I was looking through some old ideas and I found this gem! What a perfect way to develop social skills and thinking strategies. Talk about simple, meaningful, and FREE!
Divide students into pairs. Ask a question. Partners discuss the answer and then stoop down on the floor when they agree. When all groups are on the floor the teacher says, “One, two, three…” as the students pop up and say the answer together. *Use this for recalling details from a story, unit review, math word problems, and so forth.
*It might be helpful to assign study buddies on Monday that children can partner with all week. What's a study buddy? That's your special partner for the week. This can eliminate lots of confusion for partner activities.
Mother Nature might have played a trick on the first day of spring last week in Verona, NY, with a snow shower, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the teachers at the BOCES workshop.
Nursery Rhyme Back Pack
Make a backpack from a lunch bag. On the outside put a picture of the nursery rhyme. Glue the words to the other side. Inside put pictures of characters from the rhyme. Children can take this home and use it to retell the nursery rhyme.
Make pointers from clear colored plastic. (You can make these from colored clear dividers that are for binders.) Have a poster with letters and objects that begin with each sound. Cut apart a similar poster and put the letters in the bag. (Put Velcro on them so they can stick on the alphabet grid.) Children take turns choosing a letter and they get to be Dr. Jean and say, “Who let the (name letter) out?” They get to highlight the letter at the same time as the class makes the letter sound.
Letter Identification (Ann Pangburn)
As you sing alphabet songs, surprise the children by turning off the song at different points. Children then have to find the letter on classroom print and touch it. With music and movement the children will be able to connect letters with letter names. Stronger students will naturally help weaker friends find letters.
Number Raps (Erika Knudsen)
(Tune: Cadence)
Teenage numbers are really fun.
That’s because they start with one.
One and five is 15.
One and nine is 19…etc.
Twenties, twenties are so fine.
They start like a two every single time.
Thirties, thirties are the best.
They start like a 3 unlike the rest.
Talk Show (Kathy Leers)
Pretend to be a host on a talk show and interview your students. You could do the star of the week, or let a student pretend to be a character from a book.
*Allow them to prepare 3 or 4 questions ahead of time on index cards.