Need Activity/book Ideas for Elementary Aged Group for Today

What about the one by dr Seuss. It's something about mcelligot's pool or something like that. It's about fish. It has been a while; however, I seem to remember there being a catfish with a cat face... Stuff like that. They could use their imaginations to create a fish from the story or come up with one of their own.

Just my opinion; however, some of the suggestions seem a bit young for the kids you describe. I say that only as a 1st grade teacher who uses these books with them. They are good books though.

I apologize for my typing and spelling. I am in a Huge rush and can't really edit. Have fun!

What about "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo?

I LOVE this book and never mind reading over and over.

Although it's generally geared towards grades 3-5, my son's first grade teacher read it to the class at the end of the year. The kids loved it.

If you are not familiar with it, you can look it up on-line to learn more about the story line.

After you read a chapter or two, you could have the children make illustrations of the story so far. By the time you get done, the group will have illustrated the whole book!

There is a little bit of sadness to the book, but it is overall a lovely and heartwarming book. ETA: The kids in my son's class all handled the themes without any problem, but if you have a really sensitive child in the group, you might want to check with the parents or make another selection.

If you don't use this book, you could just do the illustrating thing with any other story you choose.

Hope this helps!

J. F.

ok for an activity to keep them quiet, I'm thinking Ziploc bags with hairgel in it zipped up and sealed with packing tape or ducktape . Sort of ends up being a little like an etch a sketch, magnadoodle thing. you can color the gel too.

Icecubes/ice pops on a stick with food coloring or icecubes made from tempra paint and give them paper, and they hold the stick and paint with the ice as it melts.

pre cut 5 tons of shaped and let them make a collage from cicles and triangles. Our VBS classes all ages 4 yos-5th graders loved taking a square of contact paper taping it so the sticky side was up and just placing on a majillion squares of tissue paper. if you cover all the sticky with tissue paper it makes a suncather kind of thing.

for books

Parts by Ted Arnold and More Parts is about a boy misunderstanding grown ups idioms like my heart is breaking he takes it literally. You could scan or xerox the main character and make a die and the kids have to build the character they can roll a head, and then roll the die till the arm show and then a leg etc.

John LIthgow has a book and CD my kids LOVE called " The run away pancake", it's a play similar to the gingerbread man, AWESOME!!!

Just about any books by Kevin Henke (s?) are really really good,
Chrysanthum about being different, Julius baby of the world, Owen about loveys, Shelia Rae, Tons more all about social type issues.

I second the GIve a Mouse a Cookie book from laura Numeroff

What about Eric Carle and give them finger paints, there are lots of homemade finger paint recipies. I lilke the GRouchy Lady bug the best.

Any of the Classic Fairy tales like Red Riding Hood Cinderella etc, Paul Gauldone or somethign like that has re told them, and there is another author too with real cartoomy looking characters and good simple story. I bet the kids would love to retell those.

Oh I read Owl babies by Martin Wadell- There is a refrain that the little-est owls says I want my mommy, sooo cute.

and My very very veyr veyr very fav author team is Don and Audrey Wood, LOVE!!! King Bidgood is in the Bath(tub) and he won't get out, the refrain is: Oh who knows what to do??? they also wrote the Napping House and THE LIttle MOuse and the BIg REd RIPE STRAWBERRY Kids go crazy for that one. you could serve strawberries or scent it the playdough with strawberry koolaide if you make homemade playdough, don't know it thtat would work on name brand. taste test some strawberries yumm-o!

If you are going to be doing this for a while Vivian Paley wrote a great book about a year she spent getting preschoolers I think, to create stories to act out and how much they learned from doing it. Fascinating.

There is also like a teacher book called Story STretchers that gives a popular chldren's book and gives art and movement activites to go with it.

as for children's Chapterbooks:
Junie B is fun to read aloud, but bad grammar bugs me,
Magic Tree house is suspense ful, but kindergarteners don't love listening to it in a group settting in my experience
Calendar mysteries by Ron Roy are ok but again i don't love reading them to groups.

Likes seem to love Puppy Place books by Ellen Miles
Roal Dahl is good --Charlie and the chocolate factory, Mathida, James and the Giant peach

Little house on the praire is good, Charlottes web is good but for a bit older, the language is sooo flowery, Wizard of Oz peter Pan, the indian in the cupboard (language)

I did an afterschool program and they loved Wayside school is falling Down by louis Sacher (sp) a bit of potty humor isn't the word but weird amusement

The judy blume books LIke Super Fudge and Tales of a fourth grade nothing, one of them ruined Santa for my firstgrader so be aware of that. the teacher had skippped that chapter but he loved the bools so much he got them from the library himself and read them.

I've got lots more in my head but i think that should get you started, If you want to bounce any more ideas please pm me, I' guess children's lit is a bit of a passion for me.

oh have you ever brough in a random box of objects and had them make up a story as they pull one object of a time out of the box. that's fun!

and while i know you mentioned 2nd- 4th, what age are you actually working with??? Mo willems seems young for them? oh duh, I can't read, you said mixed age. got it.

have fun!!

Are you up for a chapter of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle? The kids would be hysterical with the 'problem' kids' voices.

Also-- have they worked with Bendaroos? Those wax strips... those are fun. Or, offer a bunch of different sorts of paper, scissors and buy a roll of clear contact paper-- let them do some collage work while you read.

What an age range.

What about:
SkippyJon Jones books
Miss Nelson books
"A Rainbow of My Own"
Berenstain Bears
Little Bear books
The Sisters Grimm book series (but young ones might get scared. But its a great chapter book series. New York Times bestseller).

Or read them, poem books. It lends itself to LOTS of vocal and facial expressions.

Or go to the Scholastic website for more ideas:
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/play/
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/

More Mo WIllems - have you seen the Elephant and Piggy books? The are great for exactly what you are doing.

As far as activity books, how about books of mazes? They typically have them for various abilities.

And for a completely different idea, how about some plastic animals. Then have the kids spend 15-20 minutes writing a story for the animals and then another 20 drawing pictures to go with the story. If you can you could even type the story into the computer and print out copies of the stories for the kids to attach to their pictures. With a little more prep - work you could precut paper to half a sheet size, and then print the story on one half the page and paste the picture on the other half...

Good luck...

The Baby BeeBee Bird, by Daine Redfield Massie. It's a picture book, but it's silly and the kids can really get into it. You'll probably hear it repeated to you all day. It takes place in a zoo. A baby bird keeps the animals from sleeping, and they return the favor.

So fun!

Okay, good series for this age group are plentiful! Magic Tree House are awesome b/c they are history/fact based but still have a fun story and LOTS of imagination! Junie B. Jones is also cute and funny, and popular especially among the girls. Boxcar Children and Calendar Club Mysteries (I think that's what they are called...something with a calendar and mystery) are also cute.
Captain Underpants is really hilarious as well and boys love it!

Picture books...well things like A Bad Case of Stripes, Hooway for Wodney Way (one of my personal favorites), and the Pinkalicious series are all good for sparking discussions and you could easily do some self esteem activities with those.

The If You Give A ___ A____ books are also super fun and all kids love them! You can do tons of activities surrounding those as well like snacks/cooking, sequencing, cause/effect, and it would be fun to pick an animal and write a story of their own in the same fashion.

It's more my style to read aloud a book and then do follow up discussion, questions, activities, so that's what I would do.

My kids love the book "Bad Kitty" that we checked out from the library. It is all about a kitty who doesn't like certain food and acts out. Then the family he lives with goes to the store and he turns into a really nice kitty because he loves the food they bought. I had the kids open our refrigerator door and name all the foods in there, or go through the alphabet (because it's an alphabetical book) and think up food for each letter. They also drew their answers.

That's all I got for now. Good luck!