Ideas for pre-k through grade 8: Your green pages--69 specific skill-building activities you can use right now!

Teaching Pre K-8, Feb 2001

WORD WIN

22. LANGUAGE ARTs: From a story book, copy different words on 10 separate pieces of paper. Scramble and turn the words face down. Your child turns a paper over and reads the word. If he or she does not know it, identify the word and the child reads it. Then, mix the words and turn them all up. Call out one of the words. Ask your child to pick it up and read it. If correct, give him or her a "high-five."

HANGING VALENTINE

23. ART: Have available yarn of different colors. Each child chooses the colors) for his or her valentine.

HOW MANY?

24. MATH: Make 12-inch rulers for the children. Point to and read the inches in sequence on a 12-inch ruler as the children point to and repeat the inches on their rulers. On a table, place various items that are 12 inches or less in length or width. Demonstrate how to measure the length or width of an item. Invite the children to use their rulers to measure the displayed items and tell the inches of the length (or the width).

Grade 2.0 Through

Grade 3.6

HOMES

25. SOCIAL STUDIES: On displayed chart paper, copy this poem:

From a Log Cabin

He did write a proclamation, Declaring all men free, And led us through a Civil War To banish slavery. From a humble, small log cabin To White House resident, We celebrate his birth this month, Abe Lincoln, President.

by Martin Shaw

Post a picture of a log cabin. Help the children read the poem and identify and describe a log cabin. Ask who lived in the log cabin. Present a few facts about Lincoln. Display pictures of different kinds of homes. Help the children describe the homes and brainstorm why there are different kinds of houses. Help them consider how kindness, love, sharing, etc., can make a log cabin or any kind of house a home.

ONE VALENTINE DAY

26. LANGUAGE AR-rs: Label Valentine's Day, February 14, on the classroom calendar. Assemble the children in groups of three or four. Challenge each group to write a story about Valentine's Day. Assist them as needed with ideas, spelling, punctuation, etc. Then, the groups take turns reading their stories to each other. Display their stories along with each group's story illustration.

BY FIVE

27. MATH: Help the children count by five as you show and point to two nickels. Then, the children assemble in groups of three or four. Give each group about 10 nickels and a copy of an activity page on which you've prepared pictures of various items like. toothbrush, bracelet, note pad, etc., and note the cost of each. Help them identify the pictured items.

Using their nickels, the group figures the number of nickels that equals the cost of each item. On each blank on the activity page, the groups write the answer (7, 4, 6, etc.).

YOUR HEART

28. SCIENCE: Display pictures of the human heart. Help the children identify and describe it. Ask them about their ideas of what a heart is and what it does. On the chalkboard, list their responses. Present facts about the heart and list them on the chalkboard. Help the children compare the two lists. Erase the incorrect responses in the class list. Then, the children draw pictures of the heart and copy the facts.