Baseball Fun and Learning!

I'm so excited that baseball season is finally here! Baseball means spring! 

 

After a tough winter, anything that means spring is OK by me! 

 

I've been doing a lot of baseball reading this week, in honor of the opening of baseball season. Here are some favorites: 

 

                                                     

Baseball and April bring another opportunity: It's National Poetry Month! What a great opportunity to write Diamantes!

Why Diamantes?  Because they are shaped like diamonds! (Get it? baseball diamonds?)

To add to the fun, I've found a great website where the kids can make their own diamantes online! (HERE!) 

Or check out this resource, with plenty of examples and options!

Speaking of shapes... a baseball diamond could be called a square or a rhombus, but did you realize home plate is shaped like a pentagon?

Have you noticed, when we connect learning to sports, all those little boys perk up?  (Many of the little girls do, too!)

I have a resource I'm VERY excited about called Baseball Geography! 

These are all task cards based on the locations of major league baseball teams! I had such a blast putting this together, and so far my students can't get enough! Plus, they're really getting to know the locations on the US maps!

Here are a couple of other baseball-themed games I've got:

Baseball Antonyms combines a couple of popular games with antonym practice. 

Plus, I have a couple of BINGO games with a baseball theme:

Home Run Two Digit Addition gives the children practice adding 2 two-digit numbers, along with a little strategy. 

 

Home Run Two Syllable Words is a similar BINGO game, but this one gives the children practice reading two-syllable words. 

The students LOVE these BINGO games! 

Come to think of it, they love anytime I combine learning with sports!

How do you include sports in the learning process?

A Fun Way to Review Basic Information

If you're not familiar with the game of Scoot, it's time you learned! It can be played with any type of task card that would have a quick answer.  (There are other awesome types of task cards for skills that require more time and thinking, but that's not what Scoot is about!)  

Brain research suggests that including movement will help the brain function more efficiently. Scoot has the children moving from place to place, which not only gets the brain going, but it makes the whole thing more fun for the kids! Individual cards are placed throughout the classroom, and the children move from spot to spot, performing the task, recording the answer on their answer sheet, then moving onto the next card in the next part of the room when the teacher calls "Scoot"! After much scooting, the children return to their starting spot.

For more about how Scoot works, see THIS BLOG POST.

I've used these with small groups and large groups. Sometimes you can take a few cards, have a handful of kids scoot through those, and save the rest of the cards in the series for another day.

The kids love Scoot! It's a great way to add fun to a review that can be rather mundane, like parts of speech or vowel sounds.  Yet, these things need to be practiced so these skills are strengthened.

A couple of years ago, I spent some time making several sets of Task Cards that are perfect for Scoot playing. I've spent the last couple of days updating these sets.

First of all, there's my forever freebie, in honor of a young man we lost a couple of years ago. See THIS BLOG POST for more information about why this is a forever freebie.

Social Studies Review: Scoot or Task Cards is a collection of questions on mapping and general Social Studies knowledge.  It can be played as a Scoot game, or just individual task cards. I made it to review end of the year second grade skills, but have heard that it's great review for older children as well!  See the image below to download this freebie.

Another product in this series, Vocabulary Review: Scoot or Task Cards gives the children vocabulary practice and review with prefixes, suffixes, antonyms and synonyms. (See image for link.)

 

 

Mathematics Review: Scoot orTask Cards reviews time, money, place value, measurement, story problems and fact families. (See image for link.)

Language Review: Scoot or Task Cards practices parts of speech:  nouns, proper nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. (See image for link.)

Phonics Review: Scoot or Task Cards practice vowel sounds: short vowels, long vowels, r-controlled vowels, and vowel teams. (See image for link.)

Science Review: Scoot or Task Cards reviews all sorts of beginning science concepts: five senses, basic biology, chemistry, astronomy, plants, and weather.

Plus, I have a set that bundles all 6 sets!  Combined Review- Word Work, Math, Science and Social Studies: Scoot or Task Cards gives you weeks worth of review activities for all subjects! This is a fun way to spend those last few weeks when the children just can't sit still and have lost their attention spans, or a great way to start the year, making sure they have the background knowledge they need.

But there's even more good news: All these items are available digitally with Boom Learning!

 These are perfect for end of the year review, summer practice, or back to school reviewing basic concepts. They're appropriate for grades 2, 3, or 4!