Posted by: Bethany
One of the things that I run into as a public school teacher is that I have a room full of kids on various different levels. You have students who are truly gifted and are ready to take off full speed! You have good average students who have been talked to and read to by their parents. They aren’t gifted exactly, but very well rounded. They’ve had lots of experiences, been to lots of places, and have lots of background knowledge. Then you have students who struggle academically. They have a learning disorder or just learn things at a slower pace. And then you have students who have been neglected and haven’t really ever been involved in a conversation with an adult until they entered school. And these students often see their first book in the school setting.
And of course, there are students that fall in between all of these categories or are a combination of any of these!
So anyway, I’m not a sit down and be quiet kinda teacher at all. I like for my students to be able to finish an assignment and move on to something else while others take the time they need to complete it. I like to work in small groups (4 to 6) for the most part of the day which leaves another 18-20 other students NOT in my small group.
Although the things I’m listing as alternative activities for kids is certainly NOT a complete list of what I have them do, it is a few ideas that work well in a home (for homeschoolers or summer learning activities as well as play). So here two ideas using dry-erase markers for some kid activities! And these are also rather inexpensive to create.
1. Build a dry-erase table. This one is not only popular in my classroom but at my house as well. (Sorry, no picture, I left it at school for the summer.) All you do is get a sheet of shower board ($10 at Home Depot) and have some handy guy build you a table with the shower board as the top. You can then use dry-erase markers to actually “write on the table”! It’s tons of fun. This one works well for schoolwork or play!
2. Page protectors!!! As a teacher you can go through tons of paper with worksheets or pre-bought workbooks. But they can only be used once or by one student. I collect sheets that I think will work well for more than one student or that some studnets might need second tries on later and put them in page protectors. Once again, using dry-erase markers these no longer are consumables and can be reused as many times as you like. I sometimes get pre-made workbooks and tear all the pages out and put them in a binder of page protectors (if you get the binders with clear fronts you can even slip the cover into the front of the binder.) You can also do this with mazes or word searches.
Doing an activity with a dry-erase marker somehow makes the activity more fun!
These are some student activities that work for my kids, my students, and it Works for Me.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I love the dry-erase table idea.
July 12th, 2006 at 10:34 am
My daughter is a brand new teacher - just finished her first year teaching third grade. She’s constantly looking for great ideas like this. I’m sending her here.
Congratulations on being a Blogs of Beauty finalist - well deserved!
July 12th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Hey, I found your blog through the Blogs of Beauty Contest. I LOVE this post!!!! I teach preschool age kids, and they would LOVE the dry erase board table!!! I’m going to have to get my dad to build me one!!! Thanks so much for the Idea!!
July 12th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
I am the brand new teacher that Barb was talking about, and came by for a visit. I really enjoyed this post! It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my students love dry erase boards. I was provided with a classroom set, and I went and got all fun colors of markers, and it is amazing how much more on-task they stay during otherwise boring activiites. I love your idea of using page protectors to save on paper. I go through so much of it, I get buried.
Thanks for the great ideas! I will definitely visit again as I get ready to embark on my second year in this adventure!
July 13th, 2006 at 12:17 am
These are great ideas. My daughter is too young for this now (she still eats crayons…doesn’t quite have the drawing/writing thing down yet). I will keep it in mind for future use!
July 13th, 2006 at 7:49 am
I love the dry erase table idea as well. My boys have a train table that my hubby built for them and I’m thinking he could get the shower board cut to fit and just drop it on down on that train table! Thanks for the idea!
August 9th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
[...] You can see bits of four different tables in this picture. This is where we will have small reading groups, listening centers (stories on tape, etc.) and other small group activities. One will be a math table. We also have an art table that is not pictured. Oh yeah, and my dry-erase table is not pictured as well. [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Southern Aluminum in Magnolia, AR makes an all aluminum folding table (in whatever shape or length you need) with a dry erase paint finish! It’s being used in some classrooms in TN. Their phone number is: 1-800-221-0408