Verbs are FUN!!

One day I arrived at The Center and learned that my students had a major trimester test in two days on all they'd learned in Language Arts.  According to them, they needed to learn everything they'd studied all year in both their Language Arts book and their notebooks.  It was frustrating to find out so last minute, but that night and the next day as I rode in trufis (public transportation) to work, I prepared some last minute review games.  Games and fun activities I'd prepared in the past often backfired on me, as the kids couldn't handle the level of excitement and energy the games brought out in them and they ended up acting out and getting out of control.  I wasn't too hopeful this would be any different.

I set up stations in the classroom, planning for my usual 10 students, but only 9 came.  It's amazing the difference 1 student's absence can make in a classroom!  I had four stations: ABCs (yes they are still learning their ABCs in 3rd grade!), Verbs, Pronouns and Adjectives.

sorting words in alphabetical order

The kids played charades with the verbs, wrote out sentences with pronouns using clay, and played hangman with adjectives.

At the verb station, the kids sorted verbs based on their endings (a unique advantage of the Spanish language over English) and then conjugated verbs in the past, present and future using, "yesterday, today, and tomorrow".

Before playing hangman with adjectives, each kid chose a magazine picture and described the picture using as many adjectives as they could think of.

The kids worked so well together in their groups that I almost didn't need to be in the classroom.  That's a first!  It was like a breath of fresh air to have something go right for the first time in the classroom, and to have the kids learn so much to boot!

playing charades with verbs