Your GREEN PAGES: 53 Skill-Building Activities You Can Use Right Now!

Teaching Pre K-8, Feb 2005 by Swartz, Elizabeth

American Lore

In the spinning and weaving of American lore

Folks stretch a yarn once, then stretch it some more,

They tug it and pull it, they pull it and tug

Till the yarn almost snaps -

But, at last, never does.

Then they stretch it again and they give it a twist

And the more folk who stretch it -

the better it is,

Some facts may get buried - and only too well

But there are truths spun in stories

That facts cannot tell.

by Beverly McLoughland

Put a Lid On It

40 ART February is a perfect month to work on profiles and hats. Presidents Lincoln and Washington are often shown in profile and with their own particular hats. Teach the basics of profiles including chins, noses and foreheads. Have your students practice sitting sideways for one another to make sketches. After the profiles are finished, suggest that the kids put on their own distinctive hats. Some will want to stay with ski caps, but others will be dreaming of spring.

Don't Know Much?

41 READING/HISTORY Introduce your students to the book, Don't Know Much About Abraham Lincoln by Kenneth C. Davis (HarperTrophy, 2004). Davis is also the author of the book, Don't Know Much About History (HarperCollins, 2003). Rather than a straight read-through, these wonderful books are filled with questions and then one or two paragraph answers. After sharing this book, have your students ask questions about George Washington and then set out to find and write the answers in the same format. This could also be done with topics such as the Underground Railroad, etc.

LUCKY SUBSCRIBER

Janet McCoy

Pleasant Garden, NC

A Great Smile

42 HEALTH/SCIENCE Since both eggshells and our teeth contain calcium, collect eggshells and experiment to find out how sugar affects our teeth. Place eggshells into three clear glasses. Cover one eggshell with water and one with soda. The third eggshell will be uncovered. Allow the shells to sit for 24 hours, then remove them from the liquids to compare. What observations are made? What conclusions can be drawn?

Presidents at Work

43 SOCIAL STUDIES/THINKING Around President's Day, take your students on a visit to the White House to see what it is like to live and work there. With the class, go to the website www.whitehousekids.gov Would they like to live there? What do they think it would it be like to stand in the exact same hallway that President Lincoln walked through? Is there any special historical place in your area that can give your students a chance to walk through history?

Becoming Storytellers

READING/SPEAKING/DRAMA Getting students comfortable with speaking in front of the class is a difficult thing. Storytelling can take a lot of that fear away. Visit the website www.storycraft.com to learn about kids' Storytelling clubs and how to get one started in your area. At the very least, you can get a mini-storytelling club started right in your own classroom.

World Wide News

45 GEOGRAPHY Hang a map in your classroom that each of your students can reach. Ask the class to bring in articles from newspapers, magazines and print-outs from online news websites. Have them tack their article onto the map at the appropriate place where their story originates. Are there some areas of the country/world that are not being covered? Make sure they try to uncover what's happening in the part of the world that's not being represented.