There are a few days of school left before Thanksgiving break. Everyone is eager for a break, but in the meantime, we still have learning goals to accomplish. How can you keep students actively engaged in learning that meets curricular targets and achievement standards? Increase student motivation with these Thanksgiving week lesson plan ideas:
Use games
Students love games. Word games such as Scrabble and Boggle, Crossword puzzles and even Bingo offer opportunities for vocabulary review or spelling practice. Consider practicing math skills with card games or Cribbage. Twenty-first century skills such as inductive and deductive reasoning, creative problem solving and logic are developed through games such as Clue, Battleship and Chess.
Create and perform skits
Students love to perform skits. Let students review language arts, science, social studies or content from any subject matter by working in small groups to write and act out a skit. What are you studying? Parts of a cell? The water cycle? The Continental Congress? Adverbs? Let students bring content to life with an original skit.
Create a puppet show
Younger students love puppets. Let students work with a partner or small group to choose a favorite story from their reading to enact with puppets. In addition to recall, comprehension, and vocabulary they will use higher level thinking skills such as summarizing, evaluating, and synthesizing as they choose which parts to act out and how to perform their story. Students can make simple puppets with paper bags or paper plates.
Write Thank-You Notes
Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude and what better way to spark gratitude than with a thank-you note? Teach students the art of letter writing by having them write thank-you notes to someone they appreciate at school. The school janitor would love a letter of thanks, as would the bus driver, the paraprofessionals, the cooks, the school librarian and anyone else who works in a school! Make it even more meaningful by meaningful by delivering the letters in person.
Repurpose familiar songs
A favorite activity of both younger and older students is to review content and concepts by working in small groups to rewrite the words of a favorite song to incorporate ideas from the curriculum. We remember a high school group’s rousing version of Queen’s We are the Champions re-purposed to teach Mitosis, and a sixth- grade version of the Sponge Bob Square Pants theme song to teach about Ferdinand Magellan.
The days before a school break don’t have to be exhausting. With a little imagination, they can be fun and inspiring.
We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
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