Your green pages: 56 skill-building activities you can use right now!

Teaching Pre K-8, Aug/Sep 2003 by Swartz, Elizabeth

PRIMARY

Shapes In Motion

1 MATH Gather the children in a circle. Look through books and magazines for pictures of circular objects. Discuss and demonstrate how round objects move. Then experiment with squares and other shapes. Make a large circle on the floor with yarn or tape, then walk on it. Then walk on a square reproduced on the floor. Discuss the differences.

Circle Snacks

2 MATH Arrange an assortment of circle-shaped foods on a table (banana slices, pineapple slices, crackers, pickles, etc.). As the children snack, discuss whether the snacks grew in a circular shape or whether they were cut or molded into a circle. Brainstorm other circular foods and their origins.

Sentence Set-Up

3 WRITING Provide students with a paper that has the headings of Who and What, under which students can write sentences. Later, add the word Where and then, even later, When. As students' writing progresses, show them that those labels can be moved around in the sequence of building sentences.

Watching the Time

4 POETRY/MATH Read the following poem to the children and then write it on a large poster board to place in the center of a bulletin board.

A Quiet Watch

Although my watch can't speak to me,

And say the words I say,

It still tells me what I should do,

And tells me so each day.

It tells me to get up or sleep,

To eat and when to play,

For something that can't speak a word,

It sure has lots to say.

by Martin Shaw

Have the children make paper plate watches with specific times on them. Illustrate lunch time, recess, bed time, etc,

Natural Frames

5 ART/MATH Have students collect and measure five-inch twigs and three-inch twigs. Arrange the five-inch twigs into a square, overlapping them one inch in from the ends. Use string to tie the corners in an "x" pattern. Repeat with the three-inch twigs. Center and glue the larger frame on top of the small one, as shown below. Turn the frame over, run a thin line of glue around the inner three-inch twig and press front of a photo onto it, as shown below. Let it dry.

Slippery Spelling

6 SPELLING/READING Place a brightly-colored piece of construction paper on a table. Give students a bold marker with which they can write the spelling or vocabulary word that gives them the most trouble. Then provide a can of sprayable whipped cream for students to use to trace the word.

Fall Leaf Rainbow

7 ART Collect an assortment of colorful fall leaves. Make a game of sorting the colors and sizes. On the bulletin board, create a fall rainbow by attaching arched rows of colored leaves. Use remaining leaves to make a border.

One Block, Another Block

8 MATH Provide students with numbered cards and tape. Have them count and label the bricks, cement blocks or floor tiles in the hallway. Remove the even numbers, count by fives and put a sticker on the fifth card each time. Send a child to color the card on the fourth block blue, draw a smiley face on the fourteenth block or sit down by block 50.

Man Overboard

9 DIRECTIONALITY Use large sheets of brown paper to make the deck of a ship on your classroom floor. Have the children sit in the "boat" in rows. When the child who is designated "captain" calls out "left," the children on the left will row, "back" means all children will lean back, etc. When "man overboard" is called, everyone exits the ship and a new captain is chosen.

Story Bricks

10 READING Make a "brick wall" bulletin board. Give students red construction paper and a pattern for the bricks. Have each student make at least one brick and write on it an element from a story the class has just read. Sequence the bricks from the bottom up to symbolize how a story grows. Join the bricks with white construction paper "mortar."

Where Were You?

11 READING Ask students to bring in postcards or photographs of where they went this summer. Discuss setting. Divide the postcards and/or photos according to: country, city, beach, forest, inside, outside, etc. You can do this in large groups on a bulletin board, in small groups on poster board or in learning stations. Another day, use the same images to illustrate context clues. Can you tell what is happening by the picture?

Plus and Minus

12 ART/MATH Use this art project to illustrate and develop the concepts of positive and negative, plus and minus or fractions. Have each child select two pieces of construction paper in contrasting colors, with one sheet twice the size of the other. Provide shaping scissors for children to divide the smaller sheet into two or more sections. Then glue them onto the larger sheet.

Plenty of Pianos

13 MUSIC During the month of September, arrange for your class to have a look at the inside of a piano, led by your music teacher or a local piano tuner or pianist. Invite a musician to do a piano program for your school.

Penny Pitch Addition

14 MATH/HAND-EYE COORDINATION Collect three plastic food containers and, on each one, write a number between 1 and 9. Make a large circle out of yarn or tape on the floor. Place the containers inside the circle. Have children stand outside the circle to pitch pennies into the containers and add up their score. Add more containers, more digits, more rules, etc. as skills increase.