First Grade Heaven
So today you would have thought my firsties were in heaven. Total engagement, light bulbs going off, and LOTS of excitement! Don’t you just love it when lessons go this way?
We were learning about Verb Tenses (Past, Present and Future). The kids quickly picked up on the fact that the Future Tense usually just added “will” in front of the present tense verb, but boy, they were stumped challenged by some of the irregular past tense verbs! Only my highest students could identify those quickly (love the way they could create sentences in their head and try the verbs out mentally in just a few seconds!).
We created a t-chart on the white board easel and added several verbs with all three tenses, then sorted some word cards on the document camera. Meanwhile, students were documenting on a printable from from Elizabeth Ellis’ Verb Tense Center Game (sorry, I don’t know why this won’t show up clear, but the link works if you would like to check out this freebie for yourself!):
We created a t-chart on the white board easel and added several verbs with all three tenses, then sorted some word cards on the document camera. Meanwhile, students were documenting on a printable from from Elizabeth Ellis’ Verb Tense Center Game (sorry, I don’t know why this won’t show up clear, but the link works if you would like to check out this freebie for yourself!):
This was a great way to teach the lesson, but the real engagement happened when I broke these bad boys out:
I know you have all seen versions of these on Pinterest, but GUESS WHAT???? My firsties don’t cruise Pinterest, so they thought I was a GENIUS! Love, love, love those little ones!!!
Each student got two random egg halves, and they had to walk around and talk to their friends to find the matches. I stuck with past and present verb tenses, and tried to throw in a few easies and a ton of challenge verbs (I have mentioned before that I have a LOT of smartypants in my class, right?) No easy-peasy for them! To keep them engaged, I have to let them really “turn their brains on high”.
This game practice was so much fun that I had to promise to let them do them again tomorrow (ok, twist my arm! Ha!)
Thanks for stopping by, and please comment to let me know what fun things you do in your classroom this time of year!
Leave a Reply