Review Ideas

Tic-Tac-Toe Review
Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the board or overhead projector. Divide the students into two teams, One has X's, the other has O's. Prepare drill cards in advance-sight words, basic math facts, concentration, etc. Show a card to the first person on the first team. If his response is correct, he can place an X anywhere on the board for his team. An incorrect response results in a loss of turn.
Now the other team must answer correctly in order to place an O on the board. Play continues with teams taking turns until one team is able to get three in a row. Note: Prepare 30 to 40 drill cards so that more than one game can be played. Some other skills that can be reviewed are abbreviations, states and their capitals, equivalent fractions, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, spelling words, letter or number sequence, Roman numerals, colors, shapes, compound words, and plurals.

Activities that Inspire Learning

What Should I Do Now? Mobile
Teachers often hear that famous question "What should I do now?" from students. It may bother some teachers who go through agonizing efforts to make centers, enrichment activities, games, etc., interesting. The students still do not know what to do when they rush through the assignment.
This mobile is a simple way to let the students know exactly what to do without having to come to the teacher. It frees teachers up to help those who need it, and most importantly, it gives the students a sense of independence.
At the top of the mobile, write the question, "What should I do now?" Hang below it all the different activities in which the teacher would like them to practice. The teacher can hang it from the ceiling and write an activity on both sides so it can be viewed from any perspective. Or, hang it against a wall and turn over only those activities the teacher feels are appropriate for that time of day. For example, the teacher may only want the computer game option showing when the computer is free.

Activities that Inspire Learning

READ-O
A fun way to encourage students to read various genres of books is to play READ-O. READ-O is similar to Bingo in that each child has a game board and needs to get five in a row to win. The squares on the READ-O board represent different genres: Mystery, nonfiction, science fiction, biography, and historical fiction. When a student finishes reading one of the READ-O genres, he or she fills out a book log and conferences with the teacher about the book. The conference is a brief discussion about the book to ensure the student understood what was read. After the conference, the student can put a sticker or stamp on one of the squares of the game board that corresponds to the genre he or she has completed. Once five stckers in a row have been placed on the READ-O board, the student receives a prize. The prize may vary. If the teacher does monthly book order from various book clubs, one suggestion is to allow the child to pick a free book from that month's book order. Another suggestion for prize might be extra time at the library. Tip: It is a good idea to keep the READ-O game going for at least two terms to allow enough time for students to do the reading. If time is limited and conferencing is not an option, simply filling out the book log will be sufficient. Hanging the READ-O boards in the classroom or hallways is an easy way to keep track of students' progress.

Vocabulary Activities

Vocabulary learning can be viewed as boring to some students. Try some of these activities to spice up and make learning vocabulary memorable.

Vocabulary Bingo

Play Vocabulary Bingo. Students randomly write down all the vocabulary words from that unit, one per square. (Note: The words can be written on the board so eveyone has the same words.)

Read the definition of each word. Students then cover the matching word on the Bingo sheet with a small square of paper, dried beans, or other marker. Once they get a consecutive row, they yell "Bingo" or another word you chose. Pick a word that relates to the unit the class is studying.

Action Vocabulary

Give a set of partners one word from the unit or novel being read. They are to learn the definition and then come up with a simple charade-type action associated with the word. The action should be a clue to the meaning of the word. Once practiced, students share their word, definition, and the action with the class. Encourage students to keep the actions simple, only one or two movements. Too detailed or too lengthy actions will be forgotten. The class then repeats the action. After every two words, go back and review actions and definitions of the previously learned words. The action will help secure the meaning in their minds. If desired, students can also choose their own words to perform from the unit.

Review Ideas

Division Raceway
After learning any multi-step problem (long division, two-digit numbers times two-digit numebr, etc.), the class will be ready for a high-paced race and challenge. Follow the instructions below.

1. Split your class into teams of about five.
2. The first person on each team writes down the math problem the teacher says.
3. On the teacher's cue, he or she passes the paper to the next teammate who does the first step to the problem.
4. He or she then passes it to the next person who does the second step, and so on until the problem is completed. In most cases, students will receive the math problem more than once depending on the team size and the steps to the problem.
5. The  team that finishes first and has the correct answer wins the round.

It is very important that each person does only one step. The teacher will need to monitor by walking around and assisting where needed. If a child notices a mistake, he or she can fix it and then do his or her step.

Spelling Activities

Story Writing
Have students use their spelling words in a story. You decide how many words they are to use; the number may vary according to individual student ability.
Illustrations
Draw a picture representing five of the spelling words. (This can be much harder than it sounds; check over your list before you give this assignment.)
Word Sentences
Use as many words from the spelling list as you can to make sentences with each letter in the word forming the first letter of a word in the sentence. For example, the word "paint" could be used as a base for writing "Paula ate ice cream nine times. " You may wish to let them work with partners at first if they have difficulty with this assignment.
Small Words
Students are to find the small words in their spelling words. Making it into a contest is the most fun, and many reluctant students will amaze you with all the words they can find. (If it is an unusul word, they must copy down the meaning.) Use the following rules:

• Use no foreing words or proper nouns.
• Words must be two or more letters.
• Each word counts as one point.
• If a student uses a nonexistent word, two points are taken off.
• The person with the most points wins.

Funny face flip books

Materials: Photocopies of a face outline (1 per student), markers and crayons.
Preparation: On a piece of white paper, draw the outline of a face, divided horizontally by two lines. Make one copy for each student.
Directions: Give each student a copy of the face. Divide the class into groups of 8-10 students. Tell students that they are going to draw individual faces and together with their group, they will make a funny face flip book. On the top third of the paper, students draw and color eyes, ears and hair. On the middle secction, students draw and color the nose (a moustache is optional). On the bottom third of the paper, students draw and color the mouth (a beard is optional). Once the have completed their faces, collect the papers from each group and staple them together along the left margin. Then have one student in each group carefully cut each page of the booklet horizontally across the lines, taking care not to cut through the margin.
Students in the group take turns flipping different pages, making funny faces and describing them: He has blue eyes, red hair, big ears and a brown beard. Display the Funny Face Booklets in the classroom.

Who are you?

Materials: 2 large sheets of construction paper, several sheets of colered paper, white letter-zise paper, glue, crayons.
Preparation: Cut 6 x 6 cm squares from the colored paper. Make a large drawing of a boy and of a girl on each sheet of construction paper and cut them out. Draw them so that they can hold hands. Draw a smaller outline of the same picture on letter-size paper and make photocopies, one for each student.
Directions: Divide students into groups of four or five and give each student a photocopy. Have students color their picture wirh crayons. Display pictures around the classroom. Have groups take turns gluing the colored paper squares onto the large drawings. Put the large drawings in the bulletin board.

Group Dynamics

These are the most useful dynamics that you can try in your lessons.
1. Teacher to the whole group
Useful for presentation activities where the focus is on the teacher and the students are usually quiet. Advantage: easy discipline. Disadvantage: students' participation is limited to choral response or individually answering a direct question from the teacher.
2. Small groups
Useful for communication activities, acting and project work. Walk around the classroom intervening occasionally in the groupwork. Advantages: increased co-operation between students; more student autonomy. Disadvantage: increased noise levels; you may need to exercise your authority to settle disputes between students.
3. Pairwork
Useful for guided dialogues and roleplay. Set the task and then walk around checking and correcting. If it is difficult to walk around the classroom, arrange the pairs in such a way that you can supervise them from two or three points. Advantage: all students get the opportunity to speak in class. Disadvantage: not possible to check and correct all the mistakes.
4. Individual work
Useful for writing exercises in the activity book where each student works alone. It should be preceded by some form of presentation to the whole class. Walk around correcting the students' work as they progress through the exercise. Advantages: allows some quiet thinking time; changes pace and calms children down. Disadvantages: more of a possibility that students might do a whole exercise incorrecrly. Supervise the first part of the exercise quickly to avoid this. Students will not all work at the same pace. Always have some activities ready for the students who finish first.

Using Flannelboards to Teach Basic Skills

Use flannelboards to teach the alphabeth, colors, and shapes, numbers, patterning, measurament, classifying, one-to-one correspondence, and other basic skills. When young children interact with a flannelboard, their learning comes alive! These simple ideas will help you create cutouts and flannelboards.
Fabric cutouts
Make cutouts from felt, flannel, or other fabric using cardboard shapes. Choose the color of fabric for each patter. Secure the pattern on top of the fabric piece by pinning or taping the pattern to the fabric. Cut around the outer edge of the solid outline to create the shape. Or trace around the pattern using a black felt-tip marker to create a bold outline, and then cut out the shape. You can buy fabric that has a holiday oriented pattern and make cutouts out of the fabric pictures.
Paper Cutouts
Trace stencils to make cutouts of letters, numbers, and shapes to use with a flannelboard. Use colorful calendar cutouts or cut out illustrations from coloring books and old workbooks! Just glue a piece of felt, sandpaper, or the "hooks" portion of self-sticking Velcro to the back of each cutout. Before cutting the patterns apart, laminate the pages, cover them in clear contact paper.
Making Flannelboards
You can purchase a manufactured flannelboard or try one of these ideas to create your own!
Flat Carpet Flanneboard
Cut out a large circle or rectangle of felt or flannel. When you're doing a flannelboard activity, lay the fabric on your classroom carpet and have the children sit around.
Flat Box Flannelboard
Open and lay out a flat large cardboard box. Spray adhesive on the front. Place a large piece of felt or flannel on the front and smooth out the fabric from the center to the edges. (Attaching a thing layer of foam under the flannel works even better).