By Rachel Lynette
You can have a lot of spun with foonerisms. Kids love to stead rories with spoonerisms. They are also a wood gray to get kids to look at wow hords are put together. A spoonerism is made when the initial sounds of two words in a phrase are switched. A great way to introduce a unit on spoonerisms is to read Shel Silverstein’s last book
Okay, now that you’ve come through the door, we are ready to get down to the floor. For the most part, the floor of a classroom doesn’t get much attention. It mostly just gets walked all over until we notice that there is too much stuff all over it and realize it is time to get our students to do some cleaning up. Here are
You know how some classrooms grab your attention as soon as you walk in? You can tell immediately that this is a place where kids are excited about learning, where creativity is welcomed, and where ideas are shared. You probably already have that kind of a classroom,* but you are probably also always on the lookout for new ideas, hence the inspiration for this series.
You are at a restaurant waiting for the food to come, and your kids are…shall we say, a little squirrely. Here are some games to play to keep their hands and their minds busy! Memory Quiz Make a grouping of 7-8 objects from the table: sugar packets, silver wear, salt shaker, etc. Give the other players 10 or so seconds to look at it.
I found this great Heart Maps project at Creative Literacy. I love this project because: It is such a clear, graphic representation of what is truly important to the artist. There is so much room for creativity – what a great display they would make! Pretty much any age child can do this. In fact, it would be neat to see the same child do
It seems obvious. If it isn’t working, stop doing it. And yet, most of us continue to do the same stupid thing over and over again, even though it doesn’t work. We all know what Einstein had to say about that one: The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And, he wrote that before personal computers
Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith is a great way to lose your inhibitions, think very creatively, and have fun. It is very much about coloring outside of the lines. Each page invites you to do something you’d never normally do to a journal, like… Poke holes in this page using a pencil Scribble wildly, violently with reckless abandon Pour, spill, drip, spit, fling your
Sometimes the best thing you can do when you can’t solve a problem is to stop trying. The brain needs time to rest, regroup, and to put everything you have been feeding into it together in meaningful ways. The perfect solution may pop into your head when you are focused on something completely different, or you may find the solution easily when you come back
mail ~ shoe ~ lunch What do these three words have in common? TriBonds or, as it is sometimes called, the Game of Threes is yet another way to practice higher level thinking. Finding the common link that joins three words, that on first glance seem to have nothing in common, requires analysis and deductive reasoning. Just another way to help children learn to think
Q: What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor? A: Make me one with everything. First Atom: I think I lost an electron.Second Atom: Are you sure?First Atom: I’m positive. Q: Why do seagulls fly by the sea? A: Because if they flew by the bay they would be bagels. Guy walks into a bar holding a chunk of asphalt and says
Here is just one of several activities on a WakerUpper page. Each WakerUpper page is filled with a diverse collection of engaging, hand-drawn activities, all fun and all requiring some level of higher thinking. The authors have even turned putting your name on the paper into an enriching activity. On one page you might be asked to “Write your name as if it were dripping
This is a great activity for flexible thinking, as kids must let go of their own ideas, to some extent, and work with their classmates’ ideas. It is also great for practicing beginning, middle, end. It is a good one to try when you are between units or when your kids are a little squirrely. What to do: Have each student choose a
Watching a movie after reading the book is a wonderful way to encourage students to think critically about how each medium presented roughly the same information. Here are some questions to ask: Think about the setting of the book. Did the setting in the movie look like you had imagined it? (Good ones for this are the Harry Potter series, Holes, The Chronicles of Narnia series, and Where
Here is a fun game for practicing symmetry. The game can be played in pairs or as a whole class, and it’s based on the game Battleship. Each player uses a grid to create a symmetrical pattern. An 8×8 grid works well. You can have students make their own grids using graph paper or you can download the game here for free. Tips for
How can we avoid that useless dialogue? Many teachers keep parents updated on what is going on at school with weekly newsletters, emails, or website postings, and that is great! But you could take it one step further by suggesting questions that parents can ask their kids about what they are learning in school. You can make those questions simple recall, but you could also
The story below is about a third grader presenting her independent project to the class: “Ummmm, I don’t really know why that picture is there. My mom put it in.” * And looking at the project, it was pretty clear that mom had done most, if not all, of it. How exactly am I, as the teacher, supposed to grade that? Before I had kids
