Sponge Activities
Sponge activities are short educational time fillers. They are used when there is not enough time to start a new lesson, but time that students can be doing activities to reinforce what they have learned.
Require no planning
1. Explain why the day's lesson is useful.
2. Brainstorm causes or effects of a current event.
3. Create test questions and answers.
4. Make up a math word problem that might stump their friends, but that they can answer.
5. Create a list of facts and things learned from the past few days.
6. Make connections from one class, or subject, to another.
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Require Some Planning
1. Respond to a brief newspaper article.
2. Put a series of events in chronological order.
3. Brainstorm causes or effects of a current event.
4. Go over test taking strategies.
5. Proofread a paragraph containing many grammatical errors.
6. Find places on a map (might need to get a map. Then, it moves up).
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