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Showing posts with label verbal fluency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label verbal fluency. Show all posts

Monday, October 13, 2014

Autumn Themed Centers


Autumn themed centers for your classroom -- check them out.  


Ghosts Say, "Boo!" is a literacy center for primary classrooms. In this activity students will focus on 2 sounds of /o/:  ō and ōō.


There are 2 ghost work mats: 1 labeled "Ghosts," and the other labeled "Boo!" Students sort the 20 word/picture cards by matching the vowel sounds to the 2 ghosts.  This center includes a recording sheet and labels for your center folder.




Bats & Bridges Literacy Center also challenges students to work with vowel sounds; long and short /a/. Students will sort the bat word cards and fly them to the proper bridge for roosting.  A recording sheet is included, as are labels for your center folder.

This center activity is part of my thematic unit, Hanging Out with Stellaluna.  It is now available as a stand-alone product for the first time.

You get to combine 2 subjects in 1 center when you use Scrattle: Halloween Edition.  This wildly popular activity challenges your students to exercise their verbal fluency by making words out of the letters provided on candy corn pieces. Each letter has a numeric value, as in Scrabble(TM).  As your students record their words, they compute the value of each of them.

Then they challenge a friend at the center to compare their numbers.  In the process, your students will practice using >, <, and =. The winner of this word battle is the 1 with the most >s.  (Scrattle gets its name from Scrabble + battle.)

Not only does Scrattle give your students practice with ELA and math, but it comes with 3 different recording sheets: 1 using addition only, 1 requiring multiplication, and 1 employing mixed operations. Thus, you can readily differentiate your instruction. Moreover, this center is CCSS aligned. And better yet, it's FREE! Even better, there are multiple editions for several holidays and they, too, are FREE!

John Hughes, author of An Educator's Life blogspot, is hosting a Fall-Tastic Activities and Resouces linky party.  You are sure to find some great activities there.


Until next time...





Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Valentine's Day Hink Pink FREEBIE

Ever since I attended my 1st state conference for Gifted and Talented Education early in my career, I have seen, heard and read about Hink Pinks.  These vocabulary building, problem solving, critical thinking riddles are staples in GATE.  Perhaps my connection with Hink Pinks, et al, is best explained by the fact that my students absolutely love them!  They loved them when I was in the classroom and when I became an enrichment resource teacher, my pull-out students literally begged for more of them.

If you are new to the land of Hink Pinks, here's how they work:
  • Hink Pinks are riddles wherein the clues lead you to a 2 word answer.  Each answer word must have just 1 syllable and the 2 answer words must rhyme.
  • Hinky Pinkies are riddles seeking answers with 2 syllables in each word.  The 2 words must rhyme.
  • Hinkity Pinkities are rhyming answer word pairs with 3 syllables each.
Some teachers like to distribute Hink Pink clues on a work sheet, but I continually strive to eliminate worksheets from my teaching. About 20 years ago, I started putting the clues on 1/4 sheet cards. By doing so, I was able to create a resource that was ready to use year after year, saving me bunches of time and conserving paper big time!  

Armed with my Hink Pink, et al cards, I was able to use them as an anchor activity when students were arriving each morning. They also work well as a sponge activity and are great at a literacy center.  Now, working as a pull-out enrichment specialist, I use these cards as a warm-up activity. Without a doubt, G/T students are enthralled with these riddles.  But, I also found that "average" students were intrigued and set their caps to solve them. 

It's about time, teachers, to offer you my FREE set of Valentine's Day Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  Here's a preview:





The answer to this Hink Pink is smart heart.




The answer to this Hinky Pinky is sandy candy.  
The answer to the Hinkity Pinkity below is valentine turpentine.




There are 24 cards in this FREE set.  Naturally, there is an answer key.  Did I mention that it is FREE?  You can retrieve your copy here.

I hope you enjoy Hink Pinks, et al as much as my students and I do.



If you like this product, you may like these, as well:





I'd love it if you would follow:           

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Back to School Time Savers -- Sponge Activities

No matter how carefully you plan your teaching day, there will inevitably be an awkward minute or two that needs filling.  It could be when you are waiting outside the music room for your "special," having arrived early because your class made it through the halls without having to stop for traffic or behavior control.  Maybe you find yourself with a few idle moments while waiting for all the classes to file into the auditorium for an assembly. Perhaps you lined up for lunch 2 minutes early.  For whatever reason and whenever it happens, do you have a plan for filling those moments?

Maximize those intervals with "sponge activities." You know, something that absorbs the time while doing what you have dedicated your life to -- exercising young brains.   

If you have been working on rhyming words, ask individuals to name a word that rhymes with ----. Give your class extra practice with counting and cardinality (per the CCSS) by asking them to count on or count backwards from an arbitrary number.  Reinforce whichever operation you are studying in math by tossing out some equations.  

Reinforcing concepts and facts is wonderful and worthwhile. But have you considered trying brain exercises?  


If you teach young children, a popular sponge activity is to clap and/or snap a pattern for your students to copy. Coincidentally, your charges have to be careful listeners to replicate your pattern. That's always a desirable goal.  

20 Questions and I Spy work well, especially if you are not in your classroom.  In our never ending pursuit of sight word recognition, you could institute "Spotlight Words."  To do this, turn out the lights, hand a large flashlight to one child, and ask him to shine the spotlight on a specific word wall word.  

If he spotlights the correct word, then he hands the flashlight to another student and directs her to find a different word wall word.  Play can continue as long as you wish.  This is my flashlight of choice.

Another sponge activity involves categories.  This can be related to content area subjects. For example, ask your students to name animals native to a rain forest, a desert, etc.  Other category ideas are foods you can eat raw, foods that start with "k," clothes you should NOT wear this time of year, a noun that names a place, verbs that describe what you are doing in P.E., a word with a suffix, an adjective, a 2 syllable word, a compound word, a country that starts with B, etc.  The longer you work with categories, the more fluent you become in flinging them at your students.  Simultaneously, your students will become more fluent in their thinking.

If you are a neophyte or simply trying to brush away the cobwebs from the summer, you may want to have some teaching aids handy.  My favorites and, more importantly, my students' favorites, are Hink Pinks, et al. and Triads.  Both of these word play activities can be made on cards that are handy to grab and/or carry in a pocket.  [BTW, I'm a big proponent of teacher tool belts for this.]  
Teacher tool belt

Imagine just pulling a card from your tool belt and instantly engaging your students' critical thinking.  
These are samples of Hink Pinks, Hinky Pinkies, and Hinkity Pinkities.  Currently, there are 23 Hink Pink products in my TPT Store that are ready to print and cut apart.  Place a stack in your tool belt and you are well armed for any fallow moment.  If you are not familiar with Hink Pinks, you can read about them here.

These are Triads cards.
Again, they are print ready to make life easier for you.  There are 8 triads units in my TPT Store.  If you are not familiar with Triads, read about them here.  Either of these activities will cause the cogs to start turning in your kiddos' brains and that should be your goal every day.
   

What are your favorite sponge activities?  Please leave some comments and/or links below.













Until next time...







Saturday, March 2, 2013

Shamrock Scrattle FREEBIE!

Sure as there are shamrock shakes at McDonald's, it's about time for St. Patrick's Day.  Another holiday means another Scrattle game freebie for your classroom.







SCRATTLE is a Scrabble Battle between 2 students.  


To begin, give your students the letter set for this edition of SCRATTLE.


After your students cut the shamrock letters out, they manipulate them to make words. Their goal is to make words with the most value, just as in Scrabble™.  Using the recording sheet, the students write their words and compute the value of each word. Three different recording sheets are provided to allow for differentiation of operations per your students' abilities.






Once their words are recorded and computed, each student finds a partner for the battle. Upon entering each other's scores in the space provided, the students compare their scores and enter the correct mathematical symbol between them: >, =, or <.  The winner is the player with the most >s.

SCRATTLE is perfect for centers (literacy or math - gotta love that!).  This game is also terrific for fast finishers and/or enrichment.


You can get your FREE Scrattle file here.



You may also like these St. Patrick's Day activities:

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Scrattle Literacy Center -- Valentine's Day FREEBIE


It's about time for Valentine's Day!

Because I want you for my valentine, I have a literacy center freebie for you.  I call it SCRATTLE; SCRAbble + baTTLE.  


Scrabble and its social networking cousin, Words with Friends, are jumping off the computer screen and finding their niche in the classroom.  It's always great fun to take a set of letters and challenge your class to make as many words with them as they can.  In Scrattle, I'm upping the ante by adding a math component and competition.  

Here's how it works:
  • Give your students the letter set for this edition of Scrattle.


  • Students cut out the letters.
  • Students find a partner to battle.
  • Armed with a recording sheet, the partners record the words they can devise.
  • Once their recording sheet is filled, the students calculate the value of their words by adding the numbers on their letter pieces.
  • Alternatively, older students calculate the value by multiplying the numbers.
  • To differentiate for G/T and enrichment students, a combination of operations is available.  (It is possible that this version will create negative numbers.)
  • After their calculations are completed, the partners compare their numbers, filling in their opponent's scores on the recording sheet. 
  • Students then add >, <, or = to the scores box.
  • The student with the most > scores is the winner.
Here's an example:


This center comes with letter sets in color, as well as black and white.  Also included are 3 recording sheets, allowing for differentiation.  


You can download this center here.

Enjoy!

You may also like these Valentine's Day products available on TpT or TN:



It's a big weekend for football and sales.  All of my products are on sale on both TpT 


and TN.