Friday, February 24, 2012

STICK PICK, MATH BRACELET, TATTLES, AND GAMES!

Stick Pick  (Michelle Vinsanau, New Orleans)
Michelle demonstrated this fantastic app for your Ipad or Iphone.  It costs $3, but when you see all the learning possibilities it’s certainly worth what you pay for it.  Anyway, you write your students names on “sticks” and then when you tap the app it chooses a child’s name.  The really cool thing about the app is that it suggests different levels of questions from Bloom’s taxonomy.  Questions can be adapted to the ability of the children and can be integrated with classroom skills and content.

Note!  If you don’t have an Ipad you can write students names on jumbo craft sticks and keep them in a can.  Color one end of the stick green and one end red.  After they have had a turn put the green end down and the red end up.  When all the sticks are red on top you can flip them over and start again.

Math Bracelet
String 10 beads on a pipe cleaner and twist the ends to make a bracelet.  Children can use the beads like an abacus for doing simple addition and subtraction problems.

Doughnut Shop Song (Jeanette Landry – Napoleonville, LA)
(Tune:  “Turkey in the Straw”)
Well, I walked around the corner and I walked around the block,
And I walked right in to a bakery shop.
I plucked two doughnuts right out of the grease
And I handed the lady a five cent piece.
She looked at the nickel and she looked at me.
She said, “Young man, you’re fooling me.
There’s a hole in this nickel and it goes right through.”
Said I, “There’s a hole in the doughnut, too!
Thanks for the doughnut – so long!”

Musical Chairs (Holly Vaughan)
Reinforce skills as you play musical chairs by placing letters (numbers, words, etc.) on chairs.  Children have to identify the information before sitting down.

Letter Twister (Hollly Vaughan)
Write letters (numbers, words, etc.) on paper and place them on the floor.  Call out different letters for children to touch with their hands or feet.  For example, “Put your hand on the ‘A.’  Put your foot on the ‘X.’

Four Corners (Holly Vaughan)
Put a picture (snake, bee, bear, cat, etc.) in each corner of the room.  Count to ten while children choose a corner.  Say a word like “hat.”  If the picture in their corner rhymes with the word then they act like that animal.  So children would meow like a cat.

Tattle Box or “Important Box”  (Melissa Arceneaux)
Instead of tattling to the teacher, children write out their complaints on paper and put them in the box.  They must start with a capital letter and use good spacing and punctuation or the teacher won’t read their tattles at the end of the day.