Your GREEN PAGES: 63 Skill-Building Activities You Can Use Right Now!

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

PRIMARY

Inside/Outside

1 MATH Secure a dollhouse, toy barn or another type of structural toy. Prepare a set of cards and write on each either inside or outside. Be sure to have a set of related objects nearby. Give each child an object and have them draw a card. The child should place the cow, doll or chair wherever the card directs. Play again with upstairs, downstairs, etc. to practice directionality.

Birthday Hats

2 READING/ART In preparation for Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2, create the traditional Cat in the Hat striped hats with variations. Make the stripes different colors and have children label the colors. In each stripe, list the title and author of a book read, or the characters, setting, plot, genre of the book. You can also use this favorite decoration as a teaching tool.

Amazing Wheels

3 SCIENCE/POETRY Ask your students to collect pictures of various kinds of wheels. They can also draw wheels and explain their different jobs. Then, read this poem together. Does it make sense? Do the wheels on a clock always seem to go slowly? When? Why?

Wheels Everywhere

The wheels on trucks, trains, and cars,

Around and 'round they go,

Sometimes they turn so very fast,

Sometimes so very slow,

They help to move things here and there,

And up and down each hill,

Except the wheels that turn in a clock,

For, clocks stand very still.

by Martin Shaw

Colors, Patterns and Math

4 MATH/ART Get a box of rigatoni or any pasta that will lay flat. The kids paint the pasta using two or three colors. Each piece should only be one color. After the pasta dries, use it for patterning on yarn, chenille sticks or flat surfaces. With a black marker, make a plus sign on one unpainted pasta and a minus sign on another. Your students can use them to create addition and subtraction sentences.

Rainbows and Leprechauns

5 ART/READING Read leprechaun stories and teach your students the order of colors in the rainbow. Provide colorful supplies such as buttons, ribbons, chenille sticks, candies, etc. Pass out large pieces of blue or white drawing paper on which each child may make a textured rainbow with a pot of treasure.

Can You Do It?

6 PHYSICAL EDUCATION Mark a distance using yarn or tape. Prepare a set of cards: jog, skip, hop, crab walk, etc. During inside recess, have each student select a card and do what it directs.

Analogies Are Fun

7 READ/POETRY Read the following poem to your students. See if they can create new analogies themselves.

Toolbox Talk

Who needs a screwdriver?

I do, says the screw.

I need a screwdriver like a window needs

a view.

Who needs a hammer?

I do, says the nail.

I need a hammer like a deck needs a rail.

Who needs a saw?

I do, says the board.

I need a saw like a ceiling needs a floor.

Who needs a screwdriver,

a hammer, and a saw?"

I do, says the Handyman;

I need them all.

by Heidi Roemer

First Time Drama

8 READING When teaching kids how to read a play, try Donna Jo Napoli's How Hungry Are You? (Atheneum, 2001). The short parts are labeled with rebus type figures. It's a fun way to introduce a first play.

Characters Alive

9 READING/DRAMA Provide a box of costumes and dress-up clothes. After reading a story or play, encourage your students to go to this collection and pick clothing appropriate to the characters they just read about. What were the clues in the story that lead them to pick these clothes? Do the story characters remind them of real people? In what way?

Sprouting Seeds

10 SCIENCE Prepare some clear plastic bags with a small amount of soil and have the children place two seeds of the same kind in each bag. Try various seeds such as pumpkin, bean, marigold, etc. Number the bags. Apply a couple of drops of water to each bag and then staple them to a bulletin board that gets sun. Keep records as to the number of days before sprouting is seen, days when water is added (with eye droppers), bags that don't require as much water, etc. Graph your findings and transplant seedlings as they become ready.

Parents Activity

11 PERCEPTION/READING Pass out assorted pictures or photos to the students to take home to show their parents. Have each student make a complete list (with descriptions) of all the details in the picture. If he or she was a detective, what could he or she surmise from the photo? What is the setting? What could have happened just prior or just after the photo? What questions would he or she need to ask witnesses about the actual happening? Challenge the child to find another photo at home to exchange with a partner in the classroom.

Join the Fun

12 READING/WRITING/GEOGRAPHY Before beginning this activity with the class, visit the website http://flat stanley.enoreo.on.ca to find other teachers in the U.S. and Canada who are willing to exchange "Stanleys" as part of a language arts and geography project. Read Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown (HarperTrophy, 2003 - 40th Anniversary Edition) to your class. Then ask them to make Flat Stanleys of their own, to write letters and make maps of their own city or town to send along to their new pen pals.

Fishing for Figures