Hi teachers!
It’s nearing the end of February and March is already next week! Before we get to spring break, there’s plenty of fun holidays and activities that you can celebrate in your secondary ELA classroom.
Reading Bingo Challenge
March is National Reading Month! If your school celebrates Read Across America Day on March 2, you need this resource! Inspire and challenge students to read and complete reading activities outside of their comfort zone. Students choose 5 challenges from the bingo game board horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Optionally, you can have students attempt blackout bingo to really make an impact on their reading game! Some of my students have done this and let me tell you, they love getting competitive.
This resource also includes an editable version so you can customize the challenges for your own class. You can turn this into a full-blown lesson because it also comes with a pre-challenge questionnaire and a post-challenge reflection to get students thinking and discussing during the whole process.
March Madness College Research
The month of March is also time for the NCAA’s March Madness tournament. Many teachers have created their own versions of March Madness in their classrooms. In mine, we do March Madness – college research style!
It’s a fun way to get your students thinking about their future choices in a new way. This resource comes with everything you need to research the colleges participating in the NCAA March Madness tournament OR have students choose which colleges to research. In my classroom, we do the 8-school bracket and focus on two colleges per day. Students fill out the comparison sheets and take the Google form surveys to make their choices. By the end of a week, we have an overall winner!
St. Patrick’s Day Activities
Lastly, we can’t forget about St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. This is perfect time to teach students the limerick poetry form in your secondary ELA classroom. It has a set structure, and limericks can be really fun and silly. I use this Literary Limericks resource to get students to review literary terms before state testing starts. You can use it as a whole class activity, as a partner/group activity, or students can work on it on their own.
St. Patrick’s Day this school year is also on a Friday – which means that students may be a little spring feverish before the weekend hits, especially if this is the last Friday before your spring break! Try this How to Trap a Leprechaun Mad Libs resource or St. Patrick’s Day Figurative Language Mazes. They’re great for early finishers or doing as a whole class review challenge!
Thanks for reading and happy March!
Stacey
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