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5-Minute Fillers: Adjectives

Volume 4

Act-Out Adjectives
Builds parts of speech and vocabulary skills

This activity adds a new twist to the traditional game of Charades. Whisper an adjective to a student, or hand that student a slip of paper with an adjective written on it. Have the student act out the adjective without speaking as classmates try to guess the word.
 

Variation: This same activity might also be used to review verbs or nouns.

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt
Builds spelling, observation, and classification skills
 

Pose the following question to students to start a lively discussion, or use is as a prompt for a quick journal-writing activity:

What if you were with a friend who wanted to steal something from a store? What would you do?

Use this activity with individuals or small groups. Assign each student or group a letter of the alphabet. Set a time limit, and challenge students to find as many classroom items as possible that begin with the assigned letter.

Fractions in Action (Percents Too!)
Builds geography and fraction/percent skills

Call on students to close their eyes and spin a world globe. Students use a finger to stop the spinning globe, then write on the board the name(s) of the place(s) to which they pointed. Ask questions about the list of places that can be answered as a fraction. For example, Out of the total number of spins, how many times did someone point to a body of water? a body of land? a spot north of the equator?
 

Variation: Older students might answer using percentages rather than fractions.

PixPuzzles

Picture puzzles such as the ones below are a terrific tool for stimulating students to think critically. Write or draw the following puzzles on a board or chart. Challenge students to study the puzzles to see if the words -- and the way they are written -- give them clues to the common expressions the puzzles illustrate.

1.
ONCE
--------
TIME

2.
calm storm

3.
tune
tune
tune
tune

4.
par
two

Answers: 1. Once upon a time; 2. calm before the storm; 3. fortune; 4. two under par