Silly NIllies and Dr. Dooriddles

This is a picture I use when I am introducing Silly Nillies to students. Silly Nillies are two-word definitions for phrases. The words must rhyme and have the same number of syllables. My clue is "an overweight feline." Students eagerly respond, "fat cat!" Thy just love to solve these! After practicing a few more, I ask students to create their own.

Dr. DooRiddles is a fun way to develop students' fluency and flexibility with word meaning and associations as it improves their spelling, vocabulary, reading and problem solving skills. Students carefully read through clues in each riddle, analyzing connections within and between clues to figure out what is being described. There are books appropriate for every grade level. Here is an example:

My stream is the one that
Conformers stay in
The hair on a lion that is
Not on his chin
What am I?

These activites can be done whole class, small group, or individually. They make great anchor activities as well.

Free Rice!

You know those Internet newsletters you subscribe to, but never have time to read? Well, I don't know what got into me last week, but I actually got around to reading Pieces of Learning, and I hit pay dirt with their recommendation of freerice.com.

This site is a great vocabulary builder , and for each question you answer correctly sponsors of the site donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations to help end world hunger. It is both educational and socially commendable! For younger students, you can use this site to help teach dictionary skills. For older students, you can do what I did and connect the site throughout the curriculum. I asked the HAL students to find out how many grains are in a pound! Talk about some challenging math!

This is a great anchor activitiy for students to do when they've completed work early.