Super Speed 1000 and Super Speed Math

Whole Brain Teaching offers a variety of free materials. Super Speed Math is a favorite with my fourth graders. They set personal records and goals for basic math facts.

Super Speed 1000 contains 1000 high frequency words. Like Super Speed Math, records and goals are made but with partners.

Customary Units of Measurement - Corners

1. Provide students with 4 choices:  Inches, feet, yard, and mile.  They choose which one they want to represent and think of a real world object they could measure.
2. Give students think time to choose their unit of measurement, and write it on a sticky note.
3. Have students give 2 or 3 ways they could use the unit they chose to measure an object.
4. Direct students to the designated areas.
5. Once they are in their area with their sticky notes, they pair up with someone in the corner and share their thoughts.

Word Study – Find My Rule

My class recently completed a scavenger hunt looking for words that ended in the suffix –ed. Once we had gathered a number of words, we analyzed them.  Students came to the conclusion that in order to add –ed to the end of a word sometimes a spelling change is needed. Students concluded that some words need a double consonant, some may need the letter “e” dropped, and others may need nothing no change at all.  Simply add it to the end of the word. After practice and much modeling, my students completed a Find My Rule. They wrote 3-5 words that followed the same pattern. Students then quizzed their partner, and they had to decide what the rule was.

Example:
praised
scared
spiked

The rule: Drop the “e” and and –ed.

Follow the Leader – Team Building Activity

This Team Builder causes students to have to communicate well with each other. Along with giving directions, they have to use good listening skills. An obstacle course can be used or simply use the layout of the classroom. Students need to be in pairs. The listener closes their eyes while their partner gives directions.

Reading Content Area – Find the Fiction

In a content area such as Science or Social Studies assign each person at a team a separate passage to read. After they have read their assigned passage they write two facts and one fiction. When sharing with their teammates they are guiding them to make a prediction since their partners haven’t read. This gives the leader of the Find the Fiction the opportunity to teach the rest of the team.

Hot Tipz - Find the Fiction

My students have proved to me that Find the Fiction can be a hard concept to figure out. At times I have found myself trying to explain Find the Fiction, and then expecting my students to understand instantly. Students get confused with the terms, trying to relate them to fiction and nonfiction text. When this happens I redirect students to look for the “one” that doesn’t fit. So…..model, practice, model, practice. Practice may include a team, partner, or individual created Find the Fiction, but keep the content fun until they learn the structure.

Find the Fiction

When students create their own Find the Fiction, they have to apply higher order thinking skills.  Not only do they have to write down two examples of what you have taught, they have to write down something that is wrong.  Students are thinking backwards, and having to make the fiction close enough to what is right so as not to give the answer away too quickly.  Also, this is a very easy way to check if a student understands a concept.