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 …

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 …

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 …