Fortune Teller Antonym Practice

Growing up in the 90's fortune tellers folded from paper were all the rage.  As I was trying to come up with a fun way for my students to practice antonyms they came back to mind. 

Monday my students will get to put 8 different antonyms in these fortune tellers.  They will then practice away!

Here is what it might sound like:

Student 1: Give me a number
Student 2: 7
Student 1: (moves the fortune teller back and forth on their fingers 7 times) 1, 3, 5, or 7 (I numbered the words so that they could pick the word without saying it)
Student 2: 3
Student 1:  What is the antonym of happy?
Student 2: Sad

This would also work great with synonyms!  I hope that you can put this idea to use in your own class!

Guess That Number

It is summer break and therefore project time!  I love having time in the summer to get ready for the new school year.  My to-do list right now has about 50 things on it.  We will see how many I get through. 

I have seen people revamp Guess Who games to be faces of presidents or other people.  I got a Guess Who game from my mom.  There were a couple of faces missing, so I decided that I would revamp it and make it into a math game for my kids.  It will be great for practicing place value and for practicing using the terminology "odd", "even", "less than", and "greater than".  I'm sure that it will quickly become a favorite math fast finisher activity.

Here are some pictures:

After I printed out the numbers I mounted them on card stock to make them more durable and to make them look good from the back.  This will also keep the two sets of numbers separate should they be taken out for any reason. 

I printed 3 sets of the same numbers.  I used one set for each board and the other set as the cards to draw from.  The numbers in blue are odd and the numbers in black are even to help my lower kids be successful. 

I also made a sheet with the different questions students could ask.  This will help them to use the proper terminology as they play.

Here are the questions:

Is your number odd?

Is your number even?

Is your number greater than ____?

Is your number less than _____?

Is the number in the tens place greater than ____?

Is the number in the tens place less than ____?

Is the number in the ones place greater than____?

Is the number in the ones place less than____?

Does your number have a ____ in the tens place?

Does your number have a ____ in the ones place?

Is your number ____?

Let me know what you think!

 

You can grab a free download of the questions and numbers here.

Heads Up Seven Up - Review Style

I remember playing Heads Up Seven Up in third grade and LOVING it! But, since when is there time to just play a game for the sake of playing a game?  There is always something to be teaching or reviewing.  Today I decided that I would edit the Heads Up Seven Up game a little bit so that I could use it as a review game in my classroom!  It went over really well!  The kids were really good and loved it!

I started by picking three students to come to the front of the classroom.  Everyone else put their heads down on their desk.  I would then ask a review question (synonyms, antonyms, homophones, long and short vowel sounds, same vowel sounds, contractions etc.) The students with their heads down on their desks would then put their thumb up if they knew the answer to the question.  I pointed to one of my three students at the front, the student I pointed to went and put someones thumb down and came back to the front.  Everyone put their heads up.  The person who had their thumb put down would answer the question and then guess who had put their thumb down.  If they guessed right they got to go to the front and the person who had put their thumb down went back to their own seat.  If they guessed wrong then the person who had put their thumb down got to stay at the front.  You can play as many or as few rounds as you want!

If you play with your students be sure to let me know how it goes!

Have a great week!

Review Fun!

"grudgeball"

I found a review game called "grudgeball" on Pinterest.  Check out the original blog post HERE!  The game is originally meant for middle schoolers, but I found that my second graders loved it!

Here is how we played in Second Grade.

I put team numbers 1-5 up on the board.  Each team had 10 X's.  I got the kids into 5 groups.  I gave groups questions one at a time.  If a group got a question right they were able to erase two X's from the board (from any team they chose or they could split it between two teams).  They also got to shoot a ball into a container.  They could choose to shoot it from a closer line (1 point) or a further line (2 points).  If they made the shot they were able to earn either 1 or 2 X's for their own team.  The goal is to have the most X's at the end of the game.

It was very interesting to watch my second graders with this game.  At first they didn't realize how it would feel to have another team erase their points, they were angry.  They retaliated.  There were some contentious vibes.  Then one of the students shot for a point and barely missed, it bounced off the rim.   I heard a few players from a different team than the student who had shot say "God job" "Nice Try".  I promptly stopped the game and explained that I was going to reward the team that has people being good sports by giving them an X.  When the next person went up to shoot they missed and automatically the whole class erupted in cheers. They were saying things like "Great try!" "Good Job!" "Almost."  That is a moment I will remember for a long time!  It was the greatest thing to see my kids cheering each other on!  After that one of the students came up and asked if they could give teams points instead of take them away.  When it came to their turn they crossed out one teams X and then gave an X to a team that needed it.  How cute is that?

My class was reviewing addition and subtraction, they were having a blast, and they really had an awesome bonding experience!  When we were finished they were asking if they could play again when they got back from computers. 

I would say it was a review success!

Literacy Review Ball

Another thing that my students loved was this Literacy Review Ball! There are tons of things like this on Pinterest too.  Unfortunately I do not know who was the first, so to whoever you are, thanks a million!

 I decided that on my ball I would just put a to of questions, all having to do with literacy/skills we have talked about this year.  Homophones, contractions, compound words, synonyms, antonyms, multiple meaning words, short and long vowel sounds, the works. We tossed the the ball around the classroom.  The person who caught it got to read the question under one of their thumbs.  I would then either have the whole class answer the question, ask a certain student who was raising their hand to answer, or have table groups talk about the answer.  After the question as answered the person who had read the question would pick someone quiet and throw it to them...and so it continued.  This would be really easy to take outside too if the weather was nice!

Review Relay

I was at Dollar Tree the other day and I saw some pails.

I came up with the idea of a Review Relay!  I would have four teams.  Each team would have two buckets about 20 or so yards apart. All the review questions would be in the buckets on one side.  Each team would start at the same time.  They pull out questions one at a time and work together as a team to answer them.  Each team would have a whiteboard, a marker, and a number line if they needed it.  When the question is answered they peel the tape off the back of the question and see if they got it right.  If they got it right they run and put the question into the other pail.  if they got it wrong they keep it with them (outside of the pail).  They can't try again if they get it wrong because they will already have seen the answer.  This will put the pressure on them to get the right answer the first time and not guess.  When the runner returns the next question can be taken out. 

The team who finishes first wins,unless they got questions wrong and another team got more questions correct than them.  Doing the math right and getting the right answer is the most important thing! 

Pails: 2 of each color.  One at the start (with all the questions) and one at the finish (with the questions that were answered correctly).

   Pails lined up at the finish line! Go team, go! Tape hiding the answers on the back.

     Running the questions down to the end quickly and coming back quickly for the next question to be read!

My kids really enjoyed this today!  It was a great way for them to review and get their spring/it's getting close to the end of the year wiggles out. I will definitely be making up some new sets of questions so that we can play again next week.

I hope that at least one of these ideas will find its way to your classroom (or blacktop).  Happy reviewing!  Let me know how it goes : )

Geometry Matching Game

Click HERE to get a free copy. Print, cut, and play! Enjoy!

Fact Family Street and Game

We have been working with fact families this week.  Today we made a fact family street!  The kids were really excited about it.  I gave them each their roof first and ad them come up with a fact family and write one number in each corner of the house.  They had to show it to me (so I could check that their numbers were actually a fact family) before I let them pick their color for their house.  They then had to write the two addition sentences and two subtraction sentences for the fact family.  After which they glued it all together and came and put their house on our fact family street.  The yellow lines started to get a little crooked at the end of the street because my kiddos wanted to help put them on.  They were very excited about their street!  I know that this has been done by others before.  Thank you to whoever came up with the brilliant idea in the first place!

We also played a fact family game today!

Get the students into groups of 4 or 5.  Each group needs a whiteboard and a marker.  Give the students a fact family.  The first person writes the fact family, the second person writes one of the addition sentences, the third person writes the other addition sentence, the fourth person writes one of the subtraction sentences and the final person writes the last subtraction sentence.  Which ever group finishes first and has every member raising their hand wins the round!  My kids had a blast with this, try it out!

The Fly Swatter Game!

Today I was at Dollar Tree and I found these HUGE FLY SWATTERS!  I couldn't pass them up!  My students will LOVE using these to play the "fly swatter game".

The "fly swatter game" works great as a review for any topic.  Simply put answers to questions up on the board.  They can be words (sight words maybe), math problems, or numbers that are answers to math problems, even pictures for example pictures of coins or of things that have certain letter sounds.  Have two single file lines facing the board (each line is a team).  The first person in each line gets a fly swatter.  The teacher asks a question and whichever student can find the answer and swat it first gets a point for their team!  I have often used PowerPoint to create sides to put up to play the game with.  It is much easier than writing a bunch of things on the board.

I hope your Dollar Tree has huge fly swatters too!

Money Dice!

A while back I saw a worksheet where students were supposed to cut out dice (that had a different set of coins on each face) and then tape them together and use them for an activity.  Seeing the worksheet sparked an idea and this is what came of it!

I started with 3 wooden cubes (99 cents each at Hobby Lobby)

painted them three different colors

added coins to each side with Mod Podge

And Wala!  Money Dice!

Students can roll 1, 2, or 3 and add the coins.  I made it so that no side had more than 50 cents, that way if two dice are being used the sum of the coins would not equal more than a dollar.  Students could use these alone or with a partner (and race to see who could add the coins the fastest).  You could also play a game as a whole class and have two teams stand in single file lines.  The people at the front of each line would receive a die and roll it.  Whichever person could add the coins from the dice the quickest would get a point for their team. 

I'm excited for my kids to use these new money dice next year! These could also make a great gift for a teacher : )

Money Memory Game

The year is coming to an end. Math testing is over, but math must go on! You can never get too much practice, so for math tomorrow we are going to do math centers with games and activities to reinforce some of the basic math concepts we have worked with this year! My students are going to love it! I thought it would be fun to have a money memory game, and couldn't find one easily so click here! I made one and am sharing it with you! Have a great week!

Jeopardy

Testing is coming up and reviewing is about to begin.

Jeopardy is a great way to review! I didn't like any of the Jeopardy games that I found online, so I made one up last summer when I had a little time. We have used it to review different concepts we have learned this year. My students always get excited when they see that we are playing Jeopardy. (This was created in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. If you have that it should work perfectly, otherwise I'm not sure, you might have to play around with it a little)

Get the jeopardy PowerPoint for free here!

Once you open the link click on the options button and download the document as a PowerPoint. You will be able to go in and type your questions and answers right into the boxes that say question and answer!

My students LOVE when we play Jeopardy, and seeing as we are coming up on review time and end of the year tests they are about to be happy campers. Time to make some Jeopardy reviews!

Enjoy!

Miss Paul

The Noun Game and The Corner Game

The Noun Game
This is a game especially for those three or five minutes when a lesson ends to early or it's a couple minutes too early to pack up. My kids love it when I tell them we are playing the noun game and they are usually upset when I tell them that we have to stop playing.

Essentially it is charades. The student goes to the front of the class, they either stand with their hands and feet out indicating that they are acting out a person, with their two hands coming to a point (like the roof of a house) which indicates a place, or a fist against their hand (like a rock for rock paper scissors) which indicates a thing. The student then acts out the person place or thing. They get to call on someone to give them the answer.


The Corner Game
O.k. my kids love the corner game. This is a game that I heard of from a c-worker. We originally played it with r-controlled words, but you can adjust it to work with tons of different concepts. This weeks we played it with syllables. Let me tell you how it works. We talked about syllables, then I pointed to the different corners of the room telling the students that they were the one syllable corner, two syllable corner, three syllable corner, and four syllable corner. I had every student pick a corner. I would then say a word, for example table. The students would figure out how many syllables the word was. All students in the two syllable corner would be safe, they get to pick a new corner. Any students in the 1, 3, or 4 syllable corner had to go back to their desks. Keep going till you just have one winner, then start again. The rounds go quick and the students LOVE it!

Hope all is well with you!

Katrina