Customer Reviews

Alternatives to Worksheets: Motivational Reading and Writing Activities Across the Curriculum

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This book contains great ideas to have kids learn through easy and engaging hands-on activities. All the ideas provided are organized in alphabetical order, and for each activity you will find suggestions on how to apply it through different areas across the curriculum. Some of the ideas included are how to make and use: door hangers, flags, journals, pop-up books, puzzles, chains, paper bag activities, shape books, triaramas and quadriaramas (which are beautiful and easy-to-make paper dioramas for reading comprehension, science, etc), mobiles and many more. Some ideas require basic materials like construction paper, envelopes, boxes, paper plates, and other household items. If the activity requires a specific template, the book contains a section of patterns that can be photocopied (like for example the pattern to make cubes, door hangers, pop-up cards, visors, and much more). Most of the activities require no further preparation and most can be done with the every day resources that most teachers keep in their classrooms.

This is a great book for elementary teachers no matter what subject they teach, because most of the ideas can be applied across the curriculum. If you want something innovative for your students, this book will help you give a twist to your lessons and you will definitely use fewer worksheets and obtain better results!

Each page in this book is a potential great idea to be used as is or adapted for the classroom or even at home. Projects include accordion books, cubes, journals, paper bag activities, and patterns. Although some of the ideas are not novel, they are all brought together and packaged in a handy dandy book.

I always refer to this book when I need a new idea or activity to do in class. The activities are simple and can be adapted to virtually any subject. The appendix contains all the templates you need, however most lessons do not require copying. Puzzles, quilts, box activities, journals, mobiles, flags, and recipes are just a sampling of what this book has to offer.

My wife and I have used this (we refer to it as the "yellow book" in our teaching). I'm a 3rd-4th grade teacher and I can say that Alternatives to Worksheets is excellent when you want to get away from the ever-present dittos. The activities are fun and they let you students be as creative as they want to be. I even let my students choose what they want to do from this book and its sequel MORE Alternative to Worksheets. It is excellent for English language learners because they are visually rich and not hard to do projects. Fun, fun, fun. Fun for the teacher too, because it's a break from the same ole'-same ole'!

This set of practical design activities is very helpful, because kids are visual in their learning. You can use an empty cereal box for a 3-D book report. You can assemble a chain out of paper strips end-glued together, and this can be used to illustrate a chain of events, as in a story or science experiment. Enjoy hide and seek? You can have the children construct a series of flip flaps in which the answer is uncovered. Want a series of stacked question-and-answer formats? Try pop-ups. Enjoy bingo? Details are provided on how to make a bingo game as part of a science lesson. Coat hangers can be used to hang drawings of important objects, which are then connected to the bottom of the coat hanger in a logical manner.

There are a number of ready-to-go sheets that can be photocopied and passed out. One of these forms a cube when cut out and pasted. The cube can be used to list six concepts.

This material is listed as K-4. However, with a little imagination, many of these activities can be adapted to higher grades.

Lots of great easy to execute ideas but sadly, no color pictures to inspire..... Still, a great book to have on hand
when you want an interactive project to add some punch to your curriculum.

Also, a great tool to capture your student's attention outside the daily book work. This book allows the students to use their creativity to apply knowledge learned in a fun engaging activity.