Exploring the Family

The Manitoba Social Studies Curriculum has many “hands on” ideas for primary Social Studies.

              This Think Pair share activity allows children to think about their family and draw it, share that drawing with a friend and have the partner share with the group.

Have students draw pictures of their family members and then describe their pictures to a partner, explaining what is special about their family.  As a class, sit with their partners in a sharing  circle. Start on the left and proceed around the circle. Each partner describes one or two special things about the other person’s family to the class.

 

For more ideas on the family check out this link. (Manitoba) page 58

Exploring Words by Making Big Words

Choose a word that you can use to study word properties. Give each student the strip with the letters in alphabetical order.

a

b

e

l

l

m

r

u

Have the students cut apart each letter and manipulate and sort the letters to form new words as well as looking at word endings, prefixes, suffixes, and many word properties and word families. You can fill out the chart below as a group or give pairs of students the chart to fill out.  Tell students to keep the mystery word silent and not to “step on each other’s thinking” by yelling out the answer. The final word contains ALL the letters they were given on the strip.

1   letter words	2   letter words	3   letter words	4   letter words	5   letter words	6   letter words	7   letter words	Mystery   Word

 

 

1   letter words	2   letter words	3   letter words	4   letter words	5   letter words	6   letter words	7   letter words	Mystery   Word
a	be me	bam	bell ball	meal real mule rule bale male lamb			umbrella

 

Once students are comfortable with the activity ask students to bring in a “challenge word” to try.

This activity differentiates instruction because there are so many ways to sort the letters. “By beginning with short easy words and building to larger words, it provides practice for your lowest level and a challenge for all”

Source:

Making Big Words

Patricia Cunningham

 

Daily 5 Anchor Chart Read to Self

Thanks to Kori  for sharing this anchor chart from her classroom.

The first step in the Daily 5 is Read to Self.

On the thermometers Kori shows her students how their reading stamina is growing. She reinforces their job with the co-constructed criteria and they tell her what she should be able to do while they are reading. She also includes photos of what they should look like if they are doing their job (star) and an x if they are not.