Em Holliday

Having trouble control them as they rage into the classroom after recess and lunch? Here's the answer.

Organise bell work. When the bell rings they come into the classroom and go straight to that work (silent reading is popular) and continue that work until you (the teacher) indicate it is time to begin the lesson.

This is a more difficult version of bingo for the classroom.

Children create a 5X5 grid and fill it with numbers between 0 and 100 inclusive.

The teacher then tells the children questions which they need to work out the answers to. If the answer is on their grid they can cross it out. Aim is to get a line, diagonal or full house.

Example questions:

3x5=?

8 apples, 6 bananas, 5 mandarins, how many pieces of fruit?

A butcher on a three legged stool carving a leg of lamb, how many legs?

A spider eating a fly, how many legs? How many wings?

1 000 000 minus 999 999?

One the first day (or in first week) have children discuss and write down a major goal for that term, semester or year. You then keep a copy of their goal and the child sticks a copy to their desk. (Laminating would be a good idea) You can then work on and revisit this goal (or change it) as the need arises.

Create a box which has three compartments labelled 1's, 10's and 100's. Every day place a straw or paddle pop stick into the 1's box. When you reach ten get a student to bundle those ten with a rubber band and place it in the 10's container. Continue making bundles of ten until you have 10 bundles of 10 which then get bundled and put in the hundreds container. Continue for whole year.

A new version of the old game 'thumbs'. Choose a focus word type such as 'noun', 'verb', 'adjective'. Read a passage slowly or get the class to read it together showing only one word at a time on the overhead projector. Every time the chosen word type eg: a noun, appears, all the children put their thumb on their forehead. The last child to get the thumb on the forehead pays a penalty of some sort.

Class puzzle

-Create a puzzle with enough pieces for all students in the class.

-Put one name on each piece of the puzzle.

-As students arrive, get them to find their piece.

-They then have to find someone their piece connects to. Then find out 3 things about that person.

-Pairs then connect to others and find out more things.

-This continues until the whold class is connected.

M'n'M's

Pass around a jar of M'n'M's. Every child takes a few but cannot eat them yet. Go around the group and for each M'n'M they've taken they have to tell the class something about themselves. If you don't tell the children why they have the candy, it's a funny surprise when the greedy kids have to tell 15 facts about themselves! Needs to be used in a supportive classroom.

Option - later in the year this same technique can be used when recapping a topice of study.

Share your garbage

-Teacher brings in a paper bag filled with tidbits from their life.

-Teacher then uses these tidbits to tell the students about their life.

-Students can then fill their own bag at home and share it the next day.

Cool Introductions

-Each student puts three things about themself on an unnamed piece of paper which is then squashed into a paper snowball.

-The students are then allowed a 'safe' 30 sec snowball fight.

-Once time is up children each find a snowball. They unwrap it then have to find out whose paper it is.

Adaptation: Could be used to exchange facts on a topic of study.

Ticket To Kindergarten

-When students arrive give them a ticket with their name and the picture on an object on it.

-They then need to locate their desk and peg by matching up the pictures.

Shoe-fun

-Have children take off one shoe and put it on their desk.

-They now need to write an accurate description of their shoe.

-Next put all the shoes in a pile on the floor.

-Collect in the descriptions, shuffle them and pass them back out again.

-As a group use the descriptions to find each shoe.

-Once all shoes are located critcally discuss the descriptions.

Once you've worked on various text types challenge the students with this game.

Print off 3 or 4 different text type examples and cut them up. Shuffle them and pass them out. The children then need to put the examples back together.