Spinner Activity

My college students, who I spoke about on Tech Tuesday this week, will be creating their own (reading-related) Spinner Activities to use in their content area classrooms.  Have you used a Spinner before?  Oh, I love these.

....and yes, my red frames do not match in this blog post...it is slightly killing me, but I am going to leave them.  Remember perfect passed away in the fall.

You basically make a wheel with different graphics and question prompts.  Technically, you don't have to include the graphics, but it is uber-boring without them.  Then, you pair-up students.  Give them a jumbo paper clip and paper spinner; they use their own pen or pencil to hold the end of the jumbo paper clip in place (see photo above).  And voila, they spin away, discussing each prompt they land on with a partner.  I always tell students it is OK to discuss the same prompt multiple times.  That is the universe telling them they need more practice.  Ha!

Here's what a spin looks like.  Notice the "flick" of the fingers to make the paper clip spin.  The pen or pencil holds the tail end of the paper clip in place - smack dab in the middle of the spinner.  Big thank you to my college student models for agreeing to this photo.

I'm trying not to make a video of me (or them) spinning.  You'll just have to try it yourself to see it really works and students, of all ages, love it.  It really is engaging.

Of course, my class is creating a spinner related to reading.  What will your spinner be related to?  A get-to-know-you spinner?  A math-related spinner?  A pre-assessment of a new topic spinner?  A geography spinner?

If you want to use my spinner template, click here and modify any part of the document you like.

Best,

Jen

It's that time again....Scholastic Book Warehouse Sale!

It is that time of the year again when you can score soooo many inexpensive books at the Scholastic Book Warehouse Sale.  Yay!

If you have never been to their warehouse sale before, the warehouse is about the size of Costco and it is (uber) organized with new books by age range and genre.  There are also other items to buy like posters, knick-knacks, instructional toys, etc.  I think it is an educator's and parent's dream.  Lil O and I scored an armful of books for close to nothing.  

As a mom, it was one of those moments where I said, "Pick anything you want!"  "Now, choose another book!"  "How about another?"

Too fun and we both felt like reading rock stars.

Click on this link or the image above to find a warehouse near you.  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE AN EDUCATOR TO ENJOY THE SALE.  Any person can attend.

Well worth it,

Jen

Textbook Quote Activity - Guest Blogger/Guest Upcyclist Series

Please welcome back, guest blogger/guest Upcyclist, Professor KP.  You might remember her from her Duck Pond post here.

Take it away, Professor KP....

Here is an idea I stole modified from your blog post, The Other Jen. The Other Jen had a post explaining how she uses quotes as a warm-up activity for a group.

Good idea I thought.

To make it work for my purposes, I took quotes from the upcoming chapters in our textbook.  I tried to choose quotes that were interesting, open-ended or just good conversation starters. I also included the page number in case students wanted to go back and reference the actual quote.

I printed the quotes on card stock, cut them into strips, and spread them out on a table.  Students were told to choose a quote that was interesting to them and share with a partner. As a whole class, we then shared quotes, too.

We had lots of interesting conversation.

The real treat, however, was the activity ended up generating motivation for the chapters students were assigned  to read for the upcoming week.  In education lingo we call that “Setting a purpose for reading."  Yes, a purpose was established and students' interest was peeked!

Professor KP, I love this idea!  I might need to make a quote collection for my upcoming Educational Psychology students.  Our new class begins in two weeks.

Thank you so much,

Jen