Your green pages: 55 skill-building activities you can use right now!

Teaching Pre K-8, Oct 2003 by Swartz, Elizabeth

Hands All Around

21 READING/WRITING Read together the book, Hands by Virginia L. KrolL (Boyds Mills Press, 1997), then invite students write their own descriptions of hands and things they can do. Notice that the book's illustrations are made of cut paper and tempera paint. Use similar techniques to illustrate your new writings.

Dandy Designs

22 MATH Have students reproduce a tile pattern on graph paper, then have them take the design apart and create new ones by making translations, reflections and rotations of the original. Encourage students to experiment with color combinations in the various designs.

Exciting Issues

23 READING Celebrate Children's Magazine Month in October by letting students vote on their favorite magazines. Make a bulletin board of the winners, and include the class' statements about why they like those particular magazines.

INTERMEDIATE GRADES

The Story of Stamps

24 SOCIAL STUDIES October is National Stamp Collecting Month and a great time to introduce students to the history of stamps. Each stamp has an individual story to tell. Go to www.usps.gov for initial information, then contact stamp collecting clubs in your area to invite a guest speaker to bring in a collection.

Saving For Stamps

25 MATH During National Stamp Month, tell the students the price for a postcard stamp, then figure out how much it would cost to send postcards to everyone in the class. How about to everyone in the school? Next calculate the cost of using a first class stamp. Why do stamps cost money? Why might the postal system need money?

Seeds For the Future

26 SCIENCE Challenge students to find as many different seeds as possible during this harvest season. Bring in pine cones, wildflowers, acorns, sunflower seeds, soy beans, potatoes, etc. Make a display of the seeds and write about how they will be protected over the winter. How does nature ensure there will be another crop next year? Divide the class into groups and assign each group a different seed to research. Then design an experiment in which the various seeds can be placed back into nature and checked on in the spring.

Fall Foliage Trees

27 ART Tree trunks cut from corrugated brown paper can simulate the texture of bark. Students glue a trunk on background paper of white, black or blue. Young students can paint leaves onto their trees with brushes or fingers. Older students can use ripped paper or cut out leaves of more realistic shapes.

Celebrate the Fall

28 READING/ART Read together the following poem and then write it on a large poster board to place on a bulletin board with the tree pictures students made in the previous activity.

I'm Tree-mendous!

I wear a crown of leaves, not hair.

In fall, my leaves flit everywhere.

I have a trunk. Not arms, but limbs.

My bark protects me, just like skin.

I grow long roots, not toes or feet.

Through my roots I drink and "eat."

I am home to birds and bees.

I'm proud to be a living tree!

by Heidi Roemer

Facts in a Flash

29 MATH Remove the joker and face cards from any deck. Practice addition by turning over two cards at a time, then three and four. This works well for multiplication skills too.