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The first day of school. The eager expectations of meeting new friends, getting to know your new teacher, finding your new desk. Students encounter a lot of new things that first day of school and our job as teacher is to help them wade through the waters of a day of many firsts. One of the most important things we can do on the first day is teach students how we want them to get along with one another and with you, the teacher.
Teach them how you want them to interact inside and outside the classroom. Teach them that school is a safe environment where we truly care about each student.
Cooperative learning activities provide a perfect opportunity to show students we care about them. These activities also show students how they can interact with each other and help students get to know one another.
Before I get into depth with each activity, one of the key pieces of these activities that usually gets left out is the reflection piece. How did they respond to other students? What would they have done differently? These can be done within a community circle or in a writing journal.
Five Cooperative Learning Activities Here are several cooperative learning activities that I use within the first week of school. I use different ones with different grade levels, depending on their skill.
Interview The interview is pretty simple. This reporting out can take place over the course of a week or so. I tend to do the interviewing on one day and the reporting out over a course of days.
Instead of questions, you can also put attributes, which is how the game is originally supposed to be played. Either way, the idea is that students are talking to multiple students in the class. For my second graders, I create a grid, usually 4 x 3 or so and write down 12 questions or attributes, one in each box.
Students find another student, ask one question, then have the student sign his or her name in that box. Spider Web This one is so much fun! You will need a ball of string or yarn, any color will do. Have students sit in a circle, either on the carpet or in chairs. This game can also be played outside.
Say your name and one thing about yourself. That student says his name and one thing about himself. Play continues until all students have gotten a turn and there is a web of string criss crossing the circle. You can make the game more simple where students just choose the next student or more complicated, where students have to tell one thing about themselves, like their favorite food or something.
Graffiti This is one of my favorite cooperative learning activities, especially for older students. In this activity, I create six pieces of chart paper with one statement on each piece of paper.
I group students and give each student a marker. Students rotate through the pieces of chart paper responding to the prompt on the paper. At the beginning of the year, I make the statements more low-key, but as the year progresses, I increase the complexity of the statements, even using academic questions to review content.
Favorite moment What I want to be when I grow up and why Things that scare me Things that get me excited What I like about school What I dislike about school Things people do that annoy me Things that people do that I like I feel sad when Squiggly Line Drawing The squiggly line drawing is an individual activity that can be turned into a cooperative learning activity during the reflection piece.
Draw a line in the top space that has a curve to it and photocopy that page for each student in your class. Students spend some time drawing a picture incorporating that curved line and then write about their picture below.
During the reflection time, students can partner up and share their picture and writing with a partner, or you can sit in a circle and share out within the circle whole group. The beauty of this activity is that it provides students with some down time during a busy first day.
The book is much more than cooperative learning activities, but those have been the best takeaway from the book for me. Another good book is Keys to the Classroom. It, again, is much more than cooperative learning activities, but has a few good ones in there, too.One thing I wanted to quickly share with you is how I keep my Writing Process organized with my kiddos.
I love the organization!!
Reply Delete. Alison Hislop October 19, at PM. I am a third grade teacher in Colorado and lucky mom to a wonderful little girl. I love my job, my students, and finding new and exciting ways to. Lesson Plan # writing mini lesson ORGANIZATION.
Lessons. Free Lesson Plans. Search Lesson Plans; writing Organization Paragraph Form I repeated this activity using different subjects many times throughout the year of 2nd grade. In third the teachers use these heavily for the first marking period and then the kids seem to.
I have been on hiatus from doing out-of-state teacher trainings recently for two reasons: 1) I'm writng a book on teaching writing, and 2) I'm preparing to retire from the classroom at . Ereading Worksheets provides teachers, parents, and motivated students with high-quality reading worksheets, activities, and resources aligned with Common Core State ashio-midori.com website uses a skill focused approach where each activity targets a specific skill set, but you can also browse the reading worksheets by grade level..
The resources on this website cover a broad range of reading. Third Grade Writing Worksheets Help Master Writing Skills Writing, till now, has been limited to tracing the letters of the alphabet or writing small words and sentences.
All this changes in third grade as kids this year progress from writing small sentences to paragraph writing. English Language Arts Standards Download the standards Print this page The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (“the standards”) represent the next generation of K–12 standards designed to prepare all students for success in college, career, and life by the time they graduate from high school.