ANCHOR ACTIVITIES KATIE JACKLETT EDU NOVEMBER 2010

What is an Anchor Activity? also known as “Sponge Activities” designed for students to work on either immediately at the beginning of class time or after their class work has been completed purpose is to maximize instructional time intended to review or extend learning of the subject matter, not to be busy-work designed for students to complete independently or in small groups tasks should be relevant to the concepts being developed in class

Benefits of an Anchor Activity can be used to differentiate activities on the basis of student readiness, interest or learning profile allow students time to work on independent research, to work more in depth with a concept, enrich their skill development can be used as a management strategy when working with small groups of students can be a vehicle for making the classroom more student centered

Vocabulary - all grades - Students select words from the novel they are currently reading. The novel could be an Accelerated Reader book, a literature circle novel, or a novel the whole class is studying. HOW CAN I DESCRIBE THIS WORD? It’s kind of like a _______________________________________________. It looks like a __________________________________________________. It’s when you __________________________________________________. It’s where you go to ____________________________________________. It smells like __________________________________________________. You use it when you ____________________________________________. Evaluation: I would check spelling, compare words with their novels. I would check creativity and base it on their level of understanding.

“Don't Be Greedy!” Students stand beside their seats, and the teacher rolls a die. Each time a die is rolled, students add the number to the previous total, keeping a running score. Students can sit down at any time during the game, accepting the total at that point as their final score. The game continues until someone rolls a 2. The students still standing lose ALL their points -- because they've been greedy! The seated student(s) with the highest score wins. Evaluation: I would check accuracy in answers. I would make note of those who sat early on in the game to se who might need more work with addition. Math - 1 st thru 5 th grade-

Science - 4 th & 5 th grade – Using your own words, write 10 facts you learned from reading the metric comic. Evaluation: I would compare facts with the comic. I would see what they learned by telling the class the information not just turning it in.

Social Studies - 5 th grade - List the populations of 8-10 countries in order from greatest to smallest. Explain why you think the populations are the way they are. Evaluation: I would check the depth of their explanations and see how well they understand why populations vary in countries. If not, I will know that we need to discuss some real countries and their facts.

Reading - 1 st thru 5 th grade - Rewrite the ending of a book you've read and make it end a different way Evaluation: I would look at spelling but be more interested in enjoying their creativity.

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