Teaching strategies involving spelling stories are still an effective way to see if your students know how to spell. Basically, you instruct your kids to write a story based on the spelling words of the week (or whatever time frame). A spelling story might look like this:

Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, who is a seasoned educator based on the East Coast, takes a look at how educators can execute spelling stories in the classroom. She instructs us on tips, and explains how to grade them as well.

Janelle sums up her article thusly: “Make sure that you provide students the opportunity to share their stories, it can be with a partner, in front of the whole class, on your website, on your bulletin board, or you can even share a few favorites in your weekly newsletter home. At the end of the school week after your spelling lesson is over is probably the best time to sit down and let students share their stories.”

It’s never easy to teach narrative writing to elementary-aged kids. And with the onset of the Common Core State Standards, which call for more fact-based writing, the need for more narratives is increasingly important.

With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a seasoned educator based in Upstate New York, takes a look at some  teaching strategies along with a few quick tips to get your students writing narratives more effectively.

Janelle’s ideas include tips for each age group. Here are her tips applying for kids from kindergarten through 2^nd grade: “During the early primary years students are just beginning to learn about writing and the writing process. This is the best time to prime students and give them the knowledge about the elements of narrative writing. Reading both fiction and nonfiction narrative stories will help prepare them for when they are a bit older, and when their writing skills are more developed. While reading a narrative, generate a class discussion about the characters, setting, plot, problem and solution. This pre-writing skill will help students build a timeline of the events that occur in the story, and it’s a skill that will develop as they get older.”

Janelle sums up her article thusly: “In order for students to effectively write a narrative, they should learn and memorize every key component of a narrative writing piece. The best way to do this is to memorize the nursery rhyme mentioned above. Once they master that, they will be able to better organize their thoughts onto paper and it will all be smooth sailing from there.”

Oftentimes in academia, kids will memorize vocabulary words and their meaning, take the test, and forget all about the words and how to use them.

Passover is one of the Jewish religion’s most celebrated holidays. Commemorating how God freed the Jews from bondage in Egypt with the leadership of Moses, the holiday revolves around many stories and is celebrated through food and a special dinner called the Passover Seder.

Illuminating kids on the traditions involved with Passover can go a long way toward promoting diversity within your classroom, which can’t help but foster a greater sense of community.

With that community-building mindset at the forefront of modern education, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a seasoned educator based in Upstate New York, takes a look at some of the ways you can use classroom activities to celebrate Pasover.

Janelle’s ideas include:

Janelle sums up her article thusly, in a paragraph titled The Literature: “Throughout the Hebrew month of Nissan choose a few of these stories about Passover to read to your students.

Elsewhere on TeachHUB.com today, the folks over at Chalkup contributed some ideas for cleaning and organizing your ed-tech.

The article addresses cleaning ideas for iPhones, iPads, Macbook  and Chromebook.