How is it already February – with Valentine’s Day staring us down? Where has so much of the school year gone – but how do we keep our students engaged through the monotonous days of winter – and the even harder days of spring?
As much as I love the continuity that this time of year provides my students, boredom can easily set in, too – and that’s why I love that the TpT Winter Sale is happening next week! You can save up to 25% with the code FEBSALE24 – and my entire store will be on sale.
Here are some resources that may fit that seasonal need for you in the coming weeks:
This PBL project is the perfect way to sneak in some math and collaborative learning while your students plan a fictional Valentine’s party. The resource sets creative parameters and your students work together to plan a fictional class party – all the while doing math and practicing their writing, planning, and organizational skills.
It’s almost time for that famous basketball playoff event … ahem, apparently it’s a big deal to sports fanatics? I’m clearly not one of those, but I love taking that same enthusiasm and hype and applying it to something more my speed – like digging into creative poetry in fun ways. This Poetry Bracket Challenge for Elementary Students comes with hyperlinks suggested poems to use for this activity, unit study-style activities to extend learning, and printable poetry pages where copyrights allow – as well as the actual bracket you can use to customize this project with your students. Simply choose the activities that you’d like to use and do as much or as little as you’d like.
This Patrick Henry Scavenger Hunt is the perfect way to introduce your students to the man famous for declaring, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” With quotes from his letters and speeches, as well as personal stories and politics, this resource follows Henry throughout his life. It can be used as a scavenger hunt, gallery walk, or simple cooperative learning activity, asking your students to read informational passages to find answers and decode mystery words. Also included are a variety of reflective and creative writing prompts to extend learning.
Since spring is the time for wedding planning, I have to share this newish resource there – and because my students loved it! Create a Wedding Album for Romeo and Juliet is a digital resource designed to help your students do just that. (You can ask them to design an album based on the wedding they had in the play, or to imagine what it might have been like if they’d had a more traditional wedding – which allows for all sorts of creativity connected to characterization and traditions!) It makes the perfect summative project, but your students could also work on it as you read the play, and it can be done individually or cooperatively. It’s very open-ended, so you have lots of room to make the assignment what you want it to be – but there’s enough here for your students to be super creative and demonstrate their understanding of the play while giving you some room to breath.
I love resources that you can use over and over, don’t you? That mileage is important to me – and that’s one reason I love these Hexagonal Thinking Activities for Any Novel. There’s serious bang for your buck here, but more importantly, kids love’em – and by putting manipulatives to critical thinking and literary analysis, students of all skill levels can be successful. Want to know more about hexagonal thinking? Check out this post.
PS – I just finished MacBeth, and we had such fun with this play! It’s so perfect for hexagonal thinking activities that I had to make one. Grab it here.
There you have it! These are my top resource recommendations for the upcoming weeks. What do you need to help your spring go smoothly?
I love picking out TpT resources that will save time for me or that will expose my students to a concept in a way that I wouldn’t have thought to use. I want you to get these things for your students, too! That’s why I’m offering a $10 TpT gift card to one winner on Tuesday, February 8, just in time for sale shopping. Enter to win using the rafflecopter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
