Lego pieces would also work to build shapes…
Have you ever tried to switch your Scoot game up? I just started using Scoot this year and my students love it! If you are still unfamiliar with the game Scoot you can read more about it ( here ) They are engaged, moving around and it’s great for me to check for their understanding of a topic/skill we’ve been working on. But, I tried something new this past week and it was AWESOME!
My students loved this new version of scoot and I will for sure use it again. Why not take away the ‘pencil and paper’ part of it and make it more interactive? I created regular and irregular polygons with washi tape, pipe cleaner and unifex cubes that they had to find the perimeter or unknown x on. It didn’t take that much time to create before school and they really enjoyed it. They had actual unifex cubes to look at and touch instead of just looking at a shape printed out on a card. You can use this for so many topics. Think about it…you can use it for ELA too!
How about in first or kinder ( more as a center in K than scoot though ) with sight words. When they are moving around to answer questions – why not have their tasks be more engaging instead of just looking at the cards. For instance, what about putting a ball of play doh next to a card and have a sight word on a mat…they can re create the word by manipulating the play doh to spell the word. If you still choose to use a recording sheet you can have them write the word on the sheet after creating it with play doh.
You can have unifex cubes set up and they have to show a number sentence with different colored cubes. So they would put 5 red and 6 blue to show 11. The options are endless and there are so many choices~
My mind is always thinking of ways to cut down on worksheets and make things more hands on for my students. This came to mind and my students really enjoyed it. Think outside the box when it comes to some regular, mundane activities and see what you come up with. Here is a sample of the first grade one I’m working on this weekend.
Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Happy Teaching! xo,
