Welcome to the 22nd newsletter of Teachers Have Class from Unique Teaching Resources!
The free teaching resources in this special Back to School edition of my newsletter are all
related to the following theme: "Dive Into a New Year of School!"
This summer, I had the opportunity to go swimming with dolphins (that's me on the right). This
amazing experience inspired me to create a new set of teaching resources that
includes Back to School and ocean themed resources together.
As I enter the third year of working on Unique Teaching Resources, I want to
thank all of the teachers who have visited my website and have written me letters of
encouragement.
This website began as a resource for the parents of my students. I posted
homework assignments, free flashcards, and photographs
of my students and their projects on my classroom website.
I was teaching in Bahrain at the time and I began to get
letters from teachers who had stumbled upon my classroom website.
When these teachers saw photographs of my students' projects,
they wrote me letters asking about my "unique teaching resources."
As the result of those letters, I created this website and
chose the name Unique Teaching Resources as my title.
Slowly, Unique Teaching Resources has grown into a website with over 200 pages that
focuses on the needs of elementary school teachers. After 22 years of teaching,
I know the challenges that primary teachers face and that there is never enough time in the day.
We spend time after school in our classrooms, we grade papers and prepare lesson plans after dinner,
and we often spend large chunks of our weekends devoted to preparing for the next week of school.
Many of the teachers who visit Unique Teaching Resources do not make a purchase and I
think that this is wonderful! The primary purpose of my website is to
be a resource of ideas for teachers who live all over the world.
I have received letters from teachers who live in the Philippines, India,
China, and many other countries who have very limited funding
for supplies. These teachers have written to thank me because they were able to
use ideas and examples from my website to design their own version of a
project to use with their students. I hope that you have found the same to be true
as you look through the various pages and
DIVE
into Unique Teaching Resources!
Whether you are visiting Unique Teaching Resources to look for ideas to
create your own lesson plans, or
if you are purchasing a resource that will save you time in preparing your lesson plans,
I hope that my website will help you to engage your students in learning.
Note:
I am still in the process of updating the pages on Unique Teaching Resources and you will continue to find two different page layouts as you are browsing through the pages on my website. I appreciate your patience as I am going through this transition process.
As I am updating each page on my website, I am trying to add helpful links to other related websites. I have also tried to find related books and teaching resources that you can purchase directly through Amazon.com by clicking on a product that you find on a page of my website.
I hope that adding this information to the pages on my website helps save you time in preparing your lessons related to holidays, themes, read aloud books, and novels.
The links to download the free teaching resources that are found in this
edition of Teachers Have Class will only be available for 5 days.
After 5 days, the download links to these free teaching resources will be
removed. Then, I will post this newsletter on my website so that teachers
who visit Unique Teaching Resources will be able to read old editions
of Teachers Have Class.
Although teachers who visit my website can read all of the previous editions
of my newsletters, I only provide these free monthly teaching resources to the teachers
who have signed up to receive Teachers Have Class. These free resources are
my small way of thanking these teachers for their support and interest.
The theme of this edition of Teachers Have Class
is Dive Into a New Year of School!
The first free teaching resource that is included in my Back to School newsletter is a 5 page bulletin board display banner.
The second free teaching resource that is included in my newsletter is
a set of unique butterfly fish creative writing templates.
These butterfly fish templates measure 10 inches x 6.5 inches.
The fish templates have thick black borders so it is easy for your students to cut out their fish projects on their own.
I have not chosen a topic for this writing assignment so that these writing templates can be used for any topic that you choose. If you are looking for ideas for writing prompts, you will find them later on in this newsletter.
This set of Back to School teaching resources includes:
I have designed angel fish sticker chart templates for the third set
of free Back to School teaching resources.
These angel fish sticker charts measure 9 inches x 6 inches. The fish templates have thick black borders so they are easy for your students to cut out on their own.
You can choose to use these unique fish sticker charts to record homework, the number of books that your students have read, or they can be used for a variety of different purposes.
This set of Back to School sticker charts includes:
The fourth free resource in this newsletter is an award certificate.
You can present this award certificate to your students after they have completed their angel fish sticker charts, or for any other occasion.
This set of free Back to School teaching resources includes:
The fifth free set of teaching
resources that is included in my newsletter is a bulletin board display set.
This set of colorful fish templates highlights the different subjects in school.
This display set includes a large whale that measures 18 inches x 10 inches when the 3 template pages have been assembled and glued together.
There are 9 fish that have the following school subjects written on them: English, math, social studies, science, physical education, library, music, art, and computer.
In addition, there are another 30 fish templates and worksheets included in this fish display set, for a total of 42 printable pages of teaching resources.
Encourage your students to dive into reading great books with these fun fish book report templates.
There are 12 different kinds of fish book report templates in this set of resources. You can create an eye catching ocean themed bulletin board display of your students' book report projects.
Click below for more information about:
Dive Into Reading Book Reports
By using these fish shaped sticker charts, your students will dive into reading 9 different genres of literature.
There are 11 different kinds of fish sticker charts in this ocean themed set of resources. Your ocean bulletin board display of your students' reading charts will capture everyone's attention.
Click below for more information about:
Dive Into Reading Sticker Charts
This grammar Dive Into the Parts of Speech display set includes fish themed resources for these 8 parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, interjections, and prepositions.
This set of ocean themed bulletin board display resources contains 146 pages of printable teaching resources to assist you in getting your students to Dive Into the Parts of Speech!
Above: Classroom Display of Different Parts of Speech Fish in the Background
Click below for more information about:
Parts of Speech Displays
Each month I provide a free printable calendar set in my newsletter. These free calendar sets
can be displayed on a bulletin board or placed inside a pocket chart.
Below each calendar set, you will find a list of writing prompts for that month that may spark a creative writing idea that you could use with your students.
Below is my September printable calendar set and the link to download it. The September title is a 2 page banner that should fit in most standardized monthly pocket charts that many teachers use. I have designed large September days of the week that you may find useful. The calendar number dates also fit in pocket charts, and I have included a blank square and a birthday square to use.
There are 11 printable calendar pages
in this September teaching resources set.
Are looking for ideas for Back to School and September writing prompts?
On my Back to School and September writing prompts page, there is a long list of general creative writing ideas for September.
In addition, you will find detailed writing prompt ideas, for these specific dates that occur during the month of September:
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Please be sure to check out the other pages on Unique
Teaching Resources for a large variety of fun lesson plan activities
that will engage your students in learning and save you valuable time.
Sincerely, Heidi McDonald
Creator and Site Manager
Unique Teaching Resources
When you visit Unique
Teaching Resources' Facebook page for the
first time, click the
"like" button.
Next, click the "Your Free
Gift!" tab to download
two gifts as my small way
of thanking you for joining
our Facebook group.
"Teachers Have Class!"
is a free newsletter that is
published and emailed
to teachers each month
from Unique Teaching Resources.
These free resources
are only available to the
teachers who subscribe
to my newsletter.
Please fill in the form below
if you want to subscribe to
"Teachers Have Class!"
Heidi, I just had to write and let you know that your website has helped me create the most awesome author study of Roald Dahl's books. My students loved completing the big animal shaped projects you designed for The Enormous Crocodile, Esio Trot, and The Giraffe, and the Pelly and Me. For the final project, they had so much fun writing and drawing about the characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory using your Willy Wonka Factory project. Thanks for sharing your scrumdiddlyumptious ideas!
I can honestly say that I have never had such great results from children with a book report as I did using this wanted poster book report activity. I was blown away and the parents who have seen the finished projects were amazed too. Thank you! I will definitely log on again to see your other products and your after sales service is awesome, thanks again. Very much appreciated.
Thank you for all that you do! You are helping all of us to become better educators!
I just wanted to take a minute to say THANK YOU for the free downloads that are included in your newsletter Teachers Have Class each month, I look forward to receiving every single issue. I absolutely love your products and what you do. I am so excited to use your resources through my teaching journey. Keep up the awesome work. Happy Holidays!
Your lesson plans for Stellaluna, Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas have saved me so much planning time this year. My Gr. 3 students really enjoyed completing the projects that you designed for each of these books. I was able to create great Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas displays in my classroom this year with their projects. Thanks for sharing your ideas and for saving me time.
My students loved your seasonal powerpoint games for Halloween and Thanksgiving. They thought they were playing a game instead of reviewing grammar ;-) I've already purchased all of your other holiday powerpoint lesson plans. Keep making more of these great activities, more POWER to you Heidi!
Thank you so much for letting me know about the new book report templates. I have been anxiously watching for the house book report project to be posted on your site, so I was excited to be able to purchase it today. It is absolutely adorable. I must tell you that I have received so many compliments from other teachers this year about my students' book reports that I have displayed in our school halls. Thank you again for all of your wonderful ideas....you make my life so much easier as a teacher!
I want to write and tell you that I love the resources that you make and share with us, they have truly been helpful to me and my students. I have been teaching grammar rules in a more exciting way, and I owe it all to you. Your grammar powerpoint lessons have been such a blessing! Thank you very much!
I feel so fortunate to have found your website and I have referred several of my co-workers to your website. Just for the month of January, there were three teachers displaying your book reports. I had the trophy reports, my neighbor to the left had the computer reports, and my neighbor to the right had the birthday cake reports. Thank you so very much for all of your work!
I just wanted to say thank you for the most amazing teaching resources that I have ever come across in my thirty years of teaching. I have used many of your book report sets this year and my students absolutely loved them. What was particularly pleasing was seeing some of my reluctant readers (especially the boys) really wanting to read books and complete the activities. Keep up the great work!
I am in awe of what you have accomplished and created for those of us teaching in the public sector. Good for you for taking time off and self publishing. Your enthusiasm is contagious and your generosity is amazing. I recently provided a reading in-service for the K-5 staff at my school. I listed your website as a "must" to visit.
Thanks you for your expertise, creativity, and heartfelt enthusiasm. You are an inspiration to new and veteran teachers and a model for those of us who have not had the guts to go out on our own. You did it!!! I suggest that you go on the speaking circuit and share your knowledge and creativity at the International Reading Association Meetings and the State Reading Associations.
I'm writing to tell you that my students just finished the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory group projects. They worked so hard, and the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory projects turned out great! We had them to show for student led conferences. The parents were very impressed, and so were many of the other teachers and my principal. They all commented on my students' work and your creative templates. My students had so much fun doing these projects. I also used the multiplication pizza sticker charts. My students loved those as well!! Thank you so much for all of your amazing products.
My students are working on their Charlie and Chocolate Factory projects that I bought on your website. One of my students said how nice the other character wheels were and he said, "Besides this is just fun!" Not bad for a third grade boy!!
Just wanted to say thank you so much for your wonderful site and the excellent resources that you provide at such reasonable prices. I purchased and used your lesson plans for the The Giving Tree with my students, and it was a blast. Thanks again!
Simply stated, I LOVE YOUR BOOK REPORT SETS!!!!!!! I'm interested in purchasing them ALL!!!! I've been looking for something like this for quite some time. My students are so excited about reading this year, and it is all because of your fun projects!
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