Classroom Activities

These are some of the activities I organize with the students each year.

Student Government

The student government represents the three branches of the U.S. government: Executive (Student Council), Legislative (Class Representatives), and Judicial (Judges for contests). The fourth estate is represented by the editors of the school newsletter. The student council organizes school wide events 4 times in the year. The class representatives meet with their classes and interview a group of students each month for an article to be submitted to the school newsletter. The judges develop a rubric to judge contests that are part of the events organized by the student council.

  • The events include: A Winter Festival, Valentine's Ball, Spring Festival, Talent Show

  • The student council conducts fund raisers for the events by creating posters, writing letters to parents, and/or selling items made by them. A popular fund raiser is a candy gram prior to the Valentine's Ball.

  • The newsletters are printed at the end of each month and include articles from the students, their reports from interviews with students of other classes, and interview with a teacher. The interviewers generate their own questions and write the reports. The student articles can include stories they have written, research reports they have created, or articles based on any topic of their choice.

  • Each event has a contest in it for the judges to judge.

Science Fair

Students choose a science experiment that they want to demonstrate. They prepare the presentation materials, organize the materials, and present their experiment to the visiting audience.

Theater

Each year, students write skits in small groups to perform in front of the whole school. They begin by writing a story line and then create dialogue, scenes, and sets. They present their skit at the end of the year.

Fractions Party

After studying the unit on fractions, the students work in teams to reinterpret recipes for banana bread, lemonade, and fruit salad. The recipes are written with equivalent fractions. Students have to simplify the fractions to find the true measurements. Then, the students make all three items and eat their creations as a celebration.

Bill of Rights

Students study the Bill of Rights and create skits to represent each right in terms of a real life situation.

3 Types of Communities

Students create a 3-D model of a type of community (Rural, Urban, Suburban) and present their findings of what someone would find in that community.