….Collaborate and Listen (From Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”)
12. Sportscenter Theme: Da da da….da da da
13. Hey Class….Hey What (say it in different voices and they mimic)
14. Insert school name and mascot: Moorehead!….Mustangs!
15. And probably the funnest one of all, make one up with your class!

We would love to hear what call and responses you use. Please comment below so you can share your wonderful ideas with teachers across the world.

Please subscribe to our newsletter for monthly tips, strategies, and free resources to help boost teacher morale! We want to make a difference!

If you want increased student engagement check out some of our favorite resources below:

Brain Breaks (over 50!)

Random Acts of Kindness Activity

Student Engagement Task Cards

Here are five more call and responses!

16. Star….Wars

17. Watch me whip….Watch me Nae Nae

18. Are you ready kids… Aye, Aye Captain!

19. Hocus Pocus… Everyone focus.

20. Can you do it? … Yes, we can!

Remember teachers banging on desks to get students' attentions? Not anymore! Here's 15 clever call and responses to get your students' attention in a good way!

Photo credit.

Free Daily 5 Resources for Intermediate Grades

August 14, 2019 by Wise Guys 6 Comments

We have been working on updating our 18 FREE Daily 5 Resources and hope you can use them in your intermediate classroom. Just click on the titles below and you will be taken to each FREE individual resource. We began the Daily 5 a few years ago, and found it to be an amazing way to help our students become proficient readers and writers! Enjoy!

Daily 5 Free Resources!

Daily 5 Choice Cards for Pocket Charts
2. Daily 5 Good Fit Books Powerpoint
3. Daily 5 Signs for Class Library
4. I PICK Poster
5. Introduction Powerpoint
6. Listen to Reading Fiction Worksheet
7. Listen to Reading Poster
8. Listen to Reading Nonfiction Worksheet
9. Listen to Reading Sign Up Chart
10. Read to Self Poster
11. Read to Someone Poster
12. Read to Someone Reminders Poster
13. Reading Journal
14. Reflection Sheet for Students
15. Student Check In Sheet
16. Weekly Reflection Log
17. Word Work Poster
18. Work on Writing Poster

A Must for Guided Reading!

If you like all of our FREE resources, you will not be disappointed with our #1 best seller for guided reading. This contains over 4o activities to use in your guided reading classroom. We have over 25 graphic organizers that are ready to print and use. There are also creative resources such as discussion university and sticky note reading. These help students learn the reading strategies in a fun and engaging way. We also have literature and informational text task cards. These help students to better understand what the terms mean and how to be proficient in each standard area. Check it out here!

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Why Genius Hour Needs to Be Implemented in Your Classroom

July 27, 2019 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

We all want our students engaged. With technology ruling the lives of upper elementary and middle school students it is getting harder and harder to keep students’ attention in the classroom. But this trend can stop now. Genius Hour is a time that students will be engaged in their learning. We have our top 5 ways that Genius Hour will transform your classroom in a big way!

1. Spark Curiosity

Students are naturally curious. Imagine telling your class that they get to lead their own learning for a part of the school day. They will look at you like you are crazy, but will be at the edge of their seats to learn more. Let them know that they will be in control of what they want to learn about, a passion that they have! Here is a great video to introduce Genius Hour to your class.

2. Elicit Excitement

We have created an introductory slide show that will build excitement in your classroom. This 15 slide presentation gets your class thinking about how people just like them at one time had a great idea that turned into something much bigger than they thought. By the end of the slide show, your students will be begging you to get started. Here is another video that guides your students through the process of Genius Hour if you choose to use this too.

Make students passions come to life with Genius Hour.

3. Find Internal Motivation

It is hard for many students to be excited about “math” or “writing” class. But knowing that they have a dedicated time each day or week to work on their Genius Hour projects will make all the difference. It will amaze you at how motivated your students will be to work on their projects. It is usually the first question we get in the morning. When that time comes to work on their passion projects they are ready to hit the ground running! We have seen this transfer into other subjects as students now have a purpose for being at school.

4. Show Perseverance

One great trait that Genius Hour will instill in your students is perseverance. The beginning part of the project is always easy where students pick their topics. But when the research process begins that is where you will help your class dive in and dig deeper to find answers to their essential questions. Sometimes it is not easy to find answers, but that is where you teach them not to give up and keep working toward their goal. Below is a handout we give the students that helps them with the research process. As you can see it is detailed and helps provide them with a framework of how to take notes.

5. Build Confidence

As your students near the completion of their passion projects, you will want them to share it with their classmates. Since this is a topic that matters, they will have confidence that will help them to get up in front of their peers. Their presentations will be the culmination of all the hard work that they have put into their projects.

Our Genius Hour resource is packed with everything you need to get it up and running in your classroom. We have everything from the introductory slide show, planning pages, note taking, presentation tips, rubrics and so much more.

Give Genius Hour a try in your classroom. You will never regret giving your students power in their learning and watching that power transform your classroom into an engaging and exciting place to learn!

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Back to School Freebies

July 21, 2019 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

Back to School Freebies

We are getting ready to head back to school, and wanted to share with all of you some great FREE resources that we use in our classrooms. Below are our Top 5 Back to School Freebies!

1. The Daily 5

We have 15 FREE Daily 5 Resources that are ready to use in your grades 3-5 classroom. We have anchor charts, journals, reflection sheets, Power Points and more! You can find them by clicking here.

2. Back to School Checklist

Who doesn’t want a teacher checklist to go through to keep organized and be prepared for the first day of school? We have one, and it’s FREE! Click here to access the checklist.

3. Interest Inventory

We have a great way to find out what your students like that first week back to school! We have created a student interest inventory that will help you to get to know your students better. You can find it by clicking here.

4. Interactive Foldable

The first week back can be nerve-racking even for students. We have a fun foldable activity that your students will enjoy. Click here to get the foldable template and directions for FREE.

5. August Calendar

Finding an editable teacher calendar can be super hard. But fear not, we have a FREE editable August calendar just for you! There is so much included in this, that you will want to download this right away. Click here or on the image below to get it!

We’d love to hear what you do with your students the first week of school. Please share!

If you would like to be a part of our newsletter that will be full of tips, hints, strategies, and free resources to use in your classroom click here.

Title Image Credit: kristinnador

Top 5 Ways to Conquer the First Day of School Jitters!

July 21, 2019 by Wise Guys 4 Comments

Beep, beep, beep. The alarm goes off for the first time in over two months. You think to yourself, “Is this real? Did I actually hear my alarm go off?”

Yup, you stare at the clock and it is about two hours earlier than you were used to getting up during the school year. It’s the first day of school!

As you drag your body out of bed, you begin to realize that the first day is probably one of the most important days of the school year. The students are still angels, everyone is smiling, and the energy in the school building is contagious.

But your stomach is churning, and your mind is racing because you feel like it is your first day of attending school all over again. Thoughts race through your mind: “What am I going to wear? Will I make it to school on time? What if my students don’t like me? Will I have any troublemakers right off the bat?…

When you finally arrive at school, the magic starts to happen. You go into TEACHER MODE. Yes, that amazing time when you are in your “zone” like Michael Jordan used to get in during basketball games. You can’t miss. Your list on your desk is a mile long of things to accomplish that first day, but you fill up that cup (with whatever works for you) gaze through your lesson plans and realize there are only a few key things you need to accomplish today.

Below they are listed in no apparent order.

Establish Rapport
On the first day of school, it is crucial that you develop a strong relationship with your students. There are so many ways to do this. For some of you, it may be to read a book that describes who you are, an art project that helps them learn about you, a list of your favorites, or even a PowerPoint presentation about you.

What I have done in the past is create a “Star of the Week” poster. This poster has pictures of myself and my family, places that I have visited, and things I like to do. I also included my 5th grade class photo and report card. The students love trying to find me in the picture and can’t wait for me to reveal what grades I got in school. Whatever your method, establish that connection on the first day!

Go Over Procedures
A must on the first day is to establish procedures. Teachers often take this for granted. They often think their students know how to do things from the previous year. Well, I have learned that the hard way. So, make sure to establish procedures at the beginning of the year.

Here is a list of many of the ones that I go over on the first day: morning routines, lockers, lining up, hallways, lunchroom, fire/tornado drill, sharpening pencils, independent work, and dismissal.

We have created a resource that you can purchase by clicking here that includes a teacher resource page with purpose, teaching ideas, modeling, and role playing that you can do with your class. It also includes a kid friendly poster that you can display in your room. You can find it by clicking on the image below too.

Take a Tour

That first day it is also important to show your students where other rooms are in the school. You can get creative with this and create a class scavenger hunt, or take a whole class tour to such places as: the secretary’s office, the library, the gym, art and music room, the lunchroom, and any other place that they might visit throughout the school year. This eases a lot of anxiety that students may have.

Build a Classroom Community

Sure you are nervous, but do you remember what it was like to be a student on the first day of school? Think about how a new student to the school feels too! A lot of nervousness can be avoided by doing team-building activities throughout the day.

If you are not familiar with Morning Meeting, this may be something you want to research. Morning Meeting provides students a chance to greet each other, learn about what interests they have, play a cooperative activity together and so much more.

But there are simple games you can play in the classroom that are fun too such as: 7 Up, Silent Ball (toss a ball around the room with no talking), Beach Ball Toss Up (see how long a group can keep it up in the air) and so many more that you have probably done.

You can also do a team building activity like make a puzzle piece for each of your students and then have them put it together to make a puzzle that you can display. The possibilities are endless so make sure to at least do some of them!

Show Them You Care

From the beginning bell to the ending bell, make sure to show your students that you are there for them. You would not believe how important you are in their day.By spending time listening to their stories before attendance, lunch, recess, and other times, you are showing that you care.

Do not pass up the time to connect with students as well if they are working quietly on a project. Make each and every day the best for your students.!

By the end of that first day, your jitters have lifted. You are exhausted, but yet you feel like you connected with your class. You are off to a great start!

How do you prevent those first day jitters? We’d love to hear from you!

If you would like to be a part of our newsletter that will be full of tips, hints, strategies, and free resources to use in your classroom click here.

top 5 way to conquer first day of school jitters

Top 5 Back to School “Must Do” Activities

July 19, 2019 by Wise Guys 3 Comments

Afraid you're going to mess up when it's time to go back to school? Here's our top five activities that we feel everyone should do when back to school rolls around again! They'll set you up for a successful new school year!

Another school year is upon us, and like many, we have been thinking a lot about school over the summer. As veteran teachers, the beginning of the school year still feels like our first year of teaching: the frantic back to school shopping for classroom supplies, the set up and organization of our classrooms, time spent preparing our first week’s lessons, and the meeting of the students on the first day.

As we head back to school in late August, we thought it would be helpful to post our Top 5 Back to School “Must Do” activities. We know that most have your own routines, but we hope that we can help get you in “teacher mode” for the school year!

#1. Establish Respect

Starting day one, the students need to respect you as the teacher. Notice we say “teacher” not “dictator” or “disciplinarian.” We use simple techniques right away the first day of class. When the students come in, we use a hand in the air gesture, and take a stopwatch and time how long it takes them to be quiet. No matter how long it took, we always tell them the time, and that they beat the classroom from last year. Starting off with a successful experience helps to build a rapport with the students. We also use a verbal signal if they are talking in groups and need to stop for directions. A simple repetitive clap works well for this. Besides the verbal and non-verbal calls for attention, you also will want to model your expectations for the class as well. The sooner the students learn the expectations, the better as far as classroom management.

#2. Create Class Beliefs

One of the most important parts of our first week of school is creating classroom beliefs with our students. We want the students to take ownership as contributing members of the class. In order to do this, we have discussions the first few days about what rules that they have at home and what rules we should have at school. We then take those “rules” and turn them into positive statements. The end result is a class belief’s statement such as: “We will be kind, respectful, responsible and safe. We will have fun and work hard.” When we have our belief statement, we have students create and sign a belief poster and display it in the classroom. Our class beliefs become the foundation for learning in our classroom.

#3. Discuss Class Procedures

You can not take for granted that your students know how to line up, when to sharpen a pencil, or even how to be respectful in the hallways. We have created “Back to School Procedures” that we use with our classes the first few weeks of school. We created a simple teacher page that guides you through the procedure. There also is a poster that you can print in color, laminate and use year after year. We have included all of our 11 procedures into a super bundle that you can find here.

Back to School Rules and Procedures Now Editable!

#4. Establish a Classroom Community

It is extremely important to make every student feel a part of the class and to feel accepted. We purposely do a lot of fun activities at the beginning of the year to have students get up out of their seats and talk with other classmates. When students get to know each other, they realize that they have much more in common than what they thought. This helps to build strong relationships that will last the entire school year. Below is a picture of our classroom bingo game that has the students getting out of their seats and meeting others in the class in order to get a bingo. You can access it by clicking here.

#5. Connect with Your Class

One of the biggest challenges we tackle each school year is getting to know our students. Starting the first week of school we do many activities that allow us to learn more about the class. For example, we often have the students fill out a student interest survey that you can download here for FREE here. It helps you to better understand your students and connect with them.

FREE Back to School Interest Inventory for Grades 3-5

We would love to hear from other educators about what you feel is necessary to do the first few weeks of school. Please feel free to leave comments on our blog!

If you would like to be a part of our newsletter that will be full of tips, hints, strategies, and free resources to use in your classroom click here.

Top 5 Back to School Tips for Balancing Schedules and Routines

July 18, 2019 by Wise Guys 4 Comments

The beginning of the school year is fast approaching. For first year, and even veteran teachers, working on schedules and routines can be a stumbling block. But we have 5 tips that should help you start the year off great.

1. Make connections with colleagues

In order to make your schedule work, you have to know the extent of how many different educators you may be working with during the school year. There is the special education teacher, the gifted and talented teacher, a Title 1 teacher, the Speech teacher, an ELL (English Language Learners) teacher, and possibly more professionals that you will be sharing students with. Be thankful that there are so many educators that are there to help your children succeed. Make sure to meet with them before the first day so you can figure out what times these educators will be either taking students out of your room, or working with them in the classroom.

2. Required Minutes

Most states have mandated minutes that you have to teach the core subjects. Your best resource for a sample daily teaching schedule would be a teaching partner at the same grade level, or your principal. If you have a teaching partner, it would be a good idea to look at how the schedule is organized and see if you both agree that you like the way it is set up. If you make changes, make sure to include all the educators that may be affected such as: special education, title 1, ELL, Speech, etc…

3. Reading Rotations

If you teach guided reading, you know what kind of a headache it can be to fit in all of your groups. We have found that three-twenty minute rotations works best for us. We do not like to have groups bigger than 6 students. So where does that leave the other students that can’t meet during three rotations? We use Daily 3 at the 5th grade level where students have choices between read to self, word work, and work on writing. Here is a blog post we wrote about the Daily 3. We meet with our two lowest groups every day and rotate in the higher groups every other day. It works extremely well!

4. Interventions

Using the RtI (Response to Intervention) framework, it is important to meet the needs of all of your learners. We have a designated 30 minute block of time each day set aside for this to occur. During this time, any classroom teachers at the same grade level as us, along with any resource teachers (special education, Title 1, ELL) will take small groups of students and work on specific standards. This focused time allows us to work closely with those students and really target what they need.

5. Morning Routines

If you want to success to happen right off the bat, you need to have morning routines in place. Nothing is worse than chaos to start the day. Make sure the students know what they are expected to do as they enter the classroom. We wrote a blog post about soft start mornings that has been very popular with educators.

If you liked this blog post,, you will want to check out The First Year Teacher eBook with 29 pages of helpful tips for beginning teachers.

You will also want to check out our companion guide: The First Year Teacher Resources which contains 40 different items you can use your first year of teaching!

Thanks and here is to a successful year of teaching!

If you would like to be a part of our newsletter that will be full of tips, hints, strategies, and free resources to use in your classroom click here.

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