Scout Patches
Students create fun, challenging, and silly patches or merit badges, inspired by the ones that Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts might earn through their accomplishments.
Student Projects
Collaboration: class-wide
This Day in History
Throughout the year (or semester), students take turns writing headlines for something that happened on that day, but for any year in the past. These headlines are displayed on the classroom wall.
Good Cop / Bad Cop
This project is for practicing INDIRECT QUESTIONS. Students will act as investigators asking witnesses for information. But some witnesses will only respond to Direct Questions, some only to Indirect Questions, and some only to Commands.
Natural Disasters
This project is for practicing ACTIVE & PASSIVE ADJECTIVES. Students learn about and compare different natural disasters, including what causes them and the effect they have on the world. This project is mostly done as a giant class discussion.
Create a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story
This project is for practicing CONDITIONALS. Create a number of scenarios, each of which leads to two others. When you’ve finished, readers can choose which path they want to take, and by the end their story experience will be different from others.
Crime & Justice
Re-enact a criminal case: craft the situation around a fictional robbery, conduct an investigation, and put on a mock trial. This project works best with multiple classes.
November: the Writing Month
November is National Novel Writing Month, but your students don’t have to write a whole novel all by themselves. Instead, have students write just a chapter or two. Put them all together for a class-written novel!
Put On a Play
Students can learn a lot by putting on a play – not just reciting lines, but making a big production of it, involved in plenty of different aspects of the show.
Customized Apples-to-Apples
Have your students compile all the nouns and adjectives they’ve learned over the past year, then put each on its own card. Play a customized Apples-to-Apples game tailored to your own class’s knowledge, skill level, culture, and interests.
Class Newspaper
Writing for a school newspaper on a monthly basis can encourage students to write about things they’re interested in, can foster collaboration, and can help students practice writing in different styles.