Tuesday, May 10, 2011

More fun than write offs....

I used to have my students write their spelling words off a certain number of times for homework once a week, but not anymore!

I saw our wonderful first grade teachers doing this awesome activity last year, and I just had to borrow the idea!

Picture or Math Fact (Spell) Homework

Here are some pictures the kids' multiplication with 4's practice from last night:
Here is a more close up view. You can see that they just write their facts with answers pretty close together so that it forms a line for a picture.

I really wish I would have taken pictures of our spelling words picture spells, but oh well...
So here is how you do it:

1. Google coloring pages..must be black outlined, (or use pictures torn out from Coloring books; I have done a few from Spongebob, Phineas and Ferb, and Charlie Brown coloring books. The kids love them!!!!!!)
   *Sidenote-- I tend to do holiday pictures. We did simple ghost outlines, a pumpkin, cornicopia, candycane, hearts, snowflakes, four leaf clovers, umbrellas, etc...
  
You could even do the outline of your state! GO VOLS!


2. When you make copies of the sheet, make it as dark as possible. Have the kids flip over the copy and notice the black lines from underneath. Tell them they will not trace the lines, but make "lines" with their words or math facts.
3. They color the insides of the pictures aftwerwards...if they want to. Some of my kids don't want to, so I don't force them. They end up looking so pretty, and the kids enjoy doing this rather than most other forms of spelling or math fact practice.

***I only do this about twice a month. I don't like to burn kids out on one thing. HOWEVER--- I always have extras in a folder so that if a child wants to do one at home or over the weekend they can.

Hope ya'll are having a great week!

Amanda

7 comments:

Kristen said...

This is really cool, Amanda! Thanks so much for sharing! :)
Kristen
Ladybug's Teacher Files

Mrs. Randall said...

Pretty new blog design. I love the summery design Amanda. Thanks for sharing this idea. It would be fun for the kids to do math facts on summery pics right now as my group is so counting down the days!

Kelley
Mrs. Randall’s Learning Library

Janaye said...

Neat idea! I love it!

Leanne Bongers said...

Hey -
What's your email address? I did a modified version of your I AM poems and wanted to send you something one of my students wrote that is so, so powerful - all because of you! :) I have a few 'Amanda' blogger friends and I'm not sure who's email address goes with who - so if I already have your email address - please forgive me! My email: bongersl@fortschools.org THANK YOU!

Julie said...

Cool idea!! I think I'll give this a run!

Julie
Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher

Marlene said...

This is a really cute idea! I'm going to add this to the Word Study Activities they can choose from. Thanks!

SunnyDays said...

Aesome idea!! I'm going to try it next week. My kids are pretty artistic, they are going to love it too!