It's About Time, Teachers, for the Election!

Have you gathered your resources for teaching about the election?  You may be interested in these:

Election Hink Pinks, et al. task cards are perfect for working on vocabulary associated with elections, presidents, and civics.  The terms can be sophisitcated, suggesting that upper elementary and middle school students are the prime audience.  

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Encourage research with these Presidential Trivia Task Cards.  Your upper elementary students will uncover interesting and fun facts about presidents and the presidency.

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Patriotic Squares are differentiated, critical thinking activities that can be employed in any elementary classroom.  While not specifically related to elections, they are patriotic.  Oh, and they are such a fun way to build up to Sudoku!

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SCRATTLE is a FREE differentiated, math & literacy, learning center activity. As in Scrabble™, students use a set of letters to create words. They then calculate each word’s score using the letter values. Finally, they engage a friend in a battle wherein they compare their scores using >, <, and =.  Like Patriotic Squares, this fun product is patriotic; not specifically related to the election.  Math skills required range from simple addition  to mixed operations. Thus, SCRATTLE can be used in 1st to 6th grades.

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RED, WHITE, & BLUE COMPOUND WORDS literacy center is not election related.  It is patriotic in nature and thus, may be appropriate to primary classrooms during the election season.

All of these resources, except the Election Hink Pinks, et al., are appropriate for any patriotic holiday (Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Indepence Day) and thus can be used throughout the year(s).

Enjoy the resources and remember to vote!

 

It's that pumpkin time of year...

Like so many of you, I'm relishing this special time.  So armed with my pumpkin spice latte, I'd like to share some pumpkin ideas for your classroom.

First up is a FREEBIE! Create a pumpkin bulletin board with How Many Ways? Math Challenge - Fall Edition.  This is a fun, open ended, critical thinking math challenge that covers a bulletin board for a month or more. Use it as an anchor activity, math center, sponge activity, or a challenge for fast finishers.  Similar to Boggle(TM), your learners seek to arrive at a target number in many different ways.  It may be easily adapted to any elementary grade level and provides differentiation within a single classroom.

Another pumpkin activity is Pumpkinoes, a math center that is differentiated to use in any elementary classroom.  This domino style activity exercises counting & cardinality, composing & decomposing numbers, even & odd numbers, greater than & less than, basic operations, and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).

Pumpkin Squares is another differentiated, critical thinking activity that can be used in any elementary classroom.  The tasks progress in difficulty while honing the deductive reasoning necessary to eventually solve a Sudoku puzzle. 

Jazzy Jack-o'-Lanterns is another FREEBIE.  It challenges your students' creativity and is intended to be used as an enrichment activity that is completed at home.

I hope you enjoy your pumpkin time.