Assignments for Extended Breaks

Hello All!

I hope this finds all of you happy, healthy, and carrying on as usual.  Unfortunately, considering the state of world health and the prevalence of the COVID-19 virus, the latest announcements from WHO and the CDC, and how these things are affecting schools and teaching the world over, “usual” and “normal” are not the case for many of us though.

With this in mind, I wanted to share a list of resources that can be put together and sent home for independent student work with little or no preparation.  With more and more schools closing every day and teachers being asked to put together work for students to do while out for extended periods of time, I hope this might be of some help.  Please feel free to share this list and/or add additional ideas and resources in the comments section below.

Unless otherwise noted, all of these activities and projects can be done without Internet access.

Grammar

Sentence Diagramming Made Simple

This full unit will walk students through sentence diagramming from the simplest simple subject/simple predicate structure all the way through clauses and verbals.

 

Writing

Daily Writing:  An Eight-Week Project

Originally designed as an independent summer writing project, this provides simple daily writing prompts for eight weeks and covers writing styles from persuasive and creative writing to self-reflective journaling and poetry response.  This can easily be done in part or in its entirety.

 

Independent Reading Projects

Independent Reading Project

Also originally designed as a summer project, this project works very well any time.  Students are asked to read a book from the list of fifteen titles and complete a three-part project on that novel.  Though novels are divided by grade, there is no reason that these age suggestions must be used or that other titles cannot be added as you see fit.

 

Short Stories

Six Story O. Henry Product Bundle Plus Author Study Activity

This bundle includes text and activities for six different O. Henry stories.  Each of these can be easily done independently or with partners over the phone.  ***The included author study activity does require use of the Internet.***

 

Poetry

Poetry Response Form—FREE!

This is an easy four-question poetry response form for use with any poem.  You could easily assign this by:

• asking students to find one poem a day that they like,
• using one of the many “poem of the day” sites on the Internet,
• making use of the poems included in your students’ literature books,
• looking at a collection on Teachers Pay Teachers like my Great Black American Poets Pack,
• having students respond to their favorite songs,
• and so on!

 

Review

Student-Created Board Games

Have students pick a topic that they have already studied this year and create a review game on it.  When you return to school, these can be shared and used for end-of-the-year review!

 

Religion/Catholic Faith

Rosary Reflections Bundle

Have students (or you) reflect on and practice their prayer life by saying and reflecting on the Mysteries of the Rosary. This pack includes a worksheet for each of the Mysteries (twenty worksheets in all) as well as twelve extension activities.

 

Novels

These novel bundles will take a bit more prep on your part but are not hard to convert to independent studies. Discussion questions can easily become journal prompts, reading quizzes can be done as students read, and activities can be done independently or with partners over the phone or services like Skype.

Novel Bundles for the Following Titles:

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

 

As a side note, about a year ago I wrote a post on dealing with the number of missed school days we had last winter.  Not all the ideas are directly applicable or are but need some tweaking, but I thought I would share the link to that too:

Snow Day Headaches…And What to Do About Them

 

Good luck everyone, and again, don’t hesitate to share ideas and resources in the comments section below!

Teach On!

Rebecca