THANKful for Activities Like...

Landform Sculptors

I can't take credit for this idea.  Last year was my first year at my current school.  Later in the year, we had a teaching objective that focused on different types of landforms and continents & oceans.  My team sent out a request for playdough in brown, turquoise/blue, green, and light brown/beige.  They even attached a recipe for those creative parents that wanted to create their own instead of buying.  The amount of donated playdough was HUGE!!  After our study of various landforms and continents & oceans, we gave students a workmat (my students used manilla folders and other teachers gave them cardstock).  Students were encouraged to create their own continent.  On it they had to include at least 4 different landforms.  Most were so eager and excited that they included all the landforms.  We even used small labels and toothpicks to label the different landforms and name of the continent.

Old School Character Masks

Yup -- that's right.  I took it back to the old school days of making characters.  I usually do a character pumpkin around the end of October like so many other teachers and I decided I wanted a change.  A collegue of mine had an old printout for instructions to make a mask out of a wire hanger and pantyhose.  We used it to create a project that students focused on a character from a book they read.  We spent our time learning about character traits and how to understand characters in books.  The students then chose a character and completed a project.  They presented their characters with great detail about what they are like and what they did in the story to prove that trait.  And of course they brought along the mask.  It was so much fun and a great change from pumpkins.

Turkey Settings

Not too long after the character mask focus, we jumped into analyzing a story's setting.  We really dove into how authors use describing to help a reader picture a setting.  We were simultaneously working on creating our own stories and developing setting details.  This project has them write a story about a turkey and develope a setting for him/her.  They created a visual representation for the turkey character and where the story takes place.  You can grab this Talkin' Turkey project at my TPT store.

This one lived in a refrigerator - teehee

& this one lived in a bubble!



Stop by Blog Hoppin' for some more THANKful Activities.