You're teaching first grade this year. What do you need to know? Margaret Berry Wilson gives you practical information about daily routines, furniture, and much more. She starts with a concise review of first graders' common developmental characteristics and then shows how to adjust your classroom and your teaching to fit these common characteristics. The result: Students can learn, and you can teach, with minimum frustration and maximum ease and joy. In a warm, conversational style punctuated with anecdotes and examples from her own classrooms, Margaret shares practical know-how on topics like this: Arranging a circle, desks, and tables Choosing and storing supplies Scheduling a child-centered day and teaching daily routines Planning special projects and field trips that maximize learning and build community Understanding the special concerns of first graders' parents and finding the best ways to communicate

Give your child a smart start with the revised and updated What Your First Grader Needs to Know What will your child be expected to learn in the first grade? How can you help him or her at home? How can teachers foster active, successful learning in the classroom? This book answers these all-important questions and more, offering the specific shared knowledge that hundreds of parents and teachers across the nation have agreed upon for American first graders. Featuring a new Introduction, filled with opportunities for reading aloud and fostering discussion, this first-grade volume of the acclaimed Core Knowledge Series presents the sort of knowledge and skills that should be at the core of a challenging first-grade education. Inside you’ll discover • Favorite poems—old and new, such as “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and “Thirty Days Hath September” • Beloved stories—from many times and lands, including a selection of Aesop’s fables, “Hansel and Gretel,” “All Stories Are Anansi’s,” “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” and more • Familiar sayings and phrases—such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “Practice makes perfect” • World and American history and geography—take a trip down the Nile with King Tut and learn about the early days of our country, including the story of Jamestown, the Pilgrims, and the American Revolution • Visual arts—fun activities plus reproductions of masterworks by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Georgia O’Keeffe, and others • Music—engaging introductions to great composers and music, including classical music, opera, and jazz, as well as a selection of favorite children’s songs • Math—a variety of activities to help your child learn to count, add and subtract, solve problems, recognize geometrical shapes and patterns, and learn about telling time • Science—interesting discussions of living things and their habitats, the human body, the states of matter, electricity, our solar system, and what’s inside the earth, plus stories of famous scientists such as Thomas Edison and Louis Pasteur

After more than 30 years of teaching, Pat Barrett Dragan indeed knows everything needed to teach the first year of school. And she can teach you, too, with this step-by-step guide to creating a smoothly functioning, literacy-rich primary classroom. Dragan has virtually opened her file drawers and rounded up every detail to get you off to a good start with the three Rs and more. Even veteran teachers or teachers changing grade levels will find loads of helpful information-forms, checklists, activities, copyright-free poems, and reproducibles-all forming a substantive resource bible to keep handy for reference. Most important, Dragan highlights the best teaching and learning strategies culled from years of teaching and studying with the experts. Read Dragan and learn how to: Bond with your new class and create a happy and cohesive classroom community. Help your children develop organizational skills and self control. Inveigle, wangle, and keep children's attention to help them learn. Teach them to have confidence they can read--on the first day of school. Ensure that they learn to read and write well, whatever your reading program. Draw on their innate curiosity to develop their math and problem-solving skills. Use children's photos and artwork to help them practice reading and writing. Integrate children's literature and the arts into all curriculum areas. Work with English language learners and children having little help at home. As Dragan demonstrates, perhaps the most effective strategy for successful teaching is to infuse the school day with joyful learning throughout that magical first year.

You're teaching 2nd grade this year. What do you need to know? In a warm, conversational style punctuated with anecdotes and examples from her own classrooms, Margaret Berry Wilson reviews second graders' common developmental characteristics and shares practical know-how on topics such as: Arranging a circle, desks, and tables Choosing and storing supplies Scheduling a child-centered day and teaching daily routines Planning special projects and field trips that maximize learning and build community Understanding the special concerns of second graders' parents and finding the best ways to communicate with them

You're teaching third grade this year. What do you need to know? Mike Anderson gives you practical information about daily routines, furniture, and much more. After a concise review of third graders' common developmental characteristics, Mike explains how to adjust your classroom and your teaching to fit these common characteristics. The result: Students can learn, and you can teach, with minimum frustration and maximum ease and joy. In clear, plain writing peppered with classroom stories and examples, Mike shares practical know-how on topics like this: Arranging a circle, desks, and tables Choosing and storing supplies Scheduling a child-centered day and teaching daily routines Planning special projects and field trips that maximize learning and build community Understanding the special concerns of third graders' parents and finding the best ways to communicate with them

Engage your child in active learning with First Grade Essentials. This workbook covers these skills: -vocabulary -consonant and vowel sounds -addition -subtraction -counting money -telling time Packed with fun practice pages, this workbook helps first graders develop skills for success in today’s classroom. Help your child learn how to apply classroom learning to everyday life with First Grade Essentials. This workbook encourages children to have fun while learning key skills in these areas: -basic skills -reading -math Filled with grade-appropriate activities and practice, First Grade Essentials offers opportunities for active learning and supports the skills children need to think critically and communicate effectively. By focusing on important school skills, the Essentials series for prekindergarten to second grades helps build a strong foundation for your child’s success, this year and the next. Each practice page features a “One Step Further” activity to help your child apply the skill to real-world experiences. The books also include fun puzzles and mazes in a bonus “Games and Activities” section. Essentials is a complete resource to help your child develop twenty-first century skills!

Offers advice for setting up a classroom for kindergarteners that meets their educational and developmental needs, with strategies for how to teach routines and schedules, promote student bonding, use creative teaching tools, and interact with parents.

Help your child exceed the Common Core standards with the revised and updated What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know Designed for use by parents and teachers, this groundbreaking first volume in the Core Knowledge Series provides kindergartners with the fundamentals they need to prepare them for a lifetime of learning. It sets out the elements a parent or educator should look for in a good kindergarten program and introduces activities that help a child take the first steps in learning to read and write. Featuring a new Introduction and filled with age-appropriate questions and suggestions that stimulate thinking and build vocabulary, this revised and updated edition of What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know also includes • Favorite poems—read and recite together from Mother Goose, A. A. Milne, Langston Hughes, and more, all beautifully illustrated • Beloved stories and fables—read aloud from “The Three Little Pigs,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “Cinderella,” Winnie-the-Pooh, “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and many more, including multicultural folktales from African, Japanese, and Native American traditions • Familiar sayings and phrases—impart traditional wisdom such as “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” and “Better safe than sorry” • History and geography—a friendly introduction to our world, complete with simple questions and fun activities • Visual arts—painting, drawing, cutting, and pasting go hand in hand with learning about color and helping a child look at and talk about great works of art • Music—many musical experiences for parents and children to participate in, along with dozens of songs to sing and dance to • Math—lively and interesting exposure to concepts and operations that provide a springboard to later mastery • Science—activities that let children observe, experience, and get their hands dirty while exploring the wonders of nature

The invaluable grade-by-grade guide (kindergarten—sixth) is designed to help parents and teachers select some of the best books for children. Books to Build On recommends: • for kindergartners, lively collections of poetry and stories, such as The Children’s Aesop, and imaginative alphabet books such as Bill Martin, Jr.’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Lucy Micklewait’s I Spy: An Alphabet in Art • for first graders, fine books on the fine arts, such as Ann Hayes’s Meet the Orchestra, the hands-on guide My First Music Book, and the thought-provoking Come Look with Me series of art books for children • for second graders, books that open doors to world cultures and history, such as Leonard Everett Fisher’s The Great Wall of China and Marcia Willaims’s humorous Greek Myths for Young Children • for third graders, books that bring to life the wonders of ancient Rome, such as Living in Ancient Rome, and fascinating books about astronomy, such as Seymour Simon’s Our Solar System • for fourth graders, engaging books on history, including Jean Fritz’s Shh! We're Writing the Constitution, and many books on Africa, including the stunningly illustrated story of Sundiata: Lion King of Mali • for fifth graders, a version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that retains much of the original language but condenses the play for reading or performance by young students, and Michael McCurdy’s Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass • for sixth graders, an eloquent retelling of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the well-written American history series, A History of US . . . and many, many more!

This second edition has the same content as the first edition but includes testimonials and additional submissions from teachers and parents. The Discipline without Stress® Teaching Model is used around the world. The non-coercive (yet non-permissive) approach to promoting responsible behaviour and motivation for learning is totally different from current approaches that use rewards for appropriate behaviour and coercive threats and punishments. The book can be used across the entire teaching spectrum -- in small childcare centres to large high schools and in rural, suburban and urban schools. It can be used in any home or youth setting.