MULTI-CURRICULAR IDEAS FOR QUICK ACTIVITIES

I'm Through! What Can I Do? Grades 3-4 by Linda Schwartz. Learning Works, 2002. This book is designed to keep your faster students busy and happy. There are logic puzzles to challenge your students and sharpen their critical thinking skills, as well as activities to stimulate creative thinking. You'll also find step-by-step drawing activities, mazes, riddles, and lots more. These ready-to-use activities are ideal for classroom learning centers and are just what a busy teacher needs to keep students challenged and the classroom humming with activity. 96 pages. BTH-5483. $13.49-D

I'm Through! What Can I Do? Grades 5-6 by Linda Schwartz. Learning Works, 2002. Finally an answer for kids who finish class assignments ahead of all others and race to say, "I'm through! What can I do?" Each activity book is filled with word puzzles, logic problems, creative-thinking tasks, and lots more! These ready-to-use activities are also perfect for learning centers and take-home practice. 96 pages. BTH-5484. $13.49-D

Jumbo Book of Games by Patti Sima, Fran Johnson, and Neal Jacob. Teacher Created Resources, ©1999, reprinted 2005. For all grades. 304 pages. Contains over 250  playground games, holiday games, rainy-day games, and international games for classroom, home, or club use. BTH-5645.. $22.46-D

Quick and Fun Activities for Every Day of the Year by Tim Tuck. Revised and rewritten by Karen Froloff and Wanda Kelly. ©2001. Reprinted in 2005. For all grades. 376 pages. This resource book provides a full page of activities for each day of the year -- an interesting bit of history, a related Word of the Day, Quote of the Day and Activity of the Day along with  suggestions for creative assignments in writing, design, drama, or art.

Example: I'm writing this on March 19. On this day in 1932 hundreds of swallows returned to Mission San Juan Capistrano in California. The Word of the Day is "swallow." The Quote is 'We think that caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.' (John Webster). Students are to imagine they are ornithologists on a bird watching expedition in South America where they discover a new species of bird.  They describe the bird and name it. The day's activity is to identify pictures of six common birds from a list of their names.

All the days I looked at had interesting topics covering a wide range of interests and activities. Pages are reproducible for classroom use. BTH-2490. $26.99-D

Springboards and Starters : Over 1000 Creative Ideas and Activities to Spark Learning - Multi-Curricular, by Linda Milliken. Edupress. Includes discussion starters and ideas for quick critical thinking activities. There is a list of subjects to explore and research. There are also literature and writing sparks to inspire some creative writing. Also included are ideas for cooperative experiences, core-curriculum prompts, hands-on ideas for fun and themes, reproducible seat work, bulletin board boosts, and reproducible patterns for incentives. For grades 2-6. $11.66-D

Springboards and Starters : Over 1000 Creative Ideas and Activities to Spark Learning - Seasonal and Holiday, by Linda Milliken. Edupress. Includes discussion starters and ideas for quick critical thinking activities. There is a list of subjects to explore and research. There are also literature and writing sparks to inspire some creative writing. Also included are ideas for cooperative experiences, core-curriculum prompts, hands-on ideas for fun and themes, reproducible seat work, bulletin board boosts, and reproducible patterns for incentives. Some examples of specific activities for holidays include Holiday Haiku, making greeting cards (with templates), ideas for holiday role-playing, stuffing a stocking with holiday-related words with some follow-through ideas for their use, literature links for various holidays, parts of speech pumpkins, sequencing stockings, holiday history (students are given list of facts to write into a paragraph), seasonal scavenger hunt, and many, many, more. Holidays included are Columbus Day, United Nations Day, Canadian Thanksgiving, Citizenship Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, Arbor Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Independence Day.

For grades 2-6. $11.66-D

Ten-Minute Activites Grades 1-3, an Evan-Moor publication. Contains 190 quick and easy activities for language arts, math, social studies, science, and indoor recess. They are great to use when lessons finish early, there is extra time in the day, or when it rains. See details and samples pages. BTH-914. $17.91-D

Ten-Minute Activites Grades 4-6, an Evan-Moor publication. Contains 190 quick and easy activities for language arts, math, social studies, science, and indoor recess. They are great to use when lessons finish early, there is extra time in the day, or when it rains. See details and samples pages. BTH-915. $17.91-D

What Happened Today? an Evan-Moor publication.

This book  presents (in full color) a special event or historical milestone for every day of the year. Interesting backgound on the event is followed by three questions: a question to develop vocabulary, an open-ended question to promote discussion, and  a question or topic for further research Use one, two, or all three questions with your class, depending on your students' abilities and the time you have. In addition, a list of special observances is provided at the beginning of each month. Using What Happened Today? will: increase awareness of historical events, provide relevant topics for discussion or writing, help students make connections between the past and the present focus, and  attention on events happening all over the world. For Grades 1-6. BTH-916. $17.96-D
To see sample pages click here.