End-of-Year Post Card Writing Assessment

Oh the things you'll see and the places you'll go this summer…especially with a little imagination! Finish the school year by having students write about a place they'd like to visit over the summer. This simple assignment will assess what students have learned over the year about writing, research, and grammar while also meeting the standards.

Classroom Activities for All of April

Plan ahead with these fun activities and free downloads to get you through April Fools, Earth Day, and National Poetry Month

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3 April Fools Jokes to Play on Your Students

• Give your students this "pop quiz". Use our April Fools pop quiz <free download>. Tell your students, "Be sure to read all of the questions before beginning, but the first person to complete the quiz with all of the answers correct will win a candy bar!" The questions on this April Fools quiz are obscure, but the last question instructs the students to not answer any of the questions, just write their name and turn in the quiz. Success will be based on how well your students follow directions.

• At the end of the school day say to your students, "I'm very disappointed in how few of you turned in your essay that was due today! You may make up the assignment by writing five additional pages on the original topic and turn the entire essay in to me, tomorrow." Enjoy the students' reactions and choose how far you take it from there before you yell "April Fools!"

• Write every students' name on the board with random information next to each name, for example dates, letters (A-F), vocabulary words, and/or numbers. Do not explain anything to the class. If a student asks what it's about, simply say, "I'll tell you after lunch." Watch your students squirm and sweat all morning in anticipation. At lunch remove the names and write "April Fools!" on the board.

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Earth Day Activities

Trash-less Tuesdays
Try having a "Trashless Tuesday" each week of the month of April. Do this by encouraging your students to bring reusable containers to lunch on Tuesdays and to avoid bringing anything that needs to be thrown away (i.e. no prepackaged food) to help cutback on waste.

Two Recycling Activities
For the next two activities have each student bring in one clean, recyclable item to class: glass, plastic, paper, or metal. You should also bring in a few items for those students who will forget, and to add to the mix.

Use the students' items to work on graphing skills. Either give each student a blank graph <free download> or put one on the board to complete. Ask students who brought a glass item to raise their hands and count them; add that number to the graph. Do the same for the other categories. Now have students create a bar graph, line graph, or pie chart using the information you've gathered.

Now, it's time to recycle. Turn recycling into a classifying game. Have students trade their item with another student in the class, as they may already know in which category their item belongs.  Put four boxes at the front of the class labeled: glass, plastic, paper, and metal. Then, have students take turns putting items in the correct receptacle.

Activity Book Suggestions

• How We Impact the Environment

• Managing Waste & Recycling 

• Climate Change 

• Our Trash

More Recycling Tips for Your Classroom

•  Math Activities Using Repurposed Magazines

• Crafts & Experiments Using Recycled Soda Bottles

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National Poetry Month
For some quick tips on where to get started with poetry in your classroom, use our Teacher's Guide to poetry <free download> in the classroom pulled from our Writing Basics Series: Writing Poems, which gives students lots of practice writing traditional forms of poetry such as couplets, quatrains, and haikus as well as the non-traditional free-verse form.

Read Poetry
Read a poem to your students every day of the month. After each poem, ask students:

• What do you think the poem is about?

• Where did the poem take place?

• Who is the speaker in the poem?

• How did that poem make you feel?

• Why do you think the poet wrote the poem?

By asking these questions (and more) after each poetry reading, by the end of the month students will begin analyzing poetry without your prompting. Also by listening to you read poetry, students will better understand the rhythm and flow of poetry.

Write a Ransom Note Poem
Have students write a poem (the shorter the better with this activity). Then let them rummage through magazines to find the words from their poem. Encourage students to make the more important words or words that need more emphasis to be larger. Then, have them cut and paste the words and letters onto a piece of construction paper. It's a colorful way to display your students' poetry.

3 Kid-friendly Poets Include:

• Shel Silvertein

• Valerie Bloom
  

• Fred Sedgwick
  

Free Download
Smilies & Metaphors activities from our Writing Basics Series: Writing Poems

5 Gift-Themed Activities

‘Tis the seasons for celebrations and gift giving! It's easy to make this generous season part of your math, writing, science, and thinking lessons with these tips. Plus students will love giving and receiving these gift-themed activities.

Gift Stations ~ Math
Fill several different size boxes with random dollar store gifts and wrap them or use the dollar store gift boxes--no wrapping necessary. Then, put the gifts at different gift stations: one station for measuring, one for weighing, and one for word problems. Split students into groups and rotate them through each gift station. Have students work together to answer the questions you’ve left at each gift station.

Word Problems Gift Station: Tape a word problem to the bottom of each gift. Ask students solve one or all of the problems on each gift. Or to further challenge your students, ask them to determine which gift is the largest or heaviest, and then have them only answer the word problem on the bottom of that gift.

Measurement Gift Station: Ask students to measure each box’s width, height, length and determine which is the largest, smallest, and tallest gift.

Weight Gift Station: Do the same as the Measurement Stations with weight related questions.

Celebrity Gift ~ Writing
Because gift giving is so special, it should take a lot of thought and planning. Ask students to think about what they might give to their favorite celebrity or character from a book. They can pick the celebrity or have students pick one person from list. Then have write about the gift they would give. Ask student to describe the gift and why they chose it for that person.

Celebrity Suggestions: Santa Clause, the President, Walter Payton, J.K. Rowling, Miley Cyrus, One Direction, Bart Simpson, Justin Timberlake, Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games).

For more inspiration and mini biographies to help students know what to choose as a gift, have students read any one of our Celebrity Readers stories.

Pilgrim Pen Pals

You and your students will love this unique writing exercise! This activity meets the writing standards and will align with your history lessons about the pilgrims, Native Americans, the Mayflower, and the first Thanksgiving. You can even use this activity to assess students' understanding and knowledge.

Instructions: Imagine you were a passenger on the Mayflower. Now that you are in America and have started making a new home, write a letter to friend back in England. Tell about something that has happened since you left nine months ago.

Tip: Diversify this lesson by having some students write from a Native American’s point of view. These students can write letters or diary entries to show their understanding, which will give a complete perspective of the events during this time period.

Meet the Common Core State Standards with this Activity

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• Students should begin by reading informational text to gain knowledge about this time period. (CC.R.I.10) 
• Have students use the parts of a friendly letter correctly, including: date, greeting, body, closing, and signature. (CC.L.2)
• Ask students to write their letters as narratives. They should  develop imaginary, yet realistic, experiences using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. (CC.W.2 and CC.W.3)
• Give students time to research, reflect, and revise their letters. (CC.W.10)
• Require students to do additional research. Have them draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis and reflection while writing their letters. (CC.W.7-9)
• Students should explain events, ideas, or concepts, including what happened and why, based on specific information they find. (CC.R.I.3)
• Help students use technology to type and publish their letters. (CC.W.6) 
• Students can type and print their letters, then display them on a bulletin board display (see Bulletin Board details below). 
• Students can create a Fakebook account for their fictitious pilgrim. Learn more about Fakebook.
• Students can write a text message conversation between two pilgrims, a pilgrim and a Native American, or a pilgrim and his friend in England using this SMS Generator.

Students will have a blast writing Pilgrim Pen Pal letters & I love meeting the standards! via @remediapub { Tweet This }

Bulletin Board: Pilgrim Pen Pals

Create a bulletin board to display students’ letters.

Use this pattern to make a pilgrim boarder.

Cut construction paper strips 3”x18”. Fold in half. Fold in half again. Place pattern on paper, trace, and cut while still folded. Open and decorate the pilgrims. Students can do this fun activity after all of the hard work they’ve put into their letters.

Need step-by-step activities to improve writing skills?

We've got you covered! Our Writing Basics Series has 8 books to help you improve one writing skill at a time. Including our Writing Letters, which is filled with lessons that teach skills needed to write business, invitational, thank you, and friendly letters.

Tips for Boosting Vocabulary Skills

Vocabulary instructions should be both organic and planned. Learning new words shouldn’t be a chore. Spark an interest in students to discover new words by discussing unusual words, talking about the history of words, playing word games, and most importantly read, read, read! Try these five tips, plus free downloads to help boost your students vocabulary.

5 Non-Reading, Inference Activities

Making inferences means using facts and reasoning to come to a decision or an opinion about something. Doing this involves an abstract level of thinking and can, therefore, be a complicated skill to teach, especially to students who struggle with reading. With practice though, students can become comfortable with the skill before having to tackle the concept while reading. These five activities will give your students a chance to practice making inferences without reading.