Teaching Tip: Context Clues

Things have been a little crazy at work, so in an effort not to let go of this little day of the week, I found an old lesson I did.  If you click on this free link it will take you to the full activity.  Once kids learn about four different types of clues, there are a bunch of example sentences (I found a lot of them and just reformatted them) and they sort them into the four sections.  

Teaching Tuesday: Reading Game with Native American Story

I made this game using a free article (3rd Grade Level) from readworks.com called I am Native American.  Once the students read it I made some questions that go along with Texas Expository TEKS for 3rd grade.  I used released STAAR question stems.  BUT, the fun part is I created these little arrow head QRS.  You can print them and pass them out to students as they A)  Work well together B)  Find correct proof in the story C) Get the correct answer.  I'm going to have them work in groups for this, so the group earns arrow heads.  Then after each question, pause and let each team scan their arrowhead.  They then get those points for their team, which is a good deal for teams that aren't able to earn as many arrow heads because they have a shot at still winning if they collect enough buffalo!

There are six different pictures that pop up with assigned points (a buffalo gets 500, deer 400 etc, and there is one that does not receive any points).  Here is a printable link to the questions and arrowheads.  I'm planning on giving out beef jerky as an award. 
Printable Link

Teaching Tuesday: Snot and Buggers

      Look at me following through two weeks in a row.  Truth, I really am pretty good about following through with things, but I just wasn't sure if I wanted to add a teaching piece to my blog.  Truth, I didn't want to start a new blog either, so I'm just going to be me, which is someone with a lot of pots in the fire.  My goal is to make these more user friendly.  If you don't need teaching tips, skip Tuesday.  I'm not loading printable files today b/c I googled the images from the internet, and I don't want to get in trouble, BUT the ideas are easy to do.  I merged two ideas-SNOTS (Short Notes On The Side).  I have no idea who had that idea first, it was just an acronym I saw written at the top of a paper in a district lesson plan, and I googled what it meant, and another activity via Wade King, which I saw recently on Instragram.  It was done with math, but I found a way to adapt it to reading.  

     The first step is for kids to interact with the text. They write S.N.O.T.S at the top of their paper and then they jot down little thoughts as they are reading the text.  Let them use a green pen or pencil so it looks like they snotted all over their paper.  

     Then give them multiple choice questions.  Group them, print off the answer choices and they have to #1 decide the answer, and #2 go find the write booger that matches (A,B,C,D).  BUT have them put some green dyed vaseline on their nose and make them find the booger and pick it up with their snotty nose and take it back to their desk.  

   Winning team definitely needs some sort of green treat.  Sprite (snot juice) etc.