Fly Swatter Game (Sight Words/Spelling Words)

Fly Swatter game sticker

This is one of my favorite games.  This works for reading, math or anything you can write on a card with an answer (great for spelling words, sight words, letter sounds, math facts, states/capitals, etc).

The pictures are of our spelling words for the week.  Kids get in groups of three or four.  One student does not have a fly swatter, while the others each have one.  The student without a fly swatter is the reader.  Spread the words (or math fact cards, or whatever) on the ground.  The reader  reads any word.  The other kids try to be the first to swat the word.  Whoever swats the word first keeps the word.  After the words are gone, the fly swatters get passed to the left.  If you don’t have the fly swatter, you become the reader.  Be sure to set up rules before the game that if someone intentionally swats another student with the fly swatter they sit out a round, or whatever your class rule would be.  For a whole class experience put the words on the board and give each team one fly swatter. Kids love this game!

My friend over at Cultivating Questioners had this to say about the fly swatter game: “I divide my whiteboard into two sections and write words or numbers on the board randomly. I then divide the students into two teams. I have one person from each team step forward with the fly swatter in hand. I then call out a problem or word and the students run to the front of the room and slap the correct answer in their team’s section. They love it!”

Bio Poetry For Kids

Bio Poems can be written by students to describe the lives of real people as creative writing exercise, or fictional characters to demonstrate reading comprehension. Bio Poems could even be written about inanimate objects. There are a variety of formulas for writing a bio poem. Here are 2 of the most common formulas:

 

Your name

Child of…

Who loves…

Who hates…

Who wants to go to…

Who wishes he/she could’ve met…

Who is scared of…

Who dreams of…

Who is determined to…

Who values…

Who is proud of…

Who graduated from…

Who lives…

Your name again

Source

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First name

Three or four adjectives that describe the person

Important relationship (daughter of . . . , mother of . . . , etc)

Two or three things, people, or ideas that the person loved

Three feelings the person experienced

Three fears the person experienced

Accomplishments (who composed . . . , who discovered . . . , etc.)

Two or three things the person wanted to see happen or wanted to experience

His or her residence

Last name

Source

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It’s always fun to share or display the bio poems. One teacher had her students tear pieces of construction paper to create artwork of their face to put up next to the student’s bio poem. You could easily adapt this project to describe historical figures, events, etc. by changing the formula.

Blank Timeline Printables

I love timelines. They encourage students to focus on sequencing and summarizing. Here are 3 timelines I made that work for various grade levels. Click here to see the 3 printable PDFs: Blank Timeline Templates. Enjoy!

timeline- boxes and lines timeline- boxes only timeline- simple boxes

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Teaching Yes/No & Cardinal Directions to Lower Grades

One smart kindergarten teacher uses simple signs in her classroom that teach her kids some crucial things that can’t necessarily be mastered in one lesson. She posts signs that say  “yes” and “no” on opposite sides of the room. She often has her kids point to a response and look at the sign when voting (thus reinforcing the site word).

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She also puts up signs for the cardinal directions (north, south, east and west) and asks students to point to a certain direction to get their attention. She says things like “if you can hear me, point to the north. If you can hear me, point to the east.” Great way to do a tiny bit of map reading skills!

She says by the end of school kids are pretty good with both yes/no and cardinal directions. Not bad for a few seconds a day, huh!?

Discover the Forest (Kids Adventure Packet)

I recently stumbled upon this cool 12-page printable packet for kids. It’s all about nature and our environment. It’s got stuff for animal tracks, bark/leaf rubbings, compasses, water, etc. Go to http://www.discovertheforest.org and click on the Hey Kids picture at the bottom right corner of the page. It will open a PDF for you to print. Happy discovering!

discover the forest kids packet

Teaching Maps (Younger Grades)

Utah State University publishes a super cool teacher resource through a program called Core Academy. Every summer, teachers can sign up to attend a training for activities specifically tied to the core. It’s pretty rad. So every year, there are new materials published from the summer training course!

I especially love the maps unit for 2nd grade (section 4-3 in this packet).

*Double check the copyrights before you go crazy copying stuff…

3 Websites Every Teacher Should Browse

3 websites to browseTeaching is much easier when you know where you can look for help. So this summer, spend a few minutes each day browsing teacher resource sites. Anything you see that you like should be bookmarked on your browser (make a folder called “teaching resources”), or written down in an organized way so you can find it later. Here are some websites to start with:

1. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/– Tons of stuff (including videos) for teachers

2. http://free.ed.gov/– Free teaching & learning resources from federal agencies

3. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/– Smithsonian… need I say more?

There. Those 3 links should lead you to enough discovery to last you a looong time! 😉  But if you’ve still got “extra” time, here’s a huge list to browse (collection of links posted by a fabulous home school mom): Huge list of links

What You Need to Know About Mother’s Day

Mother's Day

Here’s a free worksheet for kids that discusses the history and significance of Mother’s Day. Reading comprehension questions at the bottom. A huge thank you to all those loving moms out there!

Click here for the free printable PDF: Mother’s Day