Review, Review, Review
Practice makes progress, right? Practice can be boring, though. However, review is essential to make sure that your children are retaining what they are learning. How do you review? Here are a few ideas to spice up the review that you know you need to do.
Try keeping instructional items around for a while after you have finished using them. We studied Noah’s ark a while ago, but we still use the puzzle and toys related to the story. I have projects that the kids made that they still use. There are games from other units that we still play with. Keeping those things around feeds imaginative play and gives the children the opportunity to really own the concepts they learned. Additionally, it helps you to make on-the-spot observations and corrections to misconceptions.
More active review is also important. Trivia games are a great way to review and add a level of excitement. You could really play it up and turn it into a whole game show with prizes. Other games including “Go Fish” and “Concentration” also make review more interesting. Make your own set of cards for this game. For example, for a vocabulary review game, one card would have the vocabulary word and the other card would have the definition on it.
Have the kids be the teacher. This is a great opportunity to have the kids practice their public speaking skills, too. You and other children pretend that you know nothing about the topic. Then the “teacher” has to explain the topic very clearly to the group. Then the group can use a scoring guide to evaluate the performance of the “teacher”. You can make it like American Idol even to make it more interesting for older kids. Take the “teacher” idea one step farther and have each child create a paper and pencil test for the material being reviewed. The test must be high-quality, and there must be an answer sheet included.
Try something new to make your review more intersting and engaging.
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