Meaningful Activities

							Meaningful Activities
Add a Caption or a Title to the Passage
• Pick an appropriate passage, a short story, a
  joke, or a cartoon picture.
• Have students read and try to come up with
  the most appropriate title or caption.
• Have students compare their choices with one
  another.
            Write a Mini Saga
• With a given topic, write a mini saga in any
  format, e.g., story, dialog, poem.
• The mini saga has to be 50 words in length.
• Ask them to try to include a few ideas in their
  mini saga.
• Have students share their writings with each
  other and try to interpret each other’s work.
             Cloze Passages
• Provide a few passages with blanks and
  choices for the blanks.
• Teach them how to read and comprehend the
  passages and use the context clues to figure
  out the best answers to complete the
  passages.
         Hypertext Flash Cards
• When reading a passage, provide a few hot
  areas that contain extra information for words
  or phrases.
• This can be done with the bookmark features
  in MS Word.
• Teach students how to do it and let them
  create their own Hypertext Flash Cards to
  study. They’ll enjoy it.
      Create Two-column Notes
• Use the word processing table or the spreadsheet
  program to put information in two columns.
• One column contains the words or phrases. The
  other column contains extra definition and usage
  information and examples. In the second column,
  leave the voc words blank, except the first and
  the last letters.
• Print out the notes and fold them for them to
  study.
                Use Mnemonics
• The Solar System: The nine planets in our solar
  system are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
  Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Making up a
  mnemonic phrase is a good way to remember the
  order of the planets, from closest to the Sun to
  furthest away. In a mnemonic phrase, the first letter
  of each word helps you remember a list of things.
• My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas.
• Pluto has been dropped from the list.
         Create an Idea Puzzle
• Use the concept mapping tools.
• Cut out ideas and have students sort out the
  ideas and organize them in groups or
  categories.
Replace Words with Pictures and
  Symbols for Young Readers
 Turn a Reading Passage into Dialogs
• Use your creativity to come up with a scenario
  to turn the reading passage into dialogs.
• Have students practice the dialogs.
Have Students Record Their Own Reading
 • Have students practice to master their own
   reading passage.
 • Use computer and microphone to record
   student’s own reading to a recording program
   or a PowerPoint Slide.
 Learn New Words with Examples
• Learn new words at the sentence levels.
• Provide them with more sentence examples
  and ask them to explain the meaning of the
  sentences.
• Use synonyms and antonyms.
• Teach students to create sentences with newly
  learned words.
       Using Synthetic Speech
• The synthetic speech can allow many different
  voices.
• Some synthetic speech programs will allow
  users to customize the pitch and speed, and
  highlight words as they are read.
• Teachers can prepare a passages for younger
  or ELL students to learn to read.
• The synthetic speech programs can read
  numbers correctly.
         Using Fun Challenges
• If you have a 3 gallon pail and a 4 gallon pail,
  how can you measure the amount of water for
  5 gallons?
• Suppose you have a 3-quart and an 8-quart
  pail, with no markings on either pail. How can
  you use these pails to get exactly 4 quarts of
  water in the largest pail? (Grades 4-6)
• At what time is the sum of the digits on a
  digital clock the greatest? (Grade 3)
          Curious Mind - Why
• Why do mosquitoes buzz in our ears?
• Is my ancestor greater than Christopher
  Columbus who discovered America? Why?
• Are zebras white with black stripes or black
  with white stripes?
• Why something sink and others float in water?
• How did scientists know how hot the sun is if
  they had never been there?
  Games for Factual Information
• Historical figures: Who am I?
• Who want to be a millionaire?
• Jeopardy game
   Teach students to paraphrase
• Read a paragraph and try to express it in one’s
  own words.
• Try to say the same thing using three different
  ways and paragraphs.
    Teach students to summarize
• Read a passage, an article, or a chapter from a
  book, and summarize it.
• Try to write the summary in lesson than 30
  words.
• Try to identify the most important concepts,
  key words, key phrases.
• Teach students to outline.
             Music and Lyrics
• Play music associated with the learning
  content.
• Write lyrics for a popular theme song to help
  students learn and memorize factual
  information, for examples, 50 states, capitals.
              Using Visuals
• Use pictures to explain things or events, for
  example, the prairie, poverty.
• Have students watch and analyze the visuals.
• Hold discussions based on the visuals.
• To provide a quick and efficient overview
  about the learning topics. (How can you cover
  an introduction of continent, landform,
  climate, and natural resources in 5 minutes?)
       Teach Them Procedures
• Demonstrate how math problems are solved.
• Break down the problems.
• Provide steps.
• Reinforce the learning of the logic about the
  steps and sequences.
• Have students think through the steps.
• Provide more meaningful exercise problems.
                  Games
•   BINGO
•   Anagram
•   Scrabbles
•   Round Robin
            Teach Vocabulary
• Teach high frequency words.
• Teach vocabulary in context.
• Teach usages of vocabulary words.
• Engage students in using new words in their
  speaking and writing.
• Use device such as word wall, personal flash
  cards, journal to enhance the learning.
     Using Tools and Resources
• Magazines
• Web sites
• Videos
Find Hidden Pictures