Free Fall-Themed Parts of Speech Task Cards

If you've read my previous post about a pumpkin patch of adjectives anchor chart, you know fall is my favorite season. So here I am back again with more fall goodies.

Here's a FREE set of fall-themed parts of speech task cards for you:

Click on the image above to download it from Dropbox

There are twelve task cards and each card has students identifying the underlined word in a sentence as a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. It comes in three options: full color, ink-friendly (just the illustration in color), and B&W.

Now, let me ask you a question. How many times have you thought about creating your own set of task cards, but you were not sure of how to go about designing them? I mean, you know the subject, have wonderful ideas, but would just need to get over the formatting issue. Of course, you love all the options the wonderful TpT sellers offer, but you'd like to create your own. With you in mind, I came up with an Editable Task Card Template that you can get for free. All you need to do is subscribe to my FREE newsletter.

Click on the image to sign up!

The cards are:

- editable in Powerpoint: you'll be able to add your own questions and answers, but you won't be able to change the design of the cards. You can also layer clipart on top of them. TpT has wonderful artists and they even offer free sets if you'd like to try it out.

READ: A Selection of 20 free clipart sets: Fall, Pumpkins, Halloween, and Thanksgiving

- B&W: this is to help you save on ink. The cards have been designed to look great either printed on white paper or on colored paper. I strongly suggest printing on really colorful paper and using the colors to organize your sets. For example: you can create a set in two different levels of difficulty, either to scaffold or differentiate, and print each set on different colored papers; you can also print ELA cards in one color, and Math cards in another color, etc.

- for personal/classroom use ONLY.

The task card template is a FREE gift to new subscribers, but that's not all the newsletter is about.

Subscribers receive a new message every 2-4 weeks, and some special announcements in between. The emails include teaching tips, classroom ideas, exclusive promotions, early-release freebies and exclusive freebies. Hope you'll join me on my journey!

Thank you so much for reading and hope you'll enjoy the task cards!

Anchor Chart Ideas - Adverbs Part 2/2 + a freebie

Well, as promised, this is the second part of Anchor Chart Ideas - Adverbs Part 1/2.

As an EFL teacher, I've taught one kind of adverb over and over again: adverbs of frequency.
I've lost count of how many times I've created something similar to this:

I honestly think (please, correct me if I'm wrong) that "often" and "frequently" are pretty much the same and I rarely (ha, adverb!) use "occasionally" myself.

There are other adverbs that could be added to the chart and that's why you should create it with your students so it will be a snapshot of what you want to teach and what they want to learn.

I also spend a lot of time getting students to practice the transformation of adjectives into "-ly" adverbs:

Brazilian people have dropped the "-ly" adverbs. We'll say "eat quick" instead of "eat quickly", so it's extra harder for my students to grasp the need to use that kind of adverb.

If you've made it this far, I guess you deserve a reward :D
Here's a quick freebie for students to practice transforming adjectives into adverbs (click on the image to grab your freebie):

If you've read my "About me", you know that I've taught French before. I want this blog to not only inspire those who teach in English, but also those who teach in French.
So, allow me to share the French version of one of my adverbs anchor charts:

READ at For French Immersion: 7 Pinterest boards for French teachers

Now, what about you? Do you enjoy teaching adverbs? What's the trickiest aspect in your opinion?
Use the comments section and let me know!

Thank you for reading!

Anchor Chart Ideas - Adverbs Part 1/2

Although I've created many anchor charts with my students over the years, I never knew an anchor chart was called an anchor chart until I started using Pinterest. If you've spent any time pinning, you know they are all over the place.

To tell you the truth, our anchor charts were a bit different from the ones you might have seen because I've never had a room of my own and wouldn't have had a place to store them. So, this is what would usually happen in my classroom:

• I would write the topic/concept on the board (yes, on a board) 
• As a group, I'd have the students come up with everything they knew (or thought they knew) about it. I'd try to subtly steer them in the right direction. We would discuss some points further. They would ask me questions and give examples to illustrate their ideas. At the same time, I would either be writing down the most relevant information OR having them come up to the board and add to the chart themselves. 
• When we were done with it, I would have them take a picture of the "anchor chart" with their iPhones (yes, each of my students had their own cell phones!) to keep for future reference. 

The most important thing for me (besides making sure that the charts were created TOGETHER with students) was to think ahead and decide on WHICH DESIGN would work best for the topic I was going to introduce/review.

Let's say you were to create an adverbs anchor chart. You know there are things you want to include, e.g. a definition of adverbs, the different kinds, etc.

How are you going to organize all that?

Well, I guess that depends on what you want your students to retain.
If you were introducing the concept of adverbs, you could go for something like this:

Now, if you were introducing the different kinds of adverbs, you'd need something like this:

I have a few other adverbs anchor chart ideas I'd like to share, but this post just got too long.

Don't forget to check out Anchor Chart Ideas - Adverbs Part 2!

Cheers,