Wednesday Weekly 5 under $5 - May 14, 2025

              

     

Every week I put together a list of 5 great products from members of The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative (TBOTEMC) with the requirement that each product must be less than $5.  With a variety of subjects and a wide range of grades, there just might be something that you can use, so continue to read below and see!

In addition, if you're a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) who would like to get more information about joining TBOTEMC, contact me via email at ReneeHeiss@gmail.com or by simply leaving a comment on this blog post.

Free End of the Year Lessons By The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs MC - 2025 - FREE

by Victoria Leon

All grades

Activities, all subjects

We hope you enjoy using these “Free End of the Year Lessons by The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative - 2025 with your students. Also click on the links to THOUSANDS more FREE lessons for the entire school year!

Ordering Numbers Bundle | Tens - $4.40

by Sunshine and Laughter by Deno
K - 1st grades
 Centers, Printables, Task Cards

This bundle includes 2 engaging, no-prep sets of task cards for your Math classroom. The resources included in this bundle are Compare and Order Numbers - Tens, and Number Line Missing Numbers - Tens. These activities provide a fun, hands-on approach to learning for your students. 

All Students Deserve An End Of The Year Award Editable Set - $4.00

by Mickey's Place

All grades 

Classroom Forms, End of Year, Parents, Printables

Every Child Deserves an End of the Year Award Editable Version is a set of 34 awards for teachers to use to celebrate their students learning. All awards come in color and black and white.

To use these awards type in the names and dates then print out the awards you wish to use.

Summer Picture Writing Prompts with Beach Theme - $4.00

by Kamp Kindergarten

K - 2nd grades

Centers, Independent Work Packet, Printables, Summer

These summer-themed ink-saving no-prep printable beach picture writing prompts are great for literacy centers, ELA journals, or independent work. There are 20 different picture prompts in this packet. There is a line art picture, word bank, and a writing lines section on each page. Three versions of writing lines are included for each picture prompt to meet the needs of multiple grade levels and to offer differentiation opportunities within in a single grade or a special education classroom.

    

Spring Poem - $3.00

by Urbino12

K - 7th grades

Activities, Lessons, Printables, Spring

Happy Spring! Guided writing model with suggested vocabulary to write a simple five-line (Cinquain) poem includes five different spring themed writing templates -four in color and one in black and white. 

As always, I encourage comments and any ideas or suggestions by emailing me at reneeheiss@gmail.com

Renee Heiss

All-American Teacher Tools

Check out my Store 

Love Letters & Brussel Sprouts: Odes, Point-of-View and Visible Thinking

You're my funny valentine, sweet comic valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable, unphotographable

Yet, you're my favorite work of art.

-Rodgers & Hart

Growing up, I never crushed on the cutie patooties or the hottie patotties.  I fell for the guys who could make me laugh hysterically or make me swoon by reciting poetry.  So, it's only natural that as a teacher, the valentine books I love the most incorporate poetry and humor.  That's what led me to Love Letters by Arnold Adoff.  This book is comprised of funny, touching, and yet untraditional love letters written as poems and odes.  The letters are addressed to teachers, classmates, family members, or to"fill-in-your-own-name," which is the perfect poem for those people who have a harem of admirers.  The poems in this book stand independently and could be shared one at a time over the course of a couple of weeks. 

Adoff uses fantastic imagery that any child can relate to,  "I love you more than peanut butter cookies crumble. I  love you more than yellow bees bumble. I also love you more than dark thunder clouds rumble..."  These lines are from the poem entitle "Dear Tall Girl at the Front Table," one of my favorites in the book.

Every year, I share this book with my students.  My fourth and fifth graders love it and "get" the humor in it. I use it to introduce odes and anti-odes. We brainstorm a list of ideas for our own odes, for example: A  pet dog, cat, guinea pig, etc., pepperoni pizza, mom's lasagna, brussel sprouts, broccoli, piano, hockey stick, soccer ball, x-box, play station, Legos, teddy bear, favorite book, favorite book character, etc. 

After we've made our collaborative list, they choose a few of the topics that grab them, and sort them into the categories "things I love," and "things I hate. Once they've done this type of thinking, they zoom in one topic and dig deeper into their feelings about the topic. Here's an example:

Then they explore point-of-view. In Love Letters, the poems are sometimes companion poems that explore different view points. So if I'm writing about brussel sprouts, I write about own point-of-view and how much I loathe them. And then, if the brussel sprouts were to write a letter back to me, what would they say? As a poet, I explore both viewpoints.

Finally, my students begin their rough drafts. We spend about two sessions drafting and revising. I make sure to include a mini-lesson about line breaks, because fourth and fifth grade students still tend to write poetry in paragraph form. We do a lot of reading aloud to ourselves using our whisper phones. By the way, this is AWESOME fluency practice! I teach my kiddos that poetry is actually an art form that is meant to be read aloud. So when they choose to read poetry books or their own poems during independent reading time, I let them go hog wild with whisper phones. 

I should add that I model each pre-writing, drafting and revision step for my students. Here are two examples of poems that I wrote with them in order to model the process:

 Dear Macaroni and Cheese,

I looooove your cheesy goodness.

I am overwhelmed by your

bubbling orangeiness.

I love you more than a dog

loves its bone,

more than a baby

loves its bottle.

Your crispy cracker crumbs,

golden like the summer sun,

send me over the moon.

I will love you forever.

Love,

Your Hungry Fan

(By Ms. Willis)

My students identify comparative statements (simile-like), personification, alliteration, and descriptive language as I write and we discuss.  Then, I model an anti-ode.  You can also see it below:

  

Dear Brussel Sprouts,

I loathe your army-green leafy heads

wrapped tightly on my dinner plate.

No bacon or butter

can disguise your nastiness,

your cruciferous metallic taste.

You look like mutant baby heads.

And on dark and lonely nights,

you hold me hostage

at the supper table,

long after the dishes have been done,

and the kitchen

has been cleaned.

 Signed with disgust,

I'll-eat-any-other-vegetable-other-than-you Girl

After students have published their poems on the special valentine stationery I provide for them, we use an envelope template and make envelopes for our poems. They address the envelopes. They put their published poems in their envelopes, and we display them for everyone to read.

Valentine's Day can be a tricky holiday in upper elementary. Hormones have begun to rage, friendships are precariously navigated, and feeling are easily hurt. This project is one of my students' favorites, year after year. It's funny, creative, and non-threatening (and Common Core aligned)!

To learn more about using it in your own classroom, simply click on the picture.

If you're looking for more upper elementary valentine resources, you might also check these out. Two of them are free!

 





Civil Rights Heroes: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure inspite of overwhelming obstacles.

                                                -Christopher Reeves

Ask any kid about heroes, and he or she will rattle off names like Batman or Superman, or a list of professional football or hockey players' names. And yet every January when my team and I begin teaching our civil rights unit, my kids view King, Mandela, Gandhi, Helen Keller, and other activists with round eyes. Whenever we read a biography or picture book about these people, I can see my fifth graders mentally placing superhero capes over the shoulders of these activists. 

And why not? They made remarkable strides in the civil rights fight. I've come to question if that really is beneficial for my students, though.  Hear me out. Heroes are important. The belief in heroes can foster hope in otherwise hopeless situations. But I can't help but think that it's important for kids to know their heroes as people. When students are able to look past the epic accomplishments of their heroes to the human beings underneath the capes, they find real people, often with humble beginnings who accomplished great things for the common good. In doing so, my students can see what they might have in common with these activists and realize that these ordinary people were capable of greatness, and if they were, wouldn't my kids be capable of greatness, too? Wouldn't they be able to be thoughtful citizens who speak up when times call for it?

So how do I get my fifth graders to look at the human beings instead of the superheroes? We use a little character theorizing and close reading. Last week, my students and I spent the week reading excerpts from three of Dr. King's speeches: "I Have a Dream," "The Other America," and "I've Been to the Mountaintop." My kids had only heard and read "I Have a Dream." 

On the first day, we read an excerpt from "The Other America." I read it to them, and they highlighted words, sentences and phrases that stood out to them. We discussed the speech and then we completed a "Step Inside" thinking routine. We identified the things that Dr. King perceived or observed and backed it up with evidence from the speech. Then we inferred what he believes and thinks about America, again based on evidence. In the third step, we identified what it is that Dr. King wanted or cared about.  Finally, I asked my students to work in small groups to write a theory about who Dr. King really was, based on his words.

The next day, we read an excerpt from "I Have A Dream." I introduced it the same way. This time however, we used the thinking routine Sentence-Phrase-Word. In this routine, readers choose one sentence, one phrase, and one word from the speech that impacted them. We shared their choices with partners, and then we recorded them on chart paper. We used their collective thinking to discuss and revise our theories about Dr. King. 

On the third day, we read "I've Been to the Mountaintop." I introduced it in the same way, and students did the "Step Inside" thinking routine again. Finally, we rewrote our theories about Dr. King. My students noticed that each speech had a different tone. They thought that "The Other America" sounded angrier than the other two. Some commented that "I Have a Dream" seemed full of hope, but that "Mountaintop" was hopeful but very fiery. As a class, they decided that the "Mountaintop" speech was the most powerful out of the three because of his word choice.

Over the next two days, we created black-out poems using the speech excerpts we had read together in class. Each student chose her favorite speech, circled words that were essential, outlined those words in black and then created artwork around them. The results were beautiful.

 

In the end, I think my students have a greater understanding of who Martin Luther King, Jr. was, and they know that his humanity was his greatest asset. More importantly, they realized that they have some of those same capabilities. 

Interested in using the mini-unit I described in this post? You'll find it and some others to help you plan for Black History Month and your civil rights studies. 

April Teacher Talk

Posted by Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

It's April and so many groovy things are happening this month, Easter, Passover, spring vacation and so much more. Be sure to stop by and see what these teachers are doing in their classrooms and gather some great tips and ideas.

If you're interested in joining this unique group of teacher entrepreneurs, blogging buddies and/or our blog linky, sign up here....The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative. If you decide to join, be sure to mention one of our names.
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If You Love Jelly Beans
By Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

Can’t you just smell spring in the air? Daffodils beginning to bloom, Lilac trees starting to flower, and Lilies of the Valley popping up. I just love the aroma. Not only is my birthday in April but it brings us Passover, Easter, and one that you may never have heard of, can you guess? If you said Jelly Bean Day, you’d be right. It's April 22nd.
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Plan a Portfolio Party
By Retta London of Rainbow City Learning

Plan a celebration for your young writers as they bloom in the Spring!
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April Math FUN!
By Sara Snyder of Snyder Classroom

Make Math FUN this Spring! These spring math riddles are great for reviewing previous topics or practicing current skills. These riddles can be helpful in your classroom at this busy time of year. (And sneak a little fun into the classroom) I have made these math riddles to combine fun and learning for this time of year.
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How Many Ways are Words Related?
By Susan Berkowitz of Susan Berkowitz

Individuals who use AAC need to learn to take a conscious path to the words they need. If they want an apple, they need to think about how to navigate to categories -> to food -> to fruit -> to apple. SLPs can help them learn how to do this.
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6 Tips to Support English Language Learners in Your Classroom
By Kathy Simpson of Sunshine and Lollipops

Do you have English Language Learners in your classroom? If you do...you will want to take a look at this post and discover 6 easy and fun tips to support your ELL students. I am sure you will LOVE #1!
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Apollo 13: The Ultimate STEM Challenges
By Kerry Tracy of Kerry Tracy

The Apollo 13 mission shows how seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcome with scientific reasoning and problem solving. Specifically, the carbon dioxide filter fix shows why STEM Challenges are so much more than just "fun."
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The Magic of a Circle
By Kathie Yonemura of Tried and True Teaching Tools

Using only a circle, students fold and learn a multitude of geometric terms. This is a fantastic way to teach geometry and for students to experience more than just shapes!
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Increase Engagement and Maintain Rigor-Hands-on Fun in the Upper Grade and Middle School Classroom
By Marcy Howe of It's a Teacher Thing

Maintaining student motivation is important during any time of year, but it's even more crucial when they return from a break. I save several of my "great" activities for those Mondays after a week off.
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Poppies & Pantoums: Poetry Comes Alive with Georgia O'Keefe
By Tracy Willis of Wild Child Designs

4th and 5th grade students explore the life of Georgia O'Keefe via a biography and her fabulous artwork. We look closely at the natural world using photographs and author Pantoum poems, a cool poetic form from Malaysia. We recuperate from our testing angst with a poppy craft.
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Painting Poetry: Children's Voices
By Virginia Musmanno of Reading Spotlight

We hope that you will take one minute out of your busy day to enjoy a slideshow of our paintings of poems. We hope that you enjoy seeing them as much as we enjoyed painting them!
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