classroom Archives

Basketball Madness – Creative Activities for the Classroom

March 10, 2015 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

March means lots of talk about the college basketball championships! We created these activities to engage students through the season of basketball madness. First up – a freebie! This Basketball Book Report is an easy format to follow for students when doing a book report. For a fun twist, we have a small basketball hoop attached to our classroom doors where students can take shots as well. This is great for March Madness!

Need more Basketball Madness?

Here’s what we included in the Basketball Madness Bundle:

Activity Packet

In this packet, students are to act like they’re the city hosting the championship game. They calculate the distance each of the last four teams have to travel, design the tickets, and more!

Basketball Game Board with 15 game cards

This basketball game board is a fun reward activity for all students. Plus the kids don’t even know that the game cards help them practice reading and following directions.

Favorite Basketball Team Social Networking Activity

Social media is popular with kids even if we don’t want to accept it. Students will create a social media profile page for their team and players. This is a fun and enjoyable activity for kids.

Vocabulary Basketball Game Activity

Watch student engagement soar with this fun vocabulary basketball game. Students will have 15 vocabulary cards and will need to follow specific directions in order to be able to play!

College Basketball Geography Activity

This three page geography activity has the students using an atlas to answer questions relating to the geographical locations of their basketball teams.

Click here to grab the Basketball Madness Bundle with all these activities for a discount!

Additional Basketball Madness Activities

These activities aren’t included in the Basketball Madness Bundle. They also might better suit whatever you’re currently covering in the classroom.

Ordered Pairs Graphing Math Activity

In this activity, students are given ordered pairs to graph. Connect the dots to reveal a basketball related picture!

Persuasive Writing: Create Basketball Franchise

This persuasive writing activity will have your basketball lovers excited to write! In this scenario, they’re in charge of creating a new basketball franchise. They will need to tell where it will be located. What is the name of their team? They will also need to write a persuasive letter to sell their ideas! Interested in more persuasive writing activities like this one? Grab our bundle!

Your students will love these basketball themed activities ready to use in the classroom!

Guided Reading in the Common Core Classroom

January 28, 2013 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

Guided Reading has been around for a while. It may have been called something different in the past, but this method is still the best way to help your students succeed in the Common Core reading classroom.

Guided Reading is designed to help students read both literature and instructional text at their instructional levels while incorporating reading strategies to help them make sense of text.

One of the most important parts of guided reading is the teaching and utilization of graphic organizers. These organizers help students make sense of text in a visual way. You can access three of the FREE graphic organizers we use in our classrooms by clicking on their names: Venn Diagram, KWL Chart, and Describing Wheel. We also have a super bundle of 25+ graphic organizers that you can access by clicking here.

A second method we use during guided reading are reading comprehension guides. These guides are designed to teach students how to use various reading strategies in a fun and engaging way. Click here to access our FREE guided reading tips, hints, and strategies. This resource has been downloaded over 35,000 times!

FREE Reading Guides

Click on the following names for two FREE examples of reading guides we use in our Common Core classroom: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and James and the Giant Peach. Each guide also includes an answer key.

To access over 50 guides we have created for intermediate level (grades 3-5) novels, you can click here. Title such as The Lightning Thief, Swindle, Bridge to Terabithia, Rules, The Red Pyramid and more can be found.

If you would like to get started on creating your own reading comprehension guides, remember to focus on reading strategies. Guides can be adapted for any grade level and any book. Try to include some fun activities as well (end of book projects, word finds) to keep the students excited about the books!

Our students are actively engaged during guided reading and it has made all the difference. Watch your district and state assessment scores rise by using guided reading in your Common Core reading classroom!

Creativity in the Common Core Classroom

December 19, 2012 by Wise Guys 8 Comments

Creativity in the Common Core Classroom

With the adoption of the Common Core Standards, states and school districts across the nation are scrambling to make sure their curricula meet the new expectations.

What has gotten lost in the shuffle with the new demands placed on professional educators is teacher creativity. Rigorous standards have often meant rigid demands on teachers in the classroom. Time that should be spent connecting with students is being replaced with more content to teach.

So the question in many educators’ minds is, “How do I still make learning engaging and meaningful for my students?” This is the million dollar question that both Eric and I intend to answer. We need to make sure that creativity in the common core classroom occurs.

Please follow our blog and our Facebook page as we will be sharing proven methods to help keep the creativity in your classroom while meeting the Common Core Standards.

Some upcoming topics will be: Games for Great Review, Using Youtube to Engage Students, Tying Music to Topics in the Classroom, Using Graphic Organizers, Electronics in Education, Energizers that Excite Your Students, Creating Assessments, and Content with Creativity.

Below are some of our most popular posts that engage students in their learning!

How to Increase Student Engagement

Engaging Students When They Finish Early

Implementing Genius Hour to Increase Student Engagement

Creativity in the common core classroom has to be a focus for student learning to take place. Teaching is an art. Let us be one of the painters of the future of education!

Brian and Eric

Top 5 Cinco de Mayo Activities and Ideas for the Elementary Classroom

April 16, 2012 by Wise Guys Leave a Comment

Need some Cinco de Mayo activities and ideas for your elementary classroom? Here's our top five picks!

Cinco de Mayo is a chance to introduce many of your students to a celebration that honors brave Mexican soldiers during a fierce battle with the French on May 5, 1862. It also allows you to teach about Mexican heritage in a fun and hands on way. We hope you enjoy our Top 5 ideas for Cinco de Mayo!

1. The History Behind Cinco de Mayo

Many people do not know why cinco de mayo is a holiday for the Mexican people. This should be first explained when doing any sort of activity or celebration related with the day. Click on the link that will help you explain the meaning of the celebration for cinco de mayo. After discussing the history, you may want to also share a map of Mexico and talk about its features as well. Many students are clueless as to the various mountain ranges and differences in landscape of the country of Mexico.

2. The Spanish-Mexican Connection

Many students do not know that the Spanish language was non-existent until conquistadors such as Francisco Pizarro and Hernando Cortes came to the Americas in the late 1400s and early 1500s. We spend some time on discussing how Mexico has a blending of many ethnic-speaking tribes, along with a majority of people who now speak Spanish as a result of the conquest by the Spanish rulers during the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

3. Activities!

I studied Spanish in college and was able to graduate with a minor in the language so I created many activities that I use with my students on cinco de mayo to help teach them some basics of the Spanish language. I usually ask the students what words they know and then progress into reviewing basic concepts such as numbers and colors. See the many activities below!

Cinco de Mayo Game Board
Since we discussed the history behind cinco de mayo already, this game board is a fun way for the students to review it. Just click on the picture below to access the game board.

Spanish Numbers Game Board
Another fun activity that I have the students do after teaching them the numbers up to 10 is to play a Spanish Numbers: Los Numeros game board. It follows the same directions as the above game board and the students have fun playing and reviewing the numbers.

Spanish Colors game board
Before we play this game, we have colored construction paper that we hold up in front of the class and say the spanish word for each color. Then we go faster and faster. Finally, we have them play this fun game board to review the colors! Click on the picture below to access the game board.

Spanish Family, Weather, Numbers, Clothing, Colors Matching Activity
If your students are enjoying learning about the Spanish language you can expand their vocabulary into greetings, weather, family, and clothing words as well. We have developed a matching game activity that students can play in partners. Click on the picture below to access the game!

4. Food and Music

This is probably the favorite part of the celebration for the students. We are fortunate to have many authentic Mexican restaurants in our area. Over the past 10 years I have contacted various restaurants to ask for donations of traditional food for our classroom on cinco de mayo. I have never been turned down! Another option is to see if any of your students(coming from a Hispanic background) would be willing to bring in some food as well. Those students take pride in their heritage and often even make a powerpoint or bring in other artifacts about their heritage.

The music is also great to listen to. I have many samples of mariachi music on hand, as well as traditional Mexican favorites as well. If you look on Wikipedia, you will find more examples as well. Youtube is a great resource to use if you want to play the music for the class too. I would make sure you stick to mariachi music because if you do not know the Spanish language it could be embarrassing playing a song that had inappropriate lyrics! However, La Bamba would be a safe song as well, and the kids would probably be familiar with it too!

5. Pinata

I like to conclude our celebration with the breaking of the pinata. Once again, we are fortunate enough in our city to have many supermarcados where we can go and buy a pinata. Then we also buy some candy and gum from the store to fill the contents. I take the class outside and usually tie the pinata to a tree branch, or a soccer goal post (I know not too traditional, but you have to use the resources around you if there aren’t any trees!). Before allowing students to try and break it, we discuss a brief history of the pinata. Then, one at a time, we blindfold the students and allow them to swing away. Once it is broken, we make sure that the students each get at least one piece of candy. Then we also pick up all the scraps and throw them away.

This one day that the Mexican heritage gets to be celebrated in our classroom. But we feel it is important to acknowledge cultural events throughout the school year for the many different backgrounds of our students. Our classroom is a community of learners and is like a family. So it is important to celebrate our differences!

Please let us know what you do for cinco de mayo!

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Easter Egg Activities in Your Classroom

March 30, 2012 by Wise Guys 4 Comments

Easter Eggs open the door to a wealth of activities! Here's several ideas for using easter eggs in the classroom, for every subject!

Students love to hunt for those colorful little plastic eggs anytime of the year! Here are the top 5 ways to use plastic Easter eggs in your classroom!

#1: Math

If you are studying multiplication (or any other operation), number the plastic eggs on the outside with a permanent marker. The students have to go around the room and try to find at least 5 eggs. When they find an egg, they write down the number of the egg on a piece of paper, open the egg, solve the problem and then write the answer on their sheet. They put the egg back where they found it, and then find four more eggs. At the end, the teacher will check their answers. The students love it!

#2: Words Their Way

Since it is April, the students have worked with many word patterns. Type up and put various word patterns inside the eggs and hide them around the room. Have the students partner up, and when you say “go” the students have to find an egg, open it, and then write down as many words that fit the pattern. For example, if the pattern is “at” their list might look like this: bat, cat, sat, fat, rat, that, mat, hat…. Set a timer for three minutes, then when it goes off, they have to find another egg and do the same. Play this game for a few rounds and then have the partners share the results with the class and see how long of a list you can make for each word pattern.

#3: Social Studies

This would be a great way to review states and capitols or any other geographical concept. Inside each egg would be the name of the state or a capitol. The students’ job would be to open the egg, and write down what was inside the egg, and then what was missing. This could be a fun activity to do with a partner for review, or for individual assessment as well.

#4: Reading

Depending on grade level, this could be great practice for reading fluency. You could have short passages typed up, cut out, and put into the plastic eggs. The students would then find an egg, read the passage out loud, and then move on to the next egg. You could use passages from leveled text and even have the eggs color coded by reading level for the students to find their color. There are many variations that you could do with this.

#5: Science

Vocabulary is always difficult in science class. Before a test, this could be a fun way to review. Inside the eggs either put the definition or the vocabulary word. The students’ job would be to open the egg, read the definition or the word, and then write down what is missing on a piece of paper. This could be a fun partner activity, or used for individual assessment as well.

We hope you enjoyed our ideas. We would love to hear your ideas too!