Help with new ideas for morning work - 5th grade

[RazzleDazzle]

Anyone have some new worksheets or ideas for quiet morning work for 5th graders? I need something that has them sitting in their seats to do this while eating breakfast in the AM.

Thanks!

[Chef Dave]

Why not incorporate the breakfast into a non-linguistic lesson like a Venn Diagram.

For example, the students are eating French toast sticks and fresh fruit. Draw two overlapping circles on your board. Label one circle, "French toast." Label the other "fresh fruit."

Have the students complete the Venn Diagram. How are these breakfast items alike? How are they different?

To motivate them, you might consider offering a prize such as extra computer time or extra credit to the student with the most correct answers.

[Chef Dave]

Have students write 5 descriptive words about a given breakfast item. Your students will hopefully know that "good" and "bad" are not appropriate descriptive words.

Have them write a quatrain about their breakfast.

French toast,smothered with honey,
Delicious to taste and munch,
Taste of cinnamon, light and sunny,
Dances in my mouth with each crunch.

Have the students write a story. Organize students into groups of 3-4 and give each group a pencil and one sheet of paper. Choose a breakfast item. Begin by writing half a sentence. "The French toast was ..." The first student will complete the sentence and write a subject or predicate. The student will pass the paper on to the 2nd student who will finish the sentence and then write another subject or predicate.

Example:

The French toast ...

was very crunchy. The girl ...

ate it up. She ...

asked for more. The teacher ...

said, "No." The girl ...

was still hungry. The bell ...

rang. Class ...

began ... etc.

Have the students create a list of rhyming for various breakfast items.

toast ... most ... ghost ... boast ... roast

egg ... beg ... Craig ... Greg ... peg ...

jam ... ham ... Sam ... ram ...

Have the students list their breakfast items in alphabetical order.

Have the students list their breakfast items in order of items with the most syllables to items with the least syllables. If there are two or more breakfast items with the same syllable count, these items should be in alphabetical order.

[Boxcar]

You could also try having them make words out of words.

breakfast

fast
break
task
bra
sat

[teacherninja]

Self-selected, sustained silent reading time.

[jsfowler]

There are books titled "Reading in the Content Area". They come in all subjects and grade levels. There are reading passages with comprehension questions after each. I give my students approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, depending on passage. This has really helped our reading scores and the articles are interesting and real-world.

[Boxcar]

You could also do coloring sheets. Some of the older students really enjoy these and find them funny. It is a no-stress way to begin the day.

[busbus]

You might want to do something with the food pyramid. Using a graphic organizer, the students could list the breakfast foods in the correct categories.

You should be able to find some interesting activities for your students on the My Pyramid website:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/

[durangoatemybaby]

I like to give them a beginning sentence and then have them finish it. Get them to use thier imagination. Then during a down time they can share. Example= a long, long time ago there was a dragon named ____ that liked to eat....

[carrieSAtoUSA]

Our school uses the Daily Bite program every morning. It is wonderful. It focuses of different skills - 5 questions based on correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling, math, social studies and science. It doesn't take them that long to do, but it keeps them alert and busy.

http://www.dailybite.com/products.html

[Boxcar]

There is also Hangman with vocabulary words...

[Berrington]

I love "Math 4 Today" activities. You could make copies or put them on the overhead projector. Every page covers most strands for that grade level. Even if a child does not know a particular concept (ie: Geometry), he/she will be exposed to it before you actually teach it. I love using these!

[RazzleDazzle]

thanks for the ideas!

[kjem]

Take a look at my site-there are tons of activity sheets on here. I like to give them activity sheets that have to do with the month we are in (look under Monthly Activities for those). There are also tons of math and writing activity sheets, with more being posted soon.

www.realclassroomideas.com

[llaster]

wow! Dave you are creative!
Lisa

[llaster]

kjem,

thanks! This site is wonderful!

[Brit]

I always try to do my read-aloud during lunch. Eating time seems to be a good time to read to them.

[Boxcar]

I agree that is a good time to read. I do mine just before lunch while the aides are putting the plates on the tables. I also read informally after lunch and at rest time.

[julee]

I also agree with reading... But I LOVE simple crosswords, word finds, or sudokos, which are great for getting their brains going in the morning. We're all sluggish in the AM and those types of brain games can function as children's coffee!

[Boxcar]

What about a few rubic cubes?

[nikimcn]

You could also try having them make words out of words.

breakfast

fast
break
task
bra
sat

good idea!

[ms.jodi]

I put a text twist word on the board each week. I scramble a vocab word and write the letters on the board. Then they work all week during any down time to create as many words as they can like mentioned above.

In the morning, I write up a quick sentence in which I have made ten grammatical errors. The kids copy it while eating breakfast and try to find the ten errors. We correct it together after breakfast by taking turns going up to the board (which also gives some of them a movement opportunity) Recently the routine has gotten a little humdrum so I started making my sentences be a clue to a secret map location. By Friday, they have enough clues to find the location on the map(ie: what continent, longitude, etc) or I'll make the clues about a secret math number (like it's a multiple of this or a facgtor of that) The kids like it.

[BuBerry3]

What wonderful ideas! We just finished our first quarter and I always felt like I was scrambling last minute to decide what to have students do when they first came in the day. Even though it's only 15 minutes or so, I never felt quite as prepared as I wanted, especially since everything else throughout the day is so prepared.

Our first subject of the day is math...do you think our warm-up should always be math?

[granite23]

Having the warm up always be math helps get them ready for math but I like to mix math with grammar. I make up a morning worksheet with half the page grammar and half math. We have reading first so I go over the grammar on the overhead and save the page to go over the math part at the beginning of math. They can work on this during free time if they don't finish first thing in the morning.
Grantie 23

[priyaanka]

You could also try having them make words out of words.

breakfast

fast
break
task
bra
sat

Thank you for posting .....It is wonderful and just what I was looking for. Thank you!