[KatyR]

I have a small group of students who almost always finish activities early! I am looking for activities that they can choose from (from a special tub) to take to their seats and keep them "occupied" while the others finish. Preferably not too labor intensive to make or put together, hee hee. Any ideas?

[Socks]

I haven't solved this problem for Language Arts, but when they finish early in math I let them play Mancala and Blink. I made Mancala out of ice cube trays and the flat marbles people use in their fish bowls. Blink I found in the card games at Target. My kids love it!

[Kerri M]

I bought a book of different grade level appropriate puzzles (dot to dots, mazes, etc - some are la based and some are bath), laminated them, and let the kids choose one dry erase marker and a worsheet to take to their seat. When they finish they clean it off and can choose another. They are all just worksheets, but the kids think they are so cool because they get to use dry erase markers.

[Katyproud]

My kids all have a "Go-to Folder" that contains word searches, hidden pictures, some coloring pages, etc. that they can pull out if they finish an activity early. I gear it towards my higher students, since they are the early finishers but I always include some easier things for the others. I add new things every couple of weeks - sometimes things I copied and didn't have time to use. They love their "Go-to Folders!"

[teach4fun]

I have a drawer for each child (I got them from a teacher's catalog they are blue with 6 colored drawers) I numbered each of them 1-30. Each child has a class number. When they are finished with their work: math, handwriting, some lan. arts and projects or activities: they go to their drawer and take out an activity or worksheet. Some have SRA's, linking cubes with activities to do, squiggle art, story books with questions that go with them that I have made and more. I can individualize the drawers for the child. If one needs more work on short i and I have moved to short o then I can put in some rhyme time work for them. It is agreat assessment tool as well. I love my drawers and the kids think it is "cool" to use them.

[pinkdaisy226]

Katyproud, I have a similar folder for my students... I color code it so it's just known as their Yellow folder, but it's also known as their "what I do when I'm done" folder. It has everything katyproud's folders have... hidden pictures, coloring pages... lots of them are language arts and math related so they're educational as well. Unfortunately I need to copy some more, some of the kids scribble instead of coloring nicely and so they're going through those pages really fast.