Let there be games....

Today, was the first day back to school for my district. The students were either really on top of things or completely off. Luckily, I get to see my younger students on Mondays. I find that it is easier to, shall we say, trick them into doing their work than my older groups. 

My solution to the Spring break blues......Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat I can do that! Game. I picked it up over the break for $3. It was only missing the ball, which I replaced with a yellow stress ball. 

It's a great game for following directions at the kindergarten/first grade level. Students are extremely motivated by the various objects and it keeps them moving. They hopped, spun, skipped, crawled, and walked backwards without any complaints. The only complainer was me. While I love this game, the "trick-a-ma-stick" is a royal pain in the rear. It looks so perfect in the picture but I could not get the thing to stand up straight. It also falls over if you breathe on it wrong. Oh well, nothing in life is perfect. 

I also introduced my students to Uno Moo. I've had this game since it was put on sale (half price) at Walmart for Christmas. It's lived in the speech closet ever since. I finally pulled it out and played it with my students as well. The game play is very quick and it seems to be a hit with the first grade crew. (Heck, I had 4th graders playing with it and laughing.) My favorite thing is that it teaches turn-taking and similarities without the demands of the higher level Uno games. 

Finally, I am 2 likes away from having 300 likes on facebook. I don't want to keep everyone waiting until 300 (although it would be great to reach that number) so I'm going to go ahead and post the freebie. It took me two weeks to create this so I hope it will be useful for at least one person out there....

Here is Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down- Social Skills All Around. You can grab your copy here. If you love this clip art as much as I do, you may want to check out Miss Speechie's Star Speech fluency/pragmatics activity.