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Educational Filler in Language Arts
Submitted by Maegan Lobo-Berg on 2008-04-06
Yesterday, my class was interrupted to extract 10 of my students for Destination Imagination. Obviously I could not continue with book clubs with almost half my class missing but I wanted the remaining students to get something out of their time with me. So, I adapted a game I call Categories. This game is very flexible to accommodate multiple skills and it involves multiple steps so it is adjustable for different amounts of time. The activity also requires no materials. Step 1: Students copy down the chart below (you can substitute different categories instead of parts of speech). The teacher gives an example and explains that for each letter the student should think of an adjective, noun and verb. If students have extra time they can write more than one word.
| Letter | Adjective | Noun | Verb |
| a | angry | animal | add |
| t | |||
| f | |||
Step 2: Students write the plurals for each singular noun (review answers as a class). Step 3: Students write a sentence for each word. Step 4: Students write one sentence for each row, using all three words. Example: "The angry animal added up the number of enemies he has."