Language Arts & Time Fillers

QUARTER TO THREE
reproducibles ...$15.00
There's not a teacher alive who doesn't feel the need to throw a drop cloth over the entire class as the last fifteen minutes of the day approach.  Just about as bad is that time when several students have finished an assignment and you are waiting for the ones who work slower than the gray mold on your shower curtain to finish their assignments.  Those who are done are left with nothing better to do than plan an invasion of Sumatra or to fritter away time nibbling on the thermostat.  To alleviate this madness, you can hand them something from Quarter to Three.  These are assignments that cross all content areas, require a reading vocabulary of about the 4th grade, and take from 10 to 25 minutes to complete.  Everything you and they will need are included.  There are assignments in English, geography, history, math and reading.  Each assignment is pretty self-explanatory and doesn't require that they know much of anything other than what they are told in each assignment.  Quarter to Three assignments will keep them busy and out of your face while you explain to Marvella Louise why it is virtually impossible to use adverbs in division problems.

* Sample Page 1                                           * Sample Page 2

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO?   reproducibles ...$13.00
Every single day thousands of teachers all over the United States, Sumatra, and the Azores approach students who are removing the centers of their desks or who are putting the pockets of their leather jackets into the most delicate and irreplaceable parts of the computer.  When asked why they are doing these things, they reply, "I don't have anything to do."  These materials are a solution. The main thrust is in the area of language arts, which includes commas, quotation marks, sentence writing and many other aspects of English.  The nice part about the materials is, the students don't have to know much about anything in order to complete them.  Instructions and examples are included with every assignment.  Even if your students think quotation marks, for example, are paired blackheads, they'll get the drift as to how to use quotations correctly.  What is learned in one lesson is reinforced in other lessons.  You can use these assignments as time fillers or you can use them as supplemental materials for English or reading. 

* Sample Page 1                                         * Sample Page 2

WHAT COMES AT THE BEGINNING OF A WORD                                                                                                           
reproducibles ...$8.00
Thirty-four pages of worksheets that include practice with sixteen different prefixes.  

* Sample Worksheet 1                                 * Sample Worksheet 2       

WADING INTO WRITING
reproducibles ...$35.00

This really long unit does not emphasize grammar so much as it emphasizes writing.  There certainly are some assignments in the beginning of the unit that hit at grammar, but the assignments are reasonably simple so that they can draw your students away from the obsessive-compulsive need to draw facsimiles of their tattoos in the left hand corner of the ceiling of your classroom.  By following model after model, they might get the idea that sentences have some order to them, and that a given number of sentences on a related subject eventually form a paragraph.  They might not grasp that they can't hitchhike from study hall to the gym, but they should eventually determine that writing isn't all that difficult.  In addition to learning to write by following models, they'll also learn how to write short answers for tests, write book reports, summaries, and short letters.  We're aware that in a previous life you were a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisitors and that things have gone downhill in this life; however, if you'll trust us, we believe your students can learn how to write with this unit they can read at the 4th grade level.  189+ pages

WADING INTO WRITING WORD LIST

flip guide ...$9.00

We strongly recommend that you order this reasonably priced flipchart for use with the above materials.  The flip guide contains columns of words that can be used as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.  We feel that even a pair of running shoes could get a better picture as to how the same word can be used as different parts of speech by using this flip guide.  When any writing assignment calls for using a prepositional phrase, students can flip this handy guide to prepositional phrases.  They can also flip to nouns, verbs, adverbs, and other parts of speech to aid them into putting together a complete sentence. These parts of speech appear side by side in columns thus allowing the learner to see that how a word is used determines what part of speech the word is.  The flipchart also includes conjunctions, prepositions, commonly used phrases, and typical words that begin dependent clauses.  The flipchart is not only a big help in completing the assignments in Wading Into Writing Reproducibles, but is also a real learning tool for getting the parts of speech straight.  With a little imagination, you could create a variety of lessons that would allow students to create sentences by using this guide.

KIB GRAMMAR:   BY GOSH, I’M GETTING A HANDLE ON ENGLISH

• Unit 1 - Adjectives & Nouns ...$14.00
• Unit 2 - Phrases & Clauses ...$14.00   

• Unit 3 - At Last Verbs ...$14.00

English, of course, is that language which comes reasonably close to the language that you hear spoken in the hallways by young people who are wearing clothes similar to what the Druids wore when they were raiding the villages of the Scots and Picts.  What makes these units unusual is they take note of the fact that it is almost futile trying to teach about that illusive part of speech known to grammarians as the verb.  It is for this reason, that except for linking verbs, the students are taken through two entire units before they are introduced to verbs.  That probably doesn't sound any more realistic than do the chances of 2 percent of your class making it father up the ladder of evolution.   We have devoted Unit 1 to nouns, adjectives and dependent clauses.  In other words, the learners are finally going to learn what isn't a sentence.  We took this approach because most books try to teach what sentences are; however, the learner never seems to get it.  Unit 2 teaches  more about dependent clauses and introduces phrases and adverbs and some other parts of speech, but the verb still is conspicuously absent.  To make sure the students don't forget nouns, adjectives and dependent clauses, all continue to be reviewed in Unit 2.  At last they get to the verb in Unit 3.  After spending weeks learning what sentences aren't, it's hoped that when they get to Unit 3 they finally will get it in their heads what sentences are.  The assignments are repetitive. Over and over again students have to break down and identify parts of speech and structures.  Of course, we've throwing in some writing assignments so that they can apply what they've been learning.  We did our best to come up with an informally written series that includes cartoons where space permitted.  If you've tried everything else, and your students still haven't mastered the difference between a noun and a kite, you might want to give this series a try.   Endorsements from several teachers say these English units give struggling students the extra practice they need to master these parts of grammar.  All our reproducible and come with answer keys.