Lego Math

I saw the most cleaver activity to do with preschool and kindergarten students, I had to share. It's called Lego Math. You simply take Legos and arrange them into an addition algorithm. Students can figure out the problems by counting the circles on the top of the Legos. I'm sure there are all sorts of math activities you can do with Legos, please comment if you can think of any.

Anchor Vocabluary

Building your students’ vocabulary is one of the most valuable things you can do, in terms of helping your students to become better readers. I learned about anchor vocabulary during my student teaching days and have found it is the best way to help students understand and retain new words. Anchor vocabulary is when a teacher chooses words from stories read in class and then refers back to those words using different visual aids. An effective teacher will refer to the words regularly on a daily and weekly basis. A good activity is to create a visual word wall.

I recently did this at home with my three-year-old daughter. We read “Chicken Soup with Rice” written by: Maurice Sendak. This book is filled with words an average 3-year-old might not understand, so I picked out about 6 of the words. As I read the book to my daughter we would pause after reading one of these words. I would then explain to her what it meant. Next, I asked her to repeat the word. I then encouraged her to try and act out the word, using her hands. The next day I took sticky notes and wrote each word on a separate note. We again read over the words together and then I drew a picture underneath each one. I created a word wall just by sticking them onto our pantry door. Now whenever we get a snack, or do an activity in the kitchen, I point to the words and pictures. She now understands the words and is starting to use them in her everyday conversations. The other day she saw a dead rose and said, “This rose is drooping.” I was quite pleased.

Commercials!

This activity covers a broad spectrum of useful skills students can learn. Commercials have always been a popular assignment in my classroom and can be adjusted to any age group.

By the end of this activity students will be able to:

• Identify factors and relationships between produces and consumers
• Demonstrate language through listening and speaking
• Demonstrate cooperation and patience when working with others in classroom dramatization
  

Materials:

• A list of products for students to choose from as a class
• white paper
• construction paper
• scissors
• crayons, markers, and other art supplies
• a reward for winning group

Prerequisite/Vocabulary: Advertisement, Commercial, Product

Instructional Procedures:

1. The commercial assignment for the week is to have students invent a new toy to market and sell in stores across America.
2. Explain to students they will be getting into groups of four or more people.
3. In these groups, students will be able to work as a team. Groups can earn points for carious categories concerning the new toy.
4. Students will have 30 to 40 minutes to complete as many of these tasks as they can
   

Categories:

• Name of Toy (10 points)
• Magazine Ad (10 points)
• Picture of Toy (10 points)
• Team cooperation (10 points)
• Commercial Creativity (10 Points)
• Commercial time (30 points)

Note: Commercials must only be 30 seconds long. Each second under 30 seconds, the group earns a point. Every second over 30 seconds will be subtracted from 30. 10 bonus points will be awarded to teams that have both boys and girls in group.

Reader's Theater

Reader's Theater is a great activity for students to participate in. This activity has been shown to help students read more fluently and increase comprehension. From my personal experience, I have observed my students gain more confidence in their reading ability, while creating positive attitudes towards reading.

I recommend dividing a picture book into different parts and creating a script, or simply find a Reader's Theater online. Next, divide a class of 20 or more kids into groups. If there are 5 parts on the script, divide students up into 5 groups. Then, allow students to coral read their part as a group. Demonstrate to them before hand how to speak loudly with lots of expression. Finally, have the class stand in a circle around the classroom, facing each other, and perform the story. Each group should say their part together in chronological order.

Love this activity!

Welcome!

Students welcome to mrs. gibby's awesome blog. i hope you will visit often and participate in our group discussions, I look forward to reading your comments.


Pop Quiz: Can you find all eight errors in this message? Without looking at the comments below, retype this message correctly in the comment box. Tomorrow in class, you will see how close you came!

Clue: 5 capitalization errors, 1 missing comma, 1 punctuation error, 1 missing apostrophe


Giving students the opportunity to analyze and edit writing is important. This is a great activity to do on a class blog or as a morning starter. I always try to incorporate a grammar mini-lesson whenever I can. You can find great information on grammargirl.com

Try to make this activity more of a game than a busy work assignment. I like to give my students clues until they are more experienced with the editing process.