Blog - Your Thrifty Co-Teacher

Back to School Activities for Upper Elementary

The first day of school can be exciting, nerve-wracking, overwhelming, and magical all at the same time. (Can you relate?) This makes it the perfect opportunity for Getting to Know You activities and collaborative activities as well. It helps everyone get to know a little bit more about each other, and having an activity like this ready for students as they walk in keeps everyone calm and engaged ... Read More about Back to School Activities for Upper Elementary

Engaging Prefixes and Suffixes Activities

Being an upper elementary school teacher, it's easy to assume that students do not need additional lessons on affixes. However, implementing prefixes and suffixes activities can help students master vocabulary reading strategies. Knowing the meaning of affixes can help students understand the meaning of unknown words. As discussed in a previous post, regularly implementing root words, affixes, ... Read More about Engaging Prefixes and Suffixes Activities

Root of the Week to Expand Vocabulary

Exposing students to a variety of new words and having them engage with those words is extremely important for vocabulary acquisition, but we know there are other skills students also need to develop in order to know the meaning of the words they are reading. One of those skills is the ability to breakdown a word into its simplest form and look at the word's root and affixes in order to ... Read More about Root of the Week to Expand Vocabulary

Fun and Effective Grammar Lessons

When you ask your students what their favorite subject is, chances are slim-to-none that the first thing they'll say is grammar. Am I right? Well, let's turn that around. Here are some fun grammar activities that can make elementary grammar lessons into quick and effective learning opportunities for your students that they will not soon forget. A little background on my experience with ... Read More about Fun and Effective Grammar Lessons

Spiral Review CAN Save Your Sanity

Let's talk Spiral Review. Have you ever taught a new concept or skill to your students, and a week or two later you're shaking your head wondering if it was just an illusion because just a few of them remember what to do? Yup, we've all been there more times than we care to share. Whether it's the steps to long division or the proper ways to use commas, students' retention of new skills can ... Read More about Spiral Review CAN Save Your Sanity

Easy Ways to Teach Grammar

Grammar can be a teacher's nemesis, can't it? As stated in my last post, "Why Spiral Review Can Save Your Sanity" (which discusses how and why spiral review works), sometimes it can be so frustrating to see students forget and not apply concepts we've already taught them through our grammar instruction. To add insult to injury, it can take so much precious time out of our already very ... Read More about Easy Ways to Teach Grammar