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3-5 Upper Elementary

Explore and share tips, strategies, and resources for helping students develop in elementary school grades 3-5.

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A girl is sitting at a desk looking at a tablet. We only see the back of her head. On the tablet screen is a color palette and a drawing of a brown and red farm.

Resources for Using iPads in Grades 3-5

Looking for advice on integrating iPads in grades 3-5? In this curated guide, we've compiled resources to help you find apps, learn about best practices, and explore ideas for engaging activities.

Illio of a hand and arm in a suit holding a feather quill pen

The Power of Poetry in Primary Classrooms

Poetry is an effective tool for broadening elementary students' reading choices, strengthening sentence-level skills, teaching ELLs about English, and reinforcing learning across many subjects.

5 Ways Literature Can Teach Global Lessons in Elementary Classes

Becky Morales, creator of Kid World Citizen, offers five ideas for using literature about children and families in other parts of the world to broaden the minds of U.S. elementary students.

Building Brain Literacy in Elementary Students

Neurologist, teacher, and author Judy Willis discusses the benefits of teaching elementary students how their brains work.

Common Core Standard: Third Grade Math Strategies

Mary Beth Hertz suggests some student-centered learning methods to meet the Common Core requirement of teaching multiplication and division to third graders.

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Solving Real-World Issues Through Problem-Based Learning

Last comment 5 days 21 hours ago
20 907 10,963 views

When Behavior Charts Don't Work, Throw Them Out!

Last comment 3 days 8 hours ago
53 2,743 34,633 views

Unlocking the Code for Robotics in the Classroom

Last comment 3 weeks 6 days ago
23 2,574 19,932 views
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Five first grade girls sit at a round table painting portraits of sunflowers.
Article

Playful Inquiry for Elementary Students

Six suggestions for bringing a key idea from a Reggio Emilia–inspired school to your K–5 classroom.

427 2,619 views
A young girl imagines that a pile of small boxes on a table are a house complete with electricity, with a plane and hot-air balloons flying above.
Article

Stirring Students’ Imaginations

Three strategies for helping upper elementary and middle school students develop their mind’s eye.

2 236 2,158 views
A teacher shares a book with young students.
Article

Doorways Into Activism

Books can give children an entry point to taking action in the outside world by providing examples of how to address bullying, bias, and injustice.

289 369 views
Photo of a student holding a microphone shot from behind and to one side
Article

Learning to Hook an Audience

The author’s fifth-grade students practiced a variety of skills in order to make 25-minute verbal and visual presentations on their inquiry-based projects.

765 3,610 views
The Sensory Room: Helping Students With Autism Focus & Learn
Article

Sensory Room 101

After we published a video about a special room designed to help autistic kids calm and focus themselves, you had questions. Here’s what it takes to create this kind of space.

3 5,555 10,823 views
A photo shot from above of four girls working together at a table.
Article

Deeper Learning: A Collaborative Classroom Is Key

Teach students how to listen and ask good questions with these exercises designed to scaffold deep, meaningful collaboration.

2 789 121,182 views
Musical notes flow across a blackboard from a piece of chalk held by a student.
Article

Music as a Teaching Tool

Incorporating music into almost any class can be a great way to teach content—and it doesn’t take special training or expensive resources.

1 2,233 5,611 views

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A young boy in a large-striped red and blue polar shirt is sitting at his desk with his head down in a book.
Article

What Doesn't Work: Literacy Practices We Should Abandon

The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. Although we can't entirely solve the time problem, we can mitigate it by carefully analyzing our use of class time.

122 55,047 1,294,629 views
Article

7 Apps for Teaching Children Coding Skills

If you're concerned that a) elementary school students don't have the ability to code, b) there's no room in the curriculum, and c) you don't possess coding chops to teach programming skills, throw out those worries. Explore these free, or almost free, tools...

43 286 747,781 views
Article

11 Alternatives to "Round Robin" (and "Popcorn") Reading

Rather than intimidating young readers with ancient pedagogy, encourage and empower them with livelier strategies such as partner reading or the manic Crazy Professor Game.

85 6,318 471,608 views
A girl looks at a math app on a tablet screen.
Article

Using Math Apps to Increase Understanding

These 10 free or low-cost apps turn learning math into a game.

7 1,369 385,053 views
Article

22 Simple Ideas for Harnessing Creativity in the Elementary Classroom

Kindergarten inclusion teacher Trisha Riche' inspires her students -- and her readers -- to play, learn and teach outside of the box.

31 975 255,855 views
photo of teacher in front of an engaged classroom
Article

6 Engaging End-of-Year Projects

Consider one of these six engaging and creative student projects to wrap of the school year.

20 5,886 243,400 views
Article

Motivating the Unmotivated

A simple, no-cost video chat program motivates unruly, disengaged elementary and middle school students through relationships with high school students who demonstrate the value of education.

36 1,767 227,586 views

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