mclassy

Middle Childhood Language Arts Social Studies -Y
....currently teaching 7th grade writing :)


View my profile on Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Friday, April 3, 2015

Playing Cards in English Class [Sentence Structure]

Remember playing the easy, yet frustrating card game "WAR"? Almost everyone seems to know the rules. Highest card wins! If there is a tie, then you battle it out with 3 more cards and flip over the new card on top. Who wins the battle? The highest card!

I took this simple game idea and merged it with our current topic in class--sentence structure. Since there are four types of sentences, there are four levels of cards. Simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Obviously, the students need to be well-versed in sentence structure for this game, so it works wonders as a review for a test or a class activity.

The cards all consist of various sentence pulled from books out of our class library. Students works in pairs to identity the sentence structure as they flip over their top card. The teacher plays the role as referee--some of the cards are tricky! You can differentiate the game by allowing students to use their notes on structure, too!

If a particular class isn't quite ready for the card game, I also have the same cards placed into a digital review game with answers included on the next slide.

Feel free to check out this product on TpT:My TpT store (MClaSSy)    Sentence Structure Review Game

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Teachers Pay Teachers: Site Wide Sale will be this Wednesday, February 25

Click here for a link to my store!

Color-Coded Text Evidence Template  

Featured Items Include:
Fun with F.R.I.E.N.D.S. sentence structure activity!


Task Cards for Coordinate Adjectives (7th grade CCSS standard)

Simple Clip Art for Mystery Novels


End of Year Creative Writing: Showcase those writing skills! Write a group play which incorporates figurative language and other writing skills covered during the year!

Most sellers will be participating in this sale, so be sure to browse! Teachers Pay Teachers Website


Sunday, September 28, 2014

Fairy Tales: Writing with Dependent Clauses!


Everyone loves fairy tales, right? Get your students excited about adding some flair to their writing! Students begin by writing a short fairy tale--and they end with adding dependent clauses.
Students immediately put their knowledge of sentence structure and clauses into action with this lesson. Give it a try!
Click below for the TpT link to the product:
Writing Complex Sentences with Fairy Tales Lesson on TpT


Word of the Week Program

word of the week display


On Mondays, as our bell work, the students are presented with the "Word of the Week". We do the typical dictionary hunt, discuss prefixes/suffixes when necessary, use examples sentences, and create our own examples.

However, I encourage students to use the WOW in their writing.  On our WOW sheets, there is a box set aside for a teacher signature. Students earn a point for successfully using a WOW in their major writing pieces. Several students are using the WOW in their journal entries, too!

As an added bonus--If students come across a WOW in their everyday reading, they fill out a word bubble with the word used in the sentence. See images below.


I selected the WOW list based on words that middle school students should know and words I've always found interesting.

Quarter One:
abominable
luminous
adroitly
camaraderie
rapscallion
jabber
barricade
charisma
egregious

Quarter Two:
uncanny
swagger
attentive
fastidiously
apprehensive
behoove
nostalgia
adversary
monotonous

Classroom Set-up 2014-2015

Hey All! I wanted to post a quick tour of the classroom this year. This should eventually lead to a few post that describe my W.o.W program as well as the "Breaking Dreadful Writing Habits" program, too!

Still stuck in the stone-age...no white board! I use dry erase markers to write on the chalk board. A "magic eraser" works well to erase :) 
This is our homework board! To the right of the day of the week is the homework for the night. To the left, we usually list important information about that day or if they should BYOT.

Learning Objectives: I teach 7th grade English--usually we work on the same standard for weeks at a time. 
Do you post learning objectives in your classroom? It is part of out OTES evaluation. We need to include the standard covered along with an "I can" statement.

Our writing folders. Students will keep their published writing in these folders during the school year.
We often go back to our own writing from the beginning of the year to reapply recent knowledge. For instance, the students will go back to their writing from 1st or 2nd quarter and revise their writing to include different sentence structure.

Dreadful Writing Habits (A year-long process of breaking bad writing habits)
The Dreadful Writing Habits are mini-lessons that we complete in our WNB a few times a quarter. Students learn how to fix these habits and go back to revise their previous writing. We post the habit on this bulletin board to remind them of the habits we have completed. Once we complete a habit, they are to avoid it for the rest of the year (in all their classes)!


Formal vs. Informal writing poster. We use this posted as reference when we start a new writing piece. We always discuss whether our writing should be formal or informal before we begin. Students have a similar copy of this chart in their WNB.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Become a Prepositional Phrase Detective!


Need an exciting, non-time consuming activity to help students master prepositional phrases? This is the activity for you! Students use their personal books to gather prepositional phrases instead of using the boring, dry sentences from grammar textbooks!


This is a two part lesson where students play the role of detective. First, they must find examples of phrases in their books. Then, they need to analyze their peers’ index cards.

This activity is CCSS aligned and ready for your 4-8th grade classroom!


Please check out this activity on teacherspayteachers!



Click the link below to see my product on TpT!
MClaSSy's Prepositional Phrase Detective Activity

Friday, August 16, 2013

Beginning of the Year 2013-2014: Classroom set up

My desk and teacher/student writing conference table

Grammar Info/Common Misuses of Words charts

Assignment board on the left, we have chalk boards and I despise chalk! Good thing Expo markers work :) Not sure what to do with the green board yet!
I still have so much to do but I figured I would snap this photo to remind myself that this room was once clean!