What are some of your favorite sponge activities? Do you have any vocabulary building sponge activities? I want my students to become more self-directed next year about choosing their own stuff to do when they finish early.
Here are some of the things I do now:
1. Brainteasers: A large plastic filing crate with a variety of sudoku and logic puzzle-type worksheets
2. Current events: A binder with recent news stories pertaining to my subject (Latin)
3. Children's stories in the target language: One of my bookshelves is full of stories like The Cat in the Hat and The Giving Tree in Latin.
4. Coloring pages: A large plastic filing crate with a variety of blank coloring pages pertaining to mythological characters or famous Romans
My students are high schoolers with very short attention spans and the urge to talk constantly. I'd like them to work on something which will help boost their brain power and their Latin skills.
When I use the term, I'm talking about short, self-contained activities to "soak up" any extra time we might have... two minutes here, five minutes there.
Students are allowed to use student computers to work on skills reinforcement, read Scholastic Math magazines, or read from the class library. It is not often that they have any extra time because we never seem to have enough to complete the activities planned. We have 60 min. class periods and it is difficult to introduce a new concept, have students "discover" and process their discovery all in one class period. Especially if there is also homework from the previous day to discuss.
