activities/worksheets for supervising classes

seanjmanning

Hi all,
Anyone have any ideas/websites/activities to use when supervising free classes?
Thanks,
Sean.

niall3r

Tell them to sit downbe quiet and do their own work. Then tell them if they are making noises, looking around or not doing anything you'll take it as an invitation for extra work.

Either give school rules (usually in the school journals.)

or

Interesting essays i.e. Why I like the C block more than the B block. Why x/y or z is my favorits subject. etc etc.

Chilli Con Kearney

I'm not really sure about giving pointless essays like these. Or lines or rules. These, to me, represent pure punishment and the pupils will gain nothing from them. If you are handing out punishment work, perhaps do so with work that is relevant to that class, e.g. verbs/comprehension passages/lab reports. I think that by handing out pointless work you begin to damage the relationship between student and pupil needlessly.

I picked up some activity books in a €2 shop with word puzzles, crosswords, etc. You'd be surprised how into these the students can get, even sixth years! (Males obviously!!).

StargazerLily

They should have study or homework to do but if they don't or don't have books etc why not try a few Suduko puzzles? Photocopy whatever ones are in the paper that day or get a book of them with easy and hard puzzles.

It will challenge them, hopefully keep them engrossed/ quiet for 40 mins and it at least will give them practise at problem solving /numerical puzzles.

niall3r

yes. . .because punishment dampens a students emotional wellbeing and should never be given.

By the way, giving essays gives them practice that is applicable to alot of subject in the curriculum

clartharlear

If it was first class on a Monday morning, or the students had a bunch of free classes due to several teachers being absent, they might not have any homework to do. Some students wouldn't be terribly motivated to do "their own work" anyway. If you can't teach anything relevant to the subject at hand, then I second Fidge. I picked up a few quiz books from second hand shops - I bought a Who Wants to be a Millionaire book for 50c that got me through more than one day of subbing!

Imagine a bug has knocked out a few teachers and a lively, energetic class of fifth years has had 4 "study periods" in a row. They'd be climbing the walls and "Tell them to sit downbe quiet and do their own work." is fanning the flames of youth in the wrong way.

Miss Lockhart

Many schools (my own included) frown on leaving students to do their own work during "free classes". We are supposed to either move on with the subject if possible or do some form of new work or activity with them.

Thankfully we have a great selection of resources and photocopied worksheets available. Also, teachers must leave work for all their classes in case of absence.

Is this primary or secondary?

pjtb

Fidge9 wrote: »

I'm not really sure about giving pointless essays like these. Or lines or rules. These, to me, represent pure punishment and the pupils will gain nothing from them. If you are handing out punishment work, perhaps do so with work that is relevant to that class, e.g. verbs/comprehension passages/lab reports. I think that by handing out pointless work you begin to damage the relationship between student and pupil needlessly.

I picked up some activity books in a €2 shop with word puzzles, crosswords, etc. You'd be surprised how into these the students can get, even sixth years! (Males obviously!!).

You should NEVER give work related to a subject as punishment! No wonder so many students hate school/their subjects. They'll associate this subject/work with punishment, and therefore gain nothing from it. Work should be done for learning, not anything else.

clartharlear

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

Many schools (my own included) frown on leaving students to do their own work during "free classes". We are supposed to either move on with the subject if possible or do some form of new work or activity with them.

Thankfully we have a great selection of resources and photocopied worksheets available. Also, teachers must leave work for all their classes in case of absence.

I think this is a great idea and I don't know why all schools don't implement this policy. But it is something that MUST be done on a school-wide level - students have to know the sub teacher is going to be teaching them. If some teachers let them do their own work or whatever in 'free classes', then the sub (especially if s/he is in an unfamiliar school) has no chance of leading a lesson.

eager tortoise

Definitely I think kids always react badly to being treated as if they have done something wrong when they have not - it's a natural reaction and so I would avoid giving them something mindless to write about or copy.

It depends on the school i think, if the students can be left to do their own work; for example, in the school I was in last year the majority of students at senior level were very academic and would genuinely use the opportunity of a free class to find something to revise. Obviously this will not be the case in all schools, or at all levels.

I take it from the OP that we are talking about situations where you are asked to take a class with little time beforehand to get anything together? In this instance I think quizzes are excellent, as mentioned already in the thread and making it a table quiz is even better because there's no shouting out of answers (until the madness at the end when ur correcting them ) Another thing that has worked well for me is dividing the class into groups and having them write their own quiz questions (say 10 questions per group), the only rule being that the group itself must know the answers. Then you have groups quiz each other in turn while you keep score on the board. (This works better with smaller classes)

There are also games like blockbusters, countdown etc. Or depending on the class you could let them debate a topic of interest to them. Sometimes kids get surprisingly into things like that.

A teacher I knew a few years back said that her tried and tested with first and second yrs was to write a long word on the board, divide the class into groups and see who could get the most words from the letters. Tried it myself once expecting it to be a total flop and it lasted almost the entire class

boogle

Some great ideas here. Supervising classes can be a real battle. Did about 6 hours per week last year supervising and I agree that having puzzles and the odd quiz prepared is a brilliant idea. Another thing I did (usually with 1st or 2nd years) was to bring a box of art supplies and get the pupils into droups and make a "Welcome Back" card or poster for their teacher if they were out sick for a few days.

clartharlear

boogle wrote: »

Another thing I did (usually with 1st or 2nd years) was to bring a box of art supplies and get the pupils into droups and make a "Welcome Back" card or poster for their teacher if they were out sick for a few days.

Seriously? That is so cute that I can't believe it's Ireland.

Toto Wolfcastle

clartharlear wrote: »

Seriously? That is so cute that I can't believe it's Ireland.

So true.

If I brought art supplies into my classes to make cards they'd draw penises (peni?) all over the place!

boogle

janeybabe wrote: »

So true.

If I brought art supplies into my classes to make cards they'd draw penises (peni?) all over the place!

Ah yeah, some of them don't do a proper job on it at all but at least drawing penises keeps them busy.:D This has happened a few times in my classes and I told the offending boys that their drawings were not anatomically correct, gave them a science book and told them to draw a correct diagram of a penis so they would know what they were doing for next time. They ended up so embarassed that they didn't try it again with me.

implausible

Home-made cloze tests are great. Photocopy/print off a page from a novel, remove some words (could be the verbs, adjectives, whatever) and put them at the bottom (or don't). You can do it with a textbook for different subjects if you want to be subject specific. it'll take them longer if you make them write out the filled in version, or it'd do as a punishment for messers either.

UpseyDaisy09

I second fidge9's idea of activity books, crosswords, word searches etc the internet is a valuable tool eg can make up wordsearches using subject words!
Good luck!