Roll and Tell: Storytelling Dice

For most of my classes with small groups of three or four students, I prefer to have them work on flexible, creative speaking exercises; formal question and answer speaking prompts I save for every once in a while, to assess their learning progress. I believe that this allows them to learn more vocabulary on a …

Learning the Ai Bi Cis

Sometimes students themselves already make amazing teachers.  One of my fifth grade students this year--let's call him Juan--was a newcomer to the bilingual system.  He consistently struggled to respond to the advanced English language content in his Natural Science and Social Science classes, and disliked using comprehension to find answers, preferring instead to find a way …

Creativity with Cubes

Prep time: 30 mins. Class time: 20-30 mins. Materials: Colored construction paper Scissors Glue Markers White printer paper or notecards Confession time: At first, I started this blog only because I had to. The Community of Madrid requires all English teachers in the Auxiliar program to submit a digital teaching porfolio that features a detailed …

Snakes, Ladders, and Learning

Prep time: approximately 1 hour Class time: 15-20 mins. Materials: 1 Poster board Markers Colored construction paper Scissors Glue Selection of questions--at least one for each space Inspired by an extra spurt of creative energy this weekend, I remodeled one of my favorite childhood games into a trivia and verb conjugation challenge for my fifth …

Pastball

Time: 10-20 mins. Supplies: Empty trashcan Ball (not a hard one) List of questions about things that happened in the past It was time. Game time. My fifth graders had been working on past tense grammar for over a week and desperately needed a chance to wiggle out of their workbook.  Taking them out of …

Class Newspaper

Time: 30-40 minutes, or homework assignment Supplies: Pencils and paper Computer with newspaper template One week I set my fifth grade to work on a new activity--a class newspaper.  I split the class up into groups of three, and assigned each a topic.  Among them were: Editing Transitioning from Fourth to Fifth Grade Testing Time …

Bananagrams

Time: 30-40 mins. Supplies: Bananagrams game A game that I first owned simply to challenge my friends with, as a teacher I have come to know the educational value of Bananagrams.  Easily described as Scrabble without a board, it lets the players create their own little collections of words that crisscross and connect in a …