Your green pages: 76 Specific skill-building activities you can use right now!

Teaching Pre K-8, May 2001

Grade 2.0 Through Grade 3.6

TWO-WHEEL SAFETY

25 SOCIAL STUDIES: On displayed chart paper, write May, National Bike Month. Invite a police person to visit and talk about bike safety. Ask him or her to bring in stickers, posters, etc., to give to the children. Prior to the visit, the children prepare questions about safety to ask the visitor. ExTRA: Whenever the children ride their bikes, they share their safety experiences later at school.

ALPHABET PHOTO

26 ART: The children cut out each of the letters of the alphabet from old magazines. Letters may be capital and/or lower case and of different shapes, colors and sizes. On a sheet of manila tag, the child glues the letters in a creative photographic arrangement of his or her choice. Help the children cut out window frames from dark colored construction paper. The child glues the frames around the edges of the manila tag.

FUNNY STEPPING

27 MOTOR COORDINATION: Read "Clowns" to the children (see Activity 8). Display pictures of clowns. The children identify and describe the pictures. Then they make paper clown hats for themselves. They wear the hats and perform like clowns to the rhythm of a musical selection. Photograph the clowns in action. Display the photos.

HOMES

28 SCIENCE: Help the children research animal habitats. On a bulletin board, using paper and other materials, create a pond, trees and a grassy area. The children cut out magazine pictures of animals. Guide the children in positioning their animal pictures in the appropriate places on the bulletin board. Then, with the children present some of the research findings about animal habitats.

PUZZLE PLAY

29 PERCEPTION: On a table, display various art media. Using media of choice, the child creates a puzzle picture. Make a copy of it. The child cuts the copy into about 12 puzzle pieces. Place the pieces inside a large manila envelope. Glue the original picture on the front of the envelope. The children exchange envelopes and try to fit the puzzle pieces together to make the puzzle with out looking at the original.

CLOCK TIME

SEAT BELTS

31 SOCIAL STUDIES: Show pictures of seat belts. Help the children identify and describe the belts. Guide them in brainstorming how and why seat belts are used. Emphasize the safety features. Have the children imagine being in a car and pantomime fastening their seat belts. EXTRA: Invite a parent to drive his or her car to school. With the parent's assistance, the children take turns getting in the car and buckling and unbuckling the seat belt.

UNDER THE SEA

32 SCIENCE: Show pictures of the sea. The children describe it as you present facts about the sea. Give them each a sheet of blue construction paper. On it, they spread glue and sprinkle sand over the glue. While it dries, the children draw and cut out fish, crabs, starfish and seaweed from colorful scrap paper. To create underwater scenes, the children glue their cutouts to their blue papers above the sand. Display their scenes.

ANSWER SEARCH

ASKING

34 LANGUAGE ARTS: Make a list of statements: Tom flew his kite. The puppy ran after the bird. Five pennies fell out of the bank. They sang "Happy Birthday to you, "etc. On separate paper strips, write questions related to the sentences, e.g., Who flew his kite? Who ran after the bird? etc. Give the questions to the children. Then read a sentence to the class. The child who has the question about the sentence reads the question to the class.