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

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

Parents Activity

30 LIFE SKILLS Provide drawing paper, a ruler, markers and pencils with which your child can make a chores chart. As you help your child prioritize his or her chores, explain how you expect the chores to be completed. This is terrific practice in organizational skills and taking responsibility.

Bingo Problems

31 MATH Pass out bingo cards and have students add up different combinations of columns, for example, the total of the "B" column or the sum of the entire "N" and "G" columns. Then call on one student at a time to give clues about the sum they got. For example, "This is an even number that comes between 35 and 37."

Super Loop Glider

32 SCIENCE/ART From construction paper, cut one 1 1/2'' by 8 1/2'' strip and one 1 1/2'' by 7 1/2'' strip. Form each strip into a loop and tape it closed, then tape the loops to a drinking straw, about 2'' in from the ends. With the small loop in the front, toss the glider into the air. What makes it fly? What happens if you turn it so that the larger loop is in the front? Why does this happen? Have students experiment with changes to the design of the glider.

On the Spot Research

33 SCIENCE/RESEARCH Ask a local florist or grocery store to donate a handful of various fresh flowers to your class. Divide students into pairs or groups and give each a flower to identify and research. Students can write the information on an index card to display with their flower.

Factory Construction

34 MATH Take all of the students' desks and put them together in the center of the room. This will be the new "factory" that's coming to town. Choose a group of students to be responsible for the new "sidewalk" around the factory, which can be made from bulletin board paper or construction paper. Put another group of students in charge of measuring the area of the roof for the new "factory." They will gather material according to their own measurements to put a roof on the "building."

Old-Time Fun

35 SCIENCE Try this old-time game, then have your students hypothesize about what makes the sound and the movements possible. Make a twirling "hummer" by threading a 30'' piece of heavy thread or string through both holes of a large coat button and tying the ends together. Then hold the string at both ends so that the button hangs loosely in the middle. Swing the button in a circle around and around, until the string is wound up well. Then, spread your hands apart and unwind the button in the opposite direction. Alternately pull and loosen the string and the button will wind and unwind indefinitely, making a humming noise. Have students write a detailed report of how they made the hummers, what they believed the hummers would do, what the actual results were and their impressions of the whole experiment.

They Didn't Go Alone

36 READING/SOCIAL STUDIES To celebrate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, read aloud Dog of Discovery by Laurence Pringle (Boyds Mills Press, 2002). It's written from the point of view of the Newfoundland dog that accompanied Lewis and Clark on the journey. Compare the story with other true dog stones, such as that of Balto.