Shaped

A community-driven blog supporting educators, building lifelong learners,
and shaping the future of education.* 

Latest Posts

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Teaching Product of Prime Factors

In this lesson, use factor trees to teach students the concept that a composite number is written as a product of all of its prime factors.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

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Free Teaching Resources: Fun Classroom Activities and Lesson Plan Ideas

Find free teaching resources. Explore fun classroom activities, lessons plans, downloadables, and videos for Grade K–12 kids to keep learning and growing at grade level.

Shaped Staff

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Teaching Rational Numbers: Decimals, Fractions, and More

Use this lesson to teach students about rational numbers, including decimals, fractions, and integers.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

Student reading

7 Middle School and High School Reading Intervention Strategies

Support students with these seven tips to maximize middle school and high school reading intervention and help your students become better readers.

Shelley Branine
Instructional Coach, HMH

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4 Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies

An educator shares four trauma-informed teaching strategies to improve instruction for students who need it based on her experience across different schools.

Jenn Evans, M.Ed.
Senior Product Marketing Manager for Supplemental & Intervention Solutions, HMH

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Multiply or Add First? Teaching Order of Operations Rules

Use this lesson to teach students about the order of operations: complete operations in parentheses, multiply and divide from left to right, and add and subtract from left to right.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

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Teaching Students How to Write an Expository Paragraph

Want to help your students develop their organizational, analytical, and research skills? Teach them how to write an expository paragraph.

Alicia Ivory
Shaped Editor

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Teaching Students How to Write a Persuasive Paragraph

Teaching kids how to write a persuasive paragraph consisting of their opinion and supporting sentences puts them on the right track to being an effective communicator.

Alicia Ivory
Shaped Editor

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10 Tips and Tricks for Into Math

Here are inside tips from Into Math writers, coaches, and experts, on how to make the most of our core K–8 math program.

Shaped Staff

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How to Boost Students’ SEL Skills Using Current Events

Fourth-grade teacher Perry Hollins shares tips for teaching current events through an SEL lens.

Perry Hollins
Fourth-Grade Teacher, Evanston/Skokie School District, Illinois

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Financial Literacy Lesson Plans and Activities for Middle School Students

Use these financial literacy lesson plans and activities for middle school to teach students about topics ranging from salaries to wages to creating a personal budget.

Shaped Staff

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Teaching Prime Factorization of 36

When a composite number (like 36) is written as a product of all of its prime factors, we have the prime factorization of the number.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

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Teaching Dividend, Divisor, and Quotient in Division

When teaching students about dividend, divisor, and quotient in division, introduce algorithms that will allow them to divide larger numbers.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

Culturally responsive books

Embracing Inclusivity with Culturally Responsive Books for All Students

Teachers should read or assign culturally responsive books with characters of different cultures, races, religions, genders, and other identities to help them understand themselves and each other.

Jaleel R. Howard, MEd
Educator and UCLA Doctoral Student

Sam Blanchard
UCLA Doctoral Student and Former Teacher

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Teaching Absolute Value of a Number in Math

Teaching absolute value can help students understand the distance of a number on the number line from zero, regardless of the direction from zero that the number lies.

Shaped Staff

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Teaching Ratios and Unit Rates in Math

Students learn the answer to "What is a unit rate?" in math class. Learn about ratios, rates, unit rates, and unit prices, and teach lessons where students solve real-world problems about rates and unit rates.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

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Teaching Math Through Art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here are three specific ways that teaching math through art from The Met can enhance your students' learning experience.

Richard Blankman
Shaped Executive Editor

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25 Valentine's Day Writing Prompts and Ideas

No matter what your middle school or high school class is reading, these writing prompts about love will get them ready for Valentine's Day.

Ali Habashi
Former Shaped Editor

*The views expressed in our blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.