Many teachers have to touch on the topic of recycling sometime throughout the year (most talk about it on Earth Day). A fellow teacher requested that I make some word strips of the 3 R’s of Recycling for her to use in their Earth Day discussion and then to put on their science bulletin board. I’d recommend laminating them if you’ll be using them multiple years. Here they are (formatted to fit on a regular letter-size sheet of paper):
Dealing with “no name papers” has always been a test of patience for me. I mean, how hard is it to write your NAME on a paper!? (Ok, I’m off my soap box now.) Here’s one idea I saw that takes care of this problem. The teacher simply puts no name papers in this tray and empties it (into the recycle) after school on Friday. This way, kids have a few days to retrieve papers, but they don’t sit around forever in her room.
I think I would add this feature to the system: Make a stamp that says “return to sender” or something else distinct that would indicate that it was received without a name. Then when kids write their name on it and resubmit it, they get a small point deduction, but can still get some credit for it. I know stamping no-name papers is an extra step for the teacher, so just make the judgement call for your own classroom.
If you’ve never read the kids book Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo (by Rosetta Stone), you’re missing out! It’s adorable! Click here for a short animated video of the book. There are tons of activity possibilities to go along with this book, but here’s my favorite…
Have kids write their own silly story just like it! This third grade teacher had her students write each event in the story on a different color and glue it to black paper. The projects look great and the kids absolutely LOVED reading their silly story to their peers! For younger kids, I’d recommend creating a shared writing (whole class story) in the style of this book. You might also consider having kids illustrate their story in boxes on a page (like comics). Fun, fun, fun… all because a little bug went ka-choo!
It’s hard to keep kids motivates at the end of the year. Sometimes it’s good to have an activity that will give everyone a quick break. Here’s a bulletin board idea that will do just that. Click here to see my Back To school Bus and Just Keep Truckin’ posts (similar bulletin board ideas). First, have the students make their car (directions on the printable itself and also below).
Click here for the free printable PDF: Full Throttle Bulletin Board
Decorate your car according to these directions:
Once all the students finish, have each student present their car to the rest of the class. If your class is large, limit each student to 1 minute to share or allow students to only share their car with those near them. Then put each car up on a bulletin board and call it something clever (“Full Throttle to the Finish”, “Travelling Down the Road to Success”, or something…).
While going through our supplies closet, I found a big roll of banner paper. I wasn’t sure how to use it, but I knew it had to possess some serious potential for creativity. I spread it out on the ground and had each kid sit down next to it like they were at a big party table. Then I had them draw the party they were at. The girls instantly started drawing cakes and party hats, while the boys got to work making laser tag scenes (since they were “at a laser tag birthday.”) Since the paper was so long and each kid had plenty of paper, they drew for quite a while! Something about drawing on long paper is just cooler than drawing on regular paper I guess.
Here’s one teacher’s genius idea for literacy centers:
She keeps the signs in a file so she can reuse them if she wants. I love her idea to stamp spelling words in your journal. And she uses the roll-a-word from this post. Overall, this is a great option if you’re looking for a quick, easy way to do centers.
Students always like telling someone about themselves. Here’s a bulletin board idea that will do just that. Click here to see my Back To school Bus Bulletin Board (similar idea). First, have the students make their truck (directions on the printable itself and below).
Click here for the free printable PDF: Just Keep Truckin’ Bulletin Board
Decorate your truck according to these directions:
Once all the students finish, have each student present their truck to the rest of the class. If your class is large, limit each student to 1 minute to share or allow students to only share their truck with those near them. Then put each truck up on a bulletin board and call it something clever (“Just Keep Truckin’!”, “Travelling Down the Road to Success”, or something…).
A few weeks ago, I was working with kindergartners and needed to come up with something to entertain them for about 30 minutes to buy the other teacher some time to deal with a situation. Here’s what I whipped up: Bingo!
I helped the kids draw squares on a blank piece of paper. Then I instructed them to draw (one at a time) various simple objects. “Hold up a yellow crayon. Now choose any square and draw a yellow banana.” This allowed me to review colors with them, while allowing for structured creativity. When the kids finished drawing the assigned picture, I’d have them point to something round, something flat, something shiny, etc. to keep everyone busy while the other kids finished. In previous similar activities, some of the kids would forget what their picture was of, so as a review, I asked them to point to specific pictures after drawing a few new ones. If I had wanted to review numbers, letters, etc. I could have asked them to draw a green six, or a red letter J, but I only thought of that after the fact.
We played bingo by drawing an X through the box once we played it. The bingo part of the game was a bit trickier than making the board, but everyone seemed to have a good time anyway.
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