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

Teaching Pre K-8, May 2001

WHAT TO BE

45 SOCIAL STUDIES: Introduce May as Creative Beginnings Month. Discuss being creative and ideas of what the children could do or become. Give them copies of this poem:

A lion tamer, astronaut, A scientist, a king, A doctor, lawyer, acrobat, I can be anything. Yes, I can be just anything, Anything, it does seem. For all I do is close my eyes, Just close my eyes and dream. by Marni Shaw

Help the children read it. Then, on a. paper strip, each child writes about what he or she dreams of being and signs the strip. Display the children's dream strips around the room.

LINE REMINDERS

46 ART: Outside and inside, help the children notice and describe different kinds of lines in things around them (e.g., long, short, vertical, diagonal, zigzag, curved, dark, thick, etc.). Each child draws three lines anywhere on a piece of paper. The child then passes the paper to another child who adds three more lines that connect or that are set apart. The lines may be the same, different or some mixture of alike and different lines. The paper continues to be passed on until an object or picture appears. Details may be added to the picture, which can be colored and given a title.

A PUZZLE

48 SCIENCE: Give the children copies of this poem:

If I Could Be If I could be a bird and fly, I'd soar and dive about the sky. I'd sit atop the tallest tree. Then, no one could catch sight of me. But, I'm no bird, I cannot fly, Nor soar and dive about the sky, Nor sit atop the tallest tree. I'm just a little child, you see. by Martn Shaw

The children read and discuss the poem. Using dictionaries, they find the definitions of soar and dive. Help them research how birds can soar and dive. Below the poem, they write their research findings.

HELPER & FRIEND

49 Read Dear Whiskers by Ann Whitehead Nagda (Holiday House, 2000). Invite your child to look at the title and the cover illustration. Probe for what the story is about. After it is read, with your child discuss how and why Jenny helped a new student.

RHYMING BALLOON

50 LANGUAGE ARTs: The children assemble in small groups. Give each group a large construction paper balloon shape. The group records rhyming words on their balloon. Display the rhyming balloons. For various creative writing challenges, the children might refer to and use some of the rhyming words.

WATER, WATER

51 SCIENCE: Guide the children in naming various uses of water in their homes, school, and city. On displayed chart paper, lists the uses. Probe for where the water source. Then, invite the director of the local water division to visit and to identify and explain the source of water and how it is supplied for various uses. Encourage the children to ask questions.

Grade 4.0 Through Grade 4.9

PLACE CUBES

52 SOCIAL STUDIES: Help the children choose a country or city. Each child makes an oaktag cube. The children cut out paper squares the size of the cube sides. They draw four maps of the country or city and glue one on each of a side of the cube. One of the two remaining sides may be labeled with the name of the country or city. The other side is labeled with one or two facts about the chosen place.