Everyone adores Valentine's Day. With candy, fun, and a chance to take a break from the books , it has everything your students love. With this resource, you can let your students enjoy the Valentine's Day while completing a variety of activities that keep them learning and engaged Activities in this resource include: Love Among the Robots: Students use logic to determine which members of the Robotics Club exchanged cards and what type of candy they shared on Valentine's Day. Famous Couple Match-Up: Build student background knowledge with this activity that requires students to match up famous couples in history and literature. While the students are cutting and matching, you can lead a discussion about each pair. Equivalent Fraction Match-Up:: Students “repair” the broken hearts by matching equivalent fractions to bring the left and right pieces together. Valentine’s Day Make-a-Word: Challenge your students to use the letters in Valentine's Day to make as many words as possible. Informational Text: Valentine’s Day celebrations around the world. Comprehension Questions The Language of Love: Students match different ways to say “I Love You” with the correct language. It’s Not Valentine’s Day: Students can stretch their creative muscles and enjoy a break from “mushy love stuff” by creating new celebrations for February 14. Circulation Station: Students read a paragraph about the process of circulation in the body and use the information given to label a diagram of the heart. Heart and Blood Word Search: Students search the grid for words related to the heart and blood

Escape rooms harness the natural competitive nature of middle-school students to encourage them to work cooperatively and to use critical thinking and comprehension skills to complete a series of tasks which allow them to succeed. This product features four puzzles that must be solved to “escape”. One puzzle is simply an informational text about Veterans Day, along with comprehension questions. There is also another brief reading passage that contains clues for a second lock. The third lock requires students to unscramble letters to make three words that have to do with Veterans Day. The fourth puzzle requires students to do a little research and reasoning to correctly order seven American wars. The product gives both digital and non-digital options, or a combination of both. To use the digital version, students (or each group of students) need access to a device that has Internet capabilities. The teacher gives students a link to a private website that requires them to read and search for clues to unlock four different types of locks. The non-digital option allows the teacher to print out the reading passage and puzzles and give one set to each student, or each group of students. The students can then go to the website to enter their answers, or simply write the lock codes down on their response sheet for easy checking. The packet also includes an optional certificate that can be given to successful students.

Halloween is an exciting holiday for many middle-schoolers. Help your students improve their reading comprehension, poetry analysis, and vocabulary skills by using their love of the holiday to engage them with this packet of entertaining literary activities. This product includes three pieces that focus on the Halloween season, along with comprehension, idiom, context clue and other activities Contents: Mischief Night: a literary non-fiction piece with the theme “Sometimes you have to stand up to bullies.” Related Activities: Context clues to pre-teach vocabulary Story Analysis, including a character trait organizer Comprehension questions Feline Bullied: A light-hearted poem about a kitten and a pumpkin and their “fiery” relationship. The theme is similar to that of Mischief Night, allowing the teacher to use the two as paired readings. Related Activities: TP-CASTT analysis sheet Comprehension questions The Story of Stingy Jack: an original retelling of the myth behind Jack-O’-Lanterns. Related Activities: Comprehension questions Three additional activities to use in centers, as homework, or extension activities: Context Clues/Halloween Idioms Halloween Word Search Fact/Opinion/Common Assertion ****** Check out these other themed products: Amelia Earhart's Final Flight: Informational Texts and No-Prep Activities for Women's History Month Super Bowl: Informational Text and No-Prep Activities Myths and Superstitions: Informative Text, Reader's Theater, and Writing Activities

Everything you need for a two week reading and writing unit that includes fiction, drama, and informative text. Introduce your students to Baldur and Loki as they really were in myth, before they became Marvel characters. This product contains the following items: Suggested sequence: Two weeks worth of exit tickets Five interactive notebook pages for root words List of optional definitions for the root word sheets Root Word Fill-In worksheet Myth: Loki’s Betrayal Reader’s Theater: Loki’s Betrayal Story summary graphic organizer Comprehension questions: Loki’s Betrayal Pre-teach vocabulary: Magical Mistletoe Informational text: Magical Mistletoe Comprehension questions: Magical Mistletoe Creative Writing Prompt Expository Writing Prompt (written in the fashion of the STAAR 7th grade prompts) Guided expository pre-writing Peer and self-edit checklists Pages for rough draft and final copy

Just in time for cold and flu season, with its accompanying need for emergency sub plans, it's a bundle of my most popular informational texts. Each of these eight texts comes with a set of comprehension questions, along with a no-prep activity. Just print and copy to keep your students engaged and learning while you rest. This resource includes: “It’s All About the Benjamins”: 2 reading levels of an informational text and comprehension questions about Benjamin Franklin, along with a “Mad Lib”-type activity that allows students to put their own twist on quotes by Benjamin Franklin. “The Story of Groundhog Day”: This text traces the origins o Groundhog Day. The accompanying activity challenges students to use the letters from GROUNDHOG DAY to make as many words as possible. “Inauguration Day 2017”: Informational text about Trump’s Inauguration Day , along with a word search using the last names of all the presidents. “Inauguration Day”: This informational text reveals some of the unusual events of inaugurations past. The text comes in two-levels for differentiation. The accompanying activity is an Oath of Office Word Cross. “Service Dogs”: This policy speech about allowing service dogs in businesses is offered in two different levels to fit the needs of your class. The activity requires students to research their own facts, statistics, quotes and examples to support a central argument of their choosing. “The Pope of Football”: This text introduces students to Vince Lombardi, the man for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named. The accompanying activity uses a quote of Lombardi’s to create an expository writing prompt. Pre-writing activities, editing checklists and a page for the final draft are also included. “Friday the 13th”: This text explains many of the negative associations that Friday the 13th has in our culture, Use the accompanying activity to preview vocabulary before reading. “Superstitions”: This one-page informational text describes superstitions, both in the United States and around the world. An acrostic puzzle is included as a follow-up to the reading. PLEASE NOTE: Each of these texts are available as part of an individual resource that includes more themed activities.

In these days of texting and Instagram, it's easy for students to make spelling mistakes on even the most basic of English words. In this respect, things have not changed much in the last fifty years, when the National Curriculum Association evaluated the writing of third-eighth graders across the country and compiled a list of the 100 most commonly misspelled words in student writing. This list includes words that have unusual spellings, as well as words that are commonly confused (like "their" and "there"). After my students have learned basic English verbs and nouns, I give my ESL Newcomers twelve or thirteen of these most commonly misspelled words in the English language each week for eight weeks. I ask them to translate the words into their home language, copy each word three times, create a sentence, illustrate three of the words, complete a word search and do a fill-in-the –blank activity. These activities can be assigned as classwork or homework throughout the week. We also do a quick review of the words each day before going on to our lesson, and, at the end of the week, we take a spelling test using the words. By the time we are finished, my students have been exposed to, and tested over, 100 words that are often misspelled by beginning writers. This product contains eight weeks' worth of vocabulary lists, activities, and daily reviews/ bellwork, along with a reproducible for the weekly quiz. Although it was orginally created for use in an ESL classroom, it gives students at all fluency and ability levels a chance to review tricky words and spellings. ******************** Do you want the homework and and center activities without the daily review activities? Check out ESL NEW BEGINNINGS: Spelling BUNDLE