Blasting Back to School Blog Hop and Giveaway from thelessondeli
Are you ready for Back to School? I’m joining several other upper grade teachers to help you get ready for the next school year, and to give away some AWESOME prizes! You’ll have the opportunity to win something different on each blog in our group, so make sure that you visit the next blog in the blog hop at the bottom of this page. To enter to win the HUGE gift certificate to Teachers Pay Teachers, visit our group blog, Lesson Delicatessen. Make sure you hop through all the blogs to read all the great back to school tips and be entered to win over 20 different prizes!
UPDATE–Congratulations Cora B.! You’ve won The Pensive Sloth’s Rafflecopter giveaway. You should have received an email with instructions on claiming your prize. Thanks to all who entered and hopped along. Have a great beginning of the year!
School is just around the corner and in no time at all there will be 25 nervous, smiling, excited little people sitting in front of you. Put some STEM into your first week back by having your upper elementary students engage in LITERAL team building. Here’s how it works.
Put students in groups of 2-4 and give each group a stack of index cards. You can start with 30 per group, but have many more available just in case! Their goal is to work together to build a structure that is 10 inches tall using ONLY the index cards. No tape or glue! The catch is, on each card students must write something that their group has in common. You can add additional rules based on your class. I love watching how as students want more cards to build with, they work hard to find creative things they have in common (even if it is that they all breathe oxygen).
Back to School STEM Fun–Literal Team Building!
Before you start, I suggest making a chart of how to find things students have in common. It seems like a simple idea, but sometimes our kiddos need encouragement. Ideas include things you like, things you hate, places you’ve been, things you have done, family, pets, travel, games, sports, music, movies, etc. The list could go on forever…
Thanks for stopping by.
–The Pensive Sloth
Enter The Pensive Sloth’s Rafflecopter giveaway by clicking the Rafflecopter link below. I’m giving away $10 winner’s choice from my TPT store and a $20 gift card to Oriental Trading. There are 4 ways to win. Good luck!
Then…hop on over to Rockin’ Resources for more back to school ideas and a chance to win some writing resources!
And don’t forget to visit The Lesson Delicatessen for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Teachers Pay Teachers!
THE PENSIVE SLOTH’S GIVEAWAY TERMS AND CONDITIONS–This giveaway runs August 4-10, 2014 and includes up to $10 of products from The Pensive Sloth’s TPT page and a $20 e-gift certificate from Oriental Trading. Once a winner is chosen at random through Rafflecopter, the winner will have 24 hours to claim his/her prize. If the winner does not claim the prize within 24 hours, I will spin again and contact the next person. Please feel free to contact me at pensivesloth@gmail.com if you have questions. Good luck!
The Pensive Sloth 
I love that STEM challenge idea. Perfect first week group challenge. One of my favourite back to school activities is giving kids moustaches on sticks and having them ask each other get to know you questions. “I ‘moustache’ you…” I got it from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/I-MustacheClassroom-Icebreakers-Back-to-School-Activities-791248
Very cool! I can hear the giggling now… My kids would LOVE this. Great way to put a twist on kids interviewing each other.
I love your STEM idea! This combines communication, teamwork, and Science….perfection! On the first day of school, my students are given an IPOD template and are required to create a playlist that connect with various aspects of themselves. They don’t choose a song because they’d simply like it, it has to connect to so e aspect of themselves. For example, Umbrella could represent how they are a good friend to others.
Thanks! I bet your students have lots of fun with the IPOD activity. Thanks for sharing!
We used this activity on our parents’ night a few years ago to get all of the parents to interact and meet each other! I wish I had added the writing portion.
Very cool! I never thought about having parents do this, but could see it being very interactive!
I love this! Going to try with my 5 th grade. Thanks
Woohoo! I hope they have lots of fun getting to know each other!
Love love love this! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! It’s a twist on an old favorite. 🙂
This is a great first day activity to get kids talking and working together. I love that it’s different than the usual get to know you activities!
I love seeing the different ways the kiddos build the towers. Lots of problem solving!
Great idea! Thanks for sharing.
You are welcome! Have a great beginning of the year!
Love the quiz idea for the first day of school. We do that often and the students really enjoy it!
It’s lots of fun, for sure and the kids like to know their teachers are human!
I love this idea! I’ve done a similar quiz activity before–the kids really get into it and they will remember those little facts all year!
They certainly will! I still remember the times in elementary when my teachers let us get to know them a little. I had a 6th grade science teacher who used to play Garth Brooks songs on his guitar and sing for us on party days and my 3rd grade teacher had scorpions in her apartment. Ahhh…memories!
What a great activity! I hope to use it this year.
Thanks! If you do, stop back in and let me know how it goes!
I will use the index card activity when we go to school next week. Thanks
I hope your kiddos enjoy it. 🙂
Definitely want to use the index card team-building activity. I can picture a little frustration until they realize how to work together to find things in common. Thank you for the idea!