Novelty Keeps Them Learning!

The end of the year is fast approaching and we teachers have to stay on our toes to keep the kiddos engaged and learning.  We are studying insects this week and I came up with this idea and the students loved it! They each had their own "yard" and played with a partner.  Between the partners, they had a baggie of 10 outdoor creatures and a dirt pile (black plastic container).  The first student grabbed a handful of creatures from the dirt pile and put them in their yard.  The second student emptied the rest of the creatures into their yard.  They each recorded the number sentence that showed their creatures. This student wrote 6 + __ = 10. Their partner recorded 4 + __ = 10.  They played this for 20 minutes and I tell you, it wasn't long enough for them! However, I did give them 5 minutes when we were finished to just play. The "yards" are pieces of indoor/outdoor carpet.  Lowes had pieces already cut so I bought a roll for $20.  It took me less than a half hour to cut 32 yards.  I bought insects at the Dollar Tree.  They only had 5 bags so I had to add snakes, frogs and spiders to the baggies to have enough.
Check out the pictures!

This is how I am storing them.

On to flies!

I am sporting my fly glasses while reading my

favorite fly book, Old Black Fly.

Fry Fly Fun!

I copied my Fry Fly words onto regular paper and cut  them out.  I placed them all over the classroom while the students were at recess.  When they came back in, I told them we had a fly infestation!

They each got a fly swatter and had to read and then swat as many flies as they could.  There were 100 flies in our room.  The winner had 11.  They got to keep the flies they read and swatted.

The students had them swatted so fast I barely had time for pictures.

Click the picture or here to check it out! We read a nonfiction book on flies and the students recorded 4 facts they learned.  Then they wrote an informational piece on flies.  They colored "Fly Guy", cut out 2 hands for wings and added him to their writing.

The Fly Guy came from Frog Spot a blog from The Pond.
The graphic organizer and writing pages are available here if you are interested.
Thanks for stopping by!