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1st Grade Cumulative Around the Room Language Arts Review

We recently shared a cumulative math review activity that Heidi made and used with her 2nd grade class. The kids LOVED it! So we made a language arts version for 1st grade. (2nd grade language arts review IS COMING, but I was already in 1st grade mode so it was easier to stay on that wavelength. 1st grade math review is coming too.)

This activity comes in black and white or color. Print whichever you choose and post it around the room. Students can move around with the answer sheet on a clipboard and answer the questions. You could use this as a regular "Scoot" game (especially if you print multiple pages per sheet), but I like to have them around the room for a few reasons.

(This is a picture of Heidi's class doing the 2nd grade math review activity.)

First, walking around for a "quiz" always feels like a treat.  Second, some of the questions take longer to answer than others.  If there's a traffic jam, I can redirect the kids to less crowded areas.  Also, this way I don't have to coordinate lots of seat switching.  I do have to remind them to check the question number before writing their answers, but most of them can do it pretty easily.

So every kid has an answer sheet.  It takes about 40 minutes for them to visit each question.  It helps to have a fast-finisher activity for those little dears that race through it in 20 minutes.  After most of them are finished, I gather up the questions and we go through them one at a time and discuss their answers.  This gives me a way to see where I need to target our remaining language arts review (although, with the spiral review in the Morning Work Book there usually isn't much that needs revisiting).

The 30 questions cover most of the 1st grade language arts core. There are some parts of the core that didn't work in this activity format or didn't get hit, but the biggest pieces are all here.

The set includes 30 common core aligned language arts questions in black and white or color. 

Each question is labeled with the core standard it addresses.  There is a student answer sheet. I also created a 2 page cumulative review skill sheet for students to complete independently.  It's also included in this set! 

In our TpT Store you can download a 4 page sample. Click below to purchase from our TpT shop.

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1st Grade Common Core Homework Add-On Pack

The title of this product is a little confusing. We started with the end! We don't have the first 100 pages of the 1st grade homework finished yet. But we thought it would be helpful to make the planned add-on pack first so it can be used for the end of this school year for homework or test review! We promise, the first 100 pages are coming and will be done in time for the new school year!

These pages are a daily half-sheet with language arts practice on one side and math on the other.  

The pages cycle through 5 language art topics:

Phonics -- identifying vowel sounds, spelling, and sight word practice
Comprehension -- reading and responding, glossary and table of contents practice
Grammar/Language -- proper nouns, plural nouns, pronouns, syllables, verb tense, prepositions, adjectives
Writing -- composition and editing
Vocabulary -- context clues, sorting words, affixes, shades of meaning

And 6 math topics:

Place Value -- number names, tens and ones to 100
Measurement -- length (nonstandard units), time, and money
Problem Solving -- addition and subtraction with all problem types
Graphing -- organizing and interpreting bar graphs and pictographs.
Geometry -- identifying and composing shapes; understanding fractions

Number Sense--greater than/less than, equals/not equals, adding and subtracting 10, finding the unknown in a number sentence

Each page is labeled with the common core standard it supports and an "I can" statement for each topic.

Here are a couple of full page samples. Remember, it's meant to be copied back-to-back and then cut in half.  You should then see day 1 literacy on one side and day 1 math on the back. 

These pages cover all the core standards for 1st grade at an end-of-year level.  That makes them perfect for someone, like me, who doesn't need homework practice but could use some end-of-year test review practice.  The students do a 1/2 sheet every day after lunch.  I have them give the papers to me when they're finished so I can glance over them.  That way I can clarify any lingering misconceptions.

In our Teachers Pay Teachers shop you can download a 6 page sample. 

Click here to purchase the 1st Grade Common Core Homework Add-On Pack.

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about the homework add-on pack.

2nd Grade Cumulative Around the Room Math Review

At the end of my first year of teaching (a ridiculously long time ago!), I was confronted with the ugly fate that all poor teachers face: THE TEST.  Realizing that my kids weren't completely prepared, I grabbed a stack of colored paper from the work room and wrote out some questions for them to work on.  One afternoon I posted them around the room and let the kids get to work.

Two things happened.

1. They LOVED it!
2. I knew where I to focus my review efforts.

I put those hand-written papers in a file and used them for many more April reviews.  Last year I updated things for the common core.  I uploaded the pages to our TPT store, but I forgot to blog about it.  I guess that's a good thing, because now I get to show you the original black and white version (for the color-printer impaired such as myself) and the pretty rainbow version.

Regardless of which one you print, the idea is the same: you put up the questions and the kids walk around and answer them.  You could use this as a regular "Scoot" game (especially if you print multiple pages per sheet), but I like to have them around the room for a few reasons.

First, walking around for math always feels like a treat.  Second, some of the questions take longer to answer than others.  If there's a traffic jam, I can redirect the kids to less crowded areas.  Also, this way I don't have to coordinate lots of seat switching.  I do have to remind them to check the question number before writing their answers, but most of them can do it pretty easily.

So every kid has an answer sheet.  It takes about 40 minutes for them to visit each question.  It helps to have a fast-finisher activity for those little dears that race through it in 20 minutes.  After most of them are finished, I gather up the questions and we go through them one at a time and discuss their answers.  This gives me a way to see where I need to target our remaining math review activities (although, with the spiral review in the Morning Work Book I have to say that there usually isn't much that needs revisiting). 

The 30 questions cover most of the 2nd grade math core.  I didn't include the standard about knowing all math facts to 20, because this isn't the right way to assess that.  There are one or two others that I didn't do as well, but the biggest pieces are all here.  Of course there are lots of different questions relating to understanding and using place value.

Geometry, even and odd, arrays, and fractions also get their turn.  And there are several questions tied to Measurement and Data.

You can get your own math review pages in our store.   The set includes 30 common core aligned math questions in black and white or color.  Each question is labeled with the core standard it addresses.  There is a student answer sheet.

I also created a cumulative review skill sheet for students to complete independently.  It's also included in this set!

In our TPT store you can download a 4-page sample.

(If you already bought this review set at TPT, make sure to download the new version!  There was a font issue with the previous files.  Also I added 5 more questions so you get 30 instead of 25 and labeled them with the core documentation.  And you don't want to miss out on the skill sheet!)

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Testing Review- Easter Eggs

End of year test reviewing can be overwhelming. How can you help the students remember everything you've learned in class all year? Heidi gave me this tip my first year teaching: Make it a fun activity!

Heidi took the questions from the state test review to create this activity. In Utah the test review question website is called Utips. If your state doesn't have test review questions you could write your own based on your state curriculum, in the style of the end of year test.

She formatted the questions into strips of paper that we folded up. We put one question and a piece of candy (Starburst, jelly bean, etc.) into a plastic Easter Egg. We like the ones that have the tops attached so you don't have to spend time looking for the matches.

I've used these eggs for review in a few different ways.

1- Pass out eggs to students. They read the question to themselves and choose the correct answer. Call students back to check their answer. If they picked the correct answer, they can eat their candy. Obviously, if they choose the wrong answer, give them some tips to try again. I always help them until they find the correct answer and get to eat their candy.

After being sure that each of them know the correct answer, I have them quiz each other. I usually have one half of the room stay at their seats while the other half of the room quizzes them. I challenge them to quiz as many people as they can in 3 minutes, for example. Any student who doesn't have somebody asking them a question has their hand in the air to indicate that they are available to be quizzed. It sounds a little chaotic but it's not bad. My students have always loved doing this.

2- Another way I use them is having the students all sit at the carpet. I call them up one at a time to read their question outloud and call on another student to give the answer. After answering a question they get to eat their candy.

I prefer the first method if we have time because every student ends up hearing and attempting to answer most every question. And the student asks their question many times and gets very familiar with the wording and answer. The problem with the second method is that not every student listens to every question. If Billy answers the first question and gets to eat his candy, he's not necessarily going to listen to any of the questions after that.

I filled the eggs up with new questions and more candy every afternoon after school so they were ready to go. I tried to use the eggs for an activity every day for a few weeks if possible.

Normally I don't like to use a lot of candy in my classroom. The reason I feel okay about using it for this is that I don't want the students to have negative feelings about anything to do with the end of year test. So if giving them a little treat when we work on reviewing for the test will make them excited about it, I feel great about that! I always let them suck on a Jolly Rancher during testing too, as something special to look forward to each day.

These are just a couple of ideas for doing test review in your class. We'd love to hear what you do in your classroom to prepare your students for the "big bad test!"