International Festival of Attention-Grabbers – New York

Hi and welcome back to Attentionology for K – 5 Teachers! Catching and keeping kids’ attention through music was never just a job for New York (US) native, Don Haudenschild, shown in my blog pic below. Teaching music was his

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Musical Tricks to Help Kids Learn!

Hi and welcome back to Attentionology for K – 5 Teachers! Ever find yourself tapping a nearby object to the beat of music around you the way I found myself tapping the steering wheel yesterday to the beat of a

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The Magic Hat – Mid-Week Focus – Preventing Bullying

Hats off to teachers…it’s time for…Mid-Week Focus! Mid-Week Focus is all about quick and easy ways to approach teaching to keep kids on task in any instructional setting. Let’s share insight and practical ideas. Please send yours in a comment.

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International Festival of Attention-Getters – Alaska, US

Hi and welcome back to Attention-ology for K – 5 Teachers! Wish I’d had to travel to Alaska to meet Jennifer Lynch (I’ve been wanting to experience Alaska for years!) but our paths crossed in the southeastern part of the

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Catch Attention with a Garden of Creativity

Hi and welcome back to Attention-ology for K – 5 Teachers! Here’s a quick way to catch and keep your students’ attention…ask them a question that poses an artistic array of answers about posies! The question…When is a garden outside

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Tonal Attention Tool – A Tambourine

Hi and welcome back to Attention-ology for K – 5 Teachers! I remember visiting a class of fourth grade students a few years ago and noting how well the teacher commanded her class’ attention with her guitar. We had about five

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Barbara Cleary has been serving as a resource to hundreds of educators for more than 25 years. An award-winning writer, producer, teacher, and trainer, Barbara’s focus is on offering easy, fun tools and tricks that support K-5 curricula and assist teachers with classroom management.
Quick tips for common classroom conundrums: K-5
Situation: Students continue to use lackluster verbs in their writing.

Solution: Show toy cars and pretend to make them zip across a page, telling the class that good writing includes action words (verbs) that have "zip." Ask the class for examples of "zippy" verbs like zoom, race, flash, rush, etc.

Related Posts: Start Students' Engines for Writing