1 / 16

SPONGE Activities

SPONGE Activities. Basis Behind Sponge Activities. The term originated from Madeline Hunter Philosophy that there should be no wasted moments in the classroom. Sponge activities help “soak up” valuable time . . What are Sponge Activities?.

gerald
Download Presentation

SPONGE Activities

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. SPONGE Activities

  2. Basis Behind Sponge Activities The term originated from Madeline Hunter • Philosophy that there should be no wasted moments in the classroom. • Sponge activities help “soak up” valuable time.

  3. What are Sponge Activities? • Educational activities that produce learning during “empty” time when there are a few minutes to fill. • Designed to be done before the bell rings, while waiting for others to finish, during transitions, as a wrap-up, etc. • Help eliminate behavioral problems. Always have something planned! • Good for reviewing, focusing, concluding, getting attention, producing (critical) thinking, summarizing, etc.

  4. Reviewing such as… • List 3… • Name 1… • Complete this statement… • Write as many… • Give an example of… • As quickly as you can, list… • What would you do if…

  5. Some of my favorites… • List as many states as you can. How fast can you do it? • How many countries and their capitals can you name? • List as many nouns in the room as you can. • Write one kind of food beginning with each letter of the alphabet. • How far can you count and write down by 6’s? • How many animals can you list that begin with vowels? • Scramble 5 spelling words, trade with someone, and unscramble them.

  6. Characteristics of Sponge Activities • Have educational value • Relate to the students’ schema and their prior level of knowledge • Gets them thinking, but should not be too difficult or frustrating • Fun and engaging! • Quick and easy to follow/understand • Little directions needed • The students should not need YOU to be able to do it

  7. For Example… • Description Exercise: Present an object to the class and have them come up with as many words as they can to describe it. List these words and talk about the importance of using many different kinds of description when writing. • Simon Says: Play Simon Says with your class. Start off by being the leader and then let other students take over. Kids love playing the game and it really can help enforce listening skills.

  8. A New Animal: Have your students create a "new" animal using features of several other animals. For example they might make a combine an elephant's head with a giraffe's neck, a zebra's body and a bird's legs--a zebraphant! Let them be creative and come up with an original name. • I Spy: Start this activity by locating something in the room without letting your students know. Start describing the object to your kids. For example, you might say, "I spy something red!" or "I spy something that starts with the letter G!" Your students can guess what it is and the students that guess correctly gets to start a new round.

  9. Create Critters: Let your students have fun transforming the regular, "boring" letters of the alphabet into totally cool creatures! They can keep these worksheets in their desks and each time you have a couple of extra minutes, have them pull these out and start working on them. They'll love it. Can do this with numbers too! • Guess the Title: Read a short story to your class or a picture book and have students guess what the title is. Discuss why the students choose the titles they do.

  10. Syllable Count: Have students make number cards for the numbers 1-6. They can simply fold a sheet of paper into sixths to do this. Randomly callout words and have students hold up the card with the corresponding number of syllables. • Quick Math: Have your class figure out some of the following problems: 1. How many hands are there in the classroom? 2.How many fingers are there? 3. How many noses? Encourage the students to find answers without counting one-by-one.

  11. Twenty Questions: Pick a topic such as An Object in the Room, A Famous Person, An Animal, etc. One student must think of something in that category without telling the rest of the class. Everyone else must guess what the object is by asking Yes or No questions. The student that picked the object must ONLY answer Yes or No to the questions asked. The class has twenty guesses. • Story Chain: Arrange the class in a circle on the floor. Pick one student to start a story with one or two sentences. Students continue around the circle with each adding another sentence or two to the story. You can assign a specific topic for the story or you can let the students decide. To make it more challenging, have first person begin the story with a word starting with "A" and have the next student start the next sentence with "B" and so on.

  12. Sound It Out!!: Have an overhead handy of puzzles that require critical thinking. One at a time, have students sound out and say slowly and carefully the words in each headline until it begins to sound like something that relates to the clue such as • Tub Braid Heap Hunch (Clue: TV show) • Sand Tackle Laws (Clue: fictional character) • Tall Mischief Her Sun (Clue: person) • Buck Spun He (Clue: cartoon character) • Shock Cussed Toe (Clue: person) • These Hound Dove Moo Sick (Clue: movie) • Docked Hearse Whose (Clue: person) • Tight An Hick (Clue: thing) • Aisle Oh View (Clue: phrase) • Chick He Tub Ban An Us (Clue: things) • My Gulch Hoard Un (Clue: person) • Thumb Ill Key Wake Owl Licks He (Clue: place) • Builds listening and spelling skills!!

  13. Pix Puzzles: Picture puzzles such as the ones below are a terrific tool for stimulating students to think critically. Write or draw the following puzzles on a board or chart. Challenge students to study the puzzles to see if the words -- and the way they are written -- give them clues to the common expressions the puzzles illustrate.1. ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE ISSUE 2. T H G I T 3. BAD WOLF 4. r/e/a/d/i/n/g

  14. Spelling Is a Hit! Builds spelling skills • Before playing the game, you will need to have a flyswatter and you will need to create a game board. The game board can be drawn on a brightly colored shower curtain liner. Use a magic marker to print large and boldly the letters of the alphabet from A to Z. If your students are in the primary grades, write the letters in ABC order. If your students are older, mix up the letters of the alphabet. Put each students name on a piece of paper or a Popsicle stick and drop them in a container. Draw one name at a time, call out a spelling word; that person must grab the flyswatter and swat each letter on the shower curtain liner as he or she spells the word aloud.

  15. Let’s Do An Activity!!! • SPARKLE!!!

  16. Some Useful Websites… • http://tepserver.ucsd.edu/courses/tep129/EducationalSponges.pdf • http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/archives/fillers.shtml • http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/MoraModules/vocabularydev.htm • http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson168.shtml

More Related