rwormeli
@cox.net
Sponges and
Warm-up Activities
Taking Advantage
of Every Moment!
Mighty Peace
Teachers Convention 2014
Character
Setting
Former spy
School teacher
Egyptian Pharoah
Mid-wife in WWII
Southern slave
Alien being
scientist
FL Everglades
Civil War, GA
the C.I.A.
1870 Ireland
Deep w/in Earth’s crust
Conflict
Betrayal
Release of deadly microbe
Political infighting
survival in hostile planet
Military uncovers a mistake by Pres.
suburbia
Accused of crime didn’t commit
modern Hollywood Alzheimer’s disease
Witness to a violent crime
transatlantic crossing
Issue re-connecting w/grown children
13 year-old prodigy
A chocolate lab (dog)
Optimistic Lawyer
Older, married couple
Comic book illustrator
Champion pie-maker
National Park ranger
Inner city Chicago horrific hurricane
Ancient Rome
Miniaturized to 3 in. tall
Undersea laboratory Brain transferred to android
Mars Orbiter
Romantic misunderstanding
the Fourth Dimension Wrong place at the wrong time
Pacific northwest
Peruvian Andes
Mysterious code found
neophyte battles entrenched
veterans
Six Word Memoirs
Sample:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” - Ernest Hemingway
Other Samples:
Need more friends or more hobbies.
Old age approaches. Better start now.
My entourage asleep in his crib.
Some shoes will take you anywhere.
Life packed neatly away in boxes.
My greatest ideas involve duct tape.
Two eyes open, but still nearsighted.
Hobby became job. Seeking new hobby.
Sponges and Warm-ups:
Definition
These are learning experiences that “soak up” dead or
transition time with something substantive and related to
the day’s lessons. They are not “fluff” activities with little
or no educational merit or subject connection. They are
inserted anywhere in a lesson in which there is a lull in the
lesson’s momentum such as when we distribute papers or
supplies, clean up, move from one place to another, wait for
other students to finish, or wait in line. Warm-up activities
can be done as “early bird” work to review material or
prime the brain for new learning when students first enter
the room, but they can also be done in the middle of class
to get students’ minds ready for what is to come.
How to Create Them
Break down the day’s topic into its basic components or subsets of
skills. For example, if we’re teaching students to add fractions with
different denominators, great sponges and warm-ups would include:
 Write the first three numbers that 6 and 8 both go into evenly.
 If someone were stuck finding the lowest common multiple between two
numbers, what two pieces of advice would you give him?
 Draw a quick mindmap or flow chart of the steps needed to reduce a
fraction to lowest terms.
 Translate three mixed numbers into improper fractions.
 Identify two situations in which it is better to turn fractions into decimals
before adding them.
 Rank the following fractions in order: 3/10, 3/5, 1/2, 2/9, 1, 12/20
 What’s a quick way to tell whether or not 88,050 is divisible by 6, and is it?
 Kendall poured ¾ of a gallon of hot salsa into Gerard’s 2/3 of a gallon of lime
Jell-O solution and mixed it up. Then she poured all of the spicy mixture into
our class’s drinking cups. If every cup holds 6 fluid ounces, then how many
cups did she use?
The best ones are based on specific skills within a larger topic:
Great opening lines
a piece of evidence
one claim in a thematic essay
samples of well crafted and not-so-well-crafted hypotheses
patterns in verb conjugations
opportunities to state multiple rises-over-runs before determining slope
of a line
finding latitudes of multiples locations around the Earth before adding
longitudes
Advice: Add flavor to some of these -- “Give me a great opening line to
this thematic essay if Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp in Disney’s
Pirates of the Caribbean movie) were saying it.
Look at sponges used in other subjects, too: We can write an ode to the
Monroe Doctrine, but we can also write an ode to graphing inequalities
and to the almighty verb.
Examples
 Using only base numbers with exponents, generate five
equations that all equal 24.
 Give evidence to support or refute “capitalist” as an
appropriate description of the main character.
 Create two great test questions on this topic we could use
for tomorrow’s test.
 Categorize the 26 elements in three ways with no one
category consisting of less than three elements.
 Rewrite these four measures to express a different dynamic.
 Explain to your partner why integers are also rational.
 Using your hands and arms, demonstrate the difference
between diffusion and endocytosis (pinocytosis and
phagocytosis) in a cell.
 With a partner, identify three arguments against what I just
taught you.
 Ask students to identify content/skills that weren’t on the
test, or ask students to come up with a great additional
question for the test and to call on someone to answer it.
 Announce to students: “Be ready to say three ways in
which the Civil War and Revolutionary War are exactly the
same...” [Insert whatever topics you’re about to study for
the comparison]
 Ask students to come up with alternative titles to a book or event, or, “If
[insert a real person under study] were to write a book, what would its
title be?
 Ask students who they would cast in the role of ________ in this book
and why?
 Use a new term in two situations, one correct and one incorrect.
Students discern which is which.
 Ask students to generate as many words as they can think of that mean
the opposite of ________.
 Give students five vocabulary terms but make sure one of them doesn’t
fit the category or theme of the terms, and ask students to identify
which word doesn’t belong and a reason why it doesn’t belong.
 With content, play Charades or Pictionary
 Ask students to identify one word that best describes something under
study and to defend that word as a good word to describe it. Ask others
to argue against the word as a good word to describe the topic.
In-Out Game: Students determine the classification a
teacher’s statements exemplify, then they confirm their
hypothesis by offering elements “in the club” and elements
“out of the club.” They don’t identify the club, just the items
in and out of it. If the students’ suggestions fit the pattern,
the teacher invites them to be a part of the club. The game
continues until everyone is a member.
Example: She is in the club but the class is not. They are in the club, but
the penguins are not. You are in the club, but the donuts are not. Give
me something in and out of the club.” A student guesses correctly that
the club is for personal pronouns, so she says, “We are in the club, but
moon rocks are not.” To make it a bit more complex, announce the club’s
elements and non-elements in unusual ways that must also be
exemplified by the students, such as making all the items in and out of the
club alliterative or related in some way. This can be as obvious or as
complex as you want it to be.
Logical Fallacies
• Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man) -- Attacking the person instead
of attacking his argument: “Dr. Jones’ conclusions on ocean currents
are incorrect because he once plagiarized an research article.”
• Straw Man (Fallacy of Extension) -- Attacking an exaggerated version of
your opponent's position. "Senator Jones says that we should not fund
the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand
why he wants to leave us defenseless like that." *
• The Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy) -- Assuming there are only two
alternatives when in fact there are more. For example, assuming
Atheism is the only alternative to Fundamentalism, or being a traitor is
the only alternative to being a loud patriot. *
From Jim Morton’s’ “Practical Skeptic” website
http://members.aol.com/jimn469897/skeptic.htm)
3-2-1
3 – Identify at least three differences
between acids and bases
2 – List two uses of acids and two uses
of bases
1 – State one reason why knowledge of
acids and bases is important to
citizens in our community
Backwards Summaries
 “Make the web from which this paragraph came.”
 “Here’s the completed math solution. What would happen
if I had never considered the absolute value of x?”
 “Here’s the final French translation of this sentence. What if
I had not checked the tense of each verb?”
 “Here’s a well done concerto. What happens if I remove the
oboe’s eight measures on page 4?”
 “Here’s a well-done lab procedure. What happens if I don’t
use distilled water?”
Exclusion Brainstorming
The student identifies the word/concept that does not
belong with the others, then either orally or in writing
explains his reasoning:
 Mixtures – plural, separable, dissolves, no formula
 Compounds – chemically combined, new properties, has
formula, no composition
 Solutions – heterogeneous mixture, dissolved particles,
saturated and unsaturated, heat increases
 Suspensions – clear, no dissolving, settles upon standing,
larger than molecules
Sorting Cards
Teach something that has multiple categories, like types of
government, multiple ideologies, cycles in science, systems of the
body, taxonomic nomenclature, or multiple theorems in geometry.
Then display the categories.
Provide students with index cards or Post-it notes with
individual facts, concepts, and attributes of the categories
recorded on them. Ask students to work in groups to place each
fact, concept, or attribute in its correct category. The
conversation among group members is just as important to the
learning experience as the placement of the cards, so let
students defend their reasoning orally and often.
The summarization occurs every time a student lifts an
individual card and makes a decision on where to place the card.
He’s weighing everything he’s been taught as he considers his
options. If others question his placement, the discussion furthers
the impact. If there is great dissent, and it results in students
referencing their notes and textbooks for more information –
‘learning Nirvana. 
Word Splash!
Pictionary
Statues (Body Sculpture)
Students work in small groups
using every groupmember’s body
to symbolically portray concepts
in frozen tableau.
Where does the learning occur?
Finger Plays and Body Movements
Mitosis:
Prophase – Hold your hands
chest high. Let your fingers play over and
around each other like kids swimming in a pool. Have your
fingers intermingle, mixing, tangling, and untangling. They’re
getting ready to separate.
Metaphase -- The lifeguard blows the whistle for rest period,
and everyone lines up along the median (central axis). For
this, have the hands turned so the fingertips of one hand are
touching the fingertips of the other, palms facing your chest.
Slide those fingertips an inch inward, overlapping with the
other fingers for effect.
Anaphase -- The lifeguard asks everyone to leave the pool -- it's
the end of the swimming day. Slowly pull hands away from
each other, bent wrists first. While pulling apart, one hand
(Ana) says, "Goodbye, Gene," (Chromosome pun intended)
and the other hand (Gene) says in a deep male voice,
"Goodbye, Ana." You can do a lot with the puns here, such
as saying Ana and Gene are swimming in the gene pool.
Separate hands until they are a little past shoulder-width
apart.
Telophase -- Have the Ana hand talk to the Gene hand saying,
"I'll call you on the telophase-phone." Fingers and hands
have pulled almost completely into separate entities, as in
real mitosis. They are farther away from one another, arms
almost completely outstretched. The next step in mitosis is
the formation of two new daughter cells, but that would
require a parent permission slip for most grade levels, so we
won’t go there.
Body Analogies
• Fingers and hands can be
associated with dexterity,
omnidirectional aspects, working
in unison and individually,
flexibility, or artwork.
• Feet can relate to things
requiring “footwork” or journey.
• Anything that expresses passion,
feeling, pumping, supplying,
forcing, life, or rhythm could be
analogous to the heart.
• Those concepts that provide
structure and/or support for
other things are analogous to the
spinal column.
Body Analogies
• Those things that protect are similar to the rib cage
and cranium.
• The pancreas and stomach provide enzymes that
break things down, the liver filters things, the
peristalsis of the esophagus pushes things along in a
wave-like muscle action.
• Skin’s habit of regularly releasing old, used cells and
replacing them with new cells from underneath
keeps it healthy, flexible, and able to function.
Body Analogies
Ask students to gather in groups and identify four ways
in which the lesson’s subject is analogous to four parts of the
human body, minus the genitalia, for obvious reasons. Invite
them to list the critical attributes of the concept they’re trying
to connect to the body first, then look for items on the body
that might best represent that. Some groups may find it easier,
however, to reverse that direction – first identify unique
characteristics of specific parts of the body, then see how those
characteristics fit with the concepts being learned.
Once student groups have drawn their body outlines
(stick figures are fine), ask them to write a small paragraph
somewhere on the paper that explains the analogy, and to
draw a line from the paragraph to analogous body part.
Vividness
• “a lot” – Running to each wall
to shout, “a” and “lot,” noting
space between
• Comparing Constitutions –
Former Soviet Union and the
U.S. – names removed
• Real skeletons, not diagrams
• Simulations
• Writing Process described
while sculpting with clay
One of These is Wrong
‘Can be used as jigsaw experience, getting-toknow-you game, or to summarize
information.
In small groups, students share two accurate
statements about a topic and one inaccurate
statement. The rest of the group guesses
which one is inaccurate.
Jamie's homework assignment requires her to write a
short biography of five female Nobel Prize winners. Help
her match each nobelist to her prize category, country of
origin and the year in which she won her prize. Below are
all categories and options used in this puzzle:
Years Names
Categories
Countries
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
chemistry
economics
literature
medicine
physics
Australia
France
Germany
Poland
Russia
Ada Alvarez
Fay Ferguson
Glenda Glenn
Hannah Hay
Patsy Pope
Downloaded February 2013 from www.logic-puzzles.org
Clues:
1. Fay Ferguson is from Australia.
2. The person from Australia didn't win the prize in literature.
3. The nobelist who won in 1968 didn't win the prize in
chemistry.
4. Of the nobelist who won the prize in medicine and Ada
Alvarez, one won in 1984 and the other won in 1972.
5. The winner from Poland won her prize 4 years after the
nobelist from Australia.
6. Patsy Pope won her prize after the winner who won the prize
in chemistry.
7. Neither Fay Ferguson nor the winner who won the prize in
economics is the winner who won in 1984.
8. The nobelist from Germany won her prize 4 years after the
winner from France.
9. Glenda Glenn isn't from France.
10. The person who won in 1976 didn't win the prize in literature.
11. The five nobelists are the nobelist from France, the winner
who won in 1972, Hannah Hay, the winner who won in 1968
and the winner who won in 1980.
One-Word Summaries
“The new government regulations for the meatpacking industry in the 1920’s could be seen as an
opportunity…,”
“Picasso’s work is actually an argument for….,”
“NASA’s battle with Rockwell industries over the
warnings about frozen temperatures and the Orings on the space shuttle were trench warfare….”
Basic Idea: Argue for or against the word as a good
description for the topic.
Charades
‘Played like the party game, except you use
concepts from the unit of study.
Consider using it with a “jigsaw” lesson in
which each member of a team learns a
different aspect a topic, then the group
gathers, and students perform their
Charades to communicate their piece of the
puzzle.
Taboo Cards
Photosynthesis
Light
Green
Water
Sun
Chlorophyll
Plant
Produce
Rummy Games
 ‘Played just like Rummy card games. Instead of a
straight such as the four, five, six, seven of spades,
however, students get the components of a sequence
or set you’ve taught. Examples: steps in
photosynthesis, process for dividing fractions, all the
elements for a animal’s habitat, four things that led to
the Civil War, four equivalent fractions, four verbs in
the past perfect tense
 Students work off a central pile, drawing cards,
discarding cards, just as in they would do in a Rummy
or Gin Rummy game until they achieve a winning hand.
Spelling Bee de Strange
Students spell the words aloud, but substitute sound
effects noises for all vowels or phonic patterns being
studied. Increase complexity by identifying sounds for
subtle differences in the letter: silent E = shhh! short E =
heh, heh, heh, long E = “thlphat!”
While one team makes sure the other team correctly
spells the words and that the correct sounds are given in
the correct sequences, the other team tries to spell the
words while keeping a straight face. Give points to the
listening team if they find phonetic mistakes in the
presenting team’s submission, and points off if their
assertion is wrong. The faster the presenting team can spell
each word, the more outrageous the sounds and the more
difficult it is for the other team to detect an error.
Spelling Bee de Strange
A=
E=
I =
O=
U=
Achoo!
“thlphat!”
Ribbit, Ribbit
Oink! Oink!
Oo-la-la!
Beautiful:
“B- thlphat!-achoo-oo-la-la!-t-ribbit-ribbit-f-oo-la-la!-l”
Concept Ladder
(J.W. Gillet, C. Temple, 1986, as described in Inside Words, Janet Allen)
Concept:
Causes of:
Effects of:
Language associated with:
Words that mean the same as:
Historical examples:
Contemporary examples:
Evidence of:
Literature connections made:
“Word Link”
1. Each student gets a word.
2. In partners, students share the link(s)
between their individual words.
3. Partner team joins another partner team,
forming a “word cluster.”
4. All four students identify the links among
their words and share those links with the
class.
-- Yopp, Ruth Helen. “Word Links: A Strategy for Developing Word
Knowledge,” Voices in the Middle, Vol. 15, Number 1, September 2007,
National Council Teachers of English
Extreme Vocabulary
(Making Words Their Own: Building Foundations for Powerful Vocabulary, 2008)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Distribute word pairs of opposites.
In partners, students place these words at opposite ends of a continuum
drawn on paper (or hung as tent cards on rope), and in between the
extremes, they place words that fall along the continuum of meaning.
For example -- extremes of temperature: Freezing --- Cold --- Tepid --Warm --- Hot --- Boiling
Once students ge the idea, try something more complex, such as
inconsolable and carefree. Where would despondent fit? How about
concerned, content, worried, and satisfied? As students discuss the
proper positioning of the words and physically move the tent cards back
and forth, students draw on visual cues and cement the definitions in
their minds. If finding the specific words to go between the two
extremes is difficult at first, provide suggestions that students study then
place in the sequence.
Ask students to explain their rationale for their choices and positions.
Classmates critique their decisions. Does “inconsolable---despondent--–
worried--–concerned--–content--–satisfied--–carefree” work
sequentially? Why or why not?
______________________ is (are) a _________________
because _______________________________________.
Ask students to include something intangible, such as
suspicion or an odyssey, in the first blank. The tangible
comparison---a combination lock or an elliptical trainer--would fit in the second section.
Ask students to justify their choices:
“Suspicion is a combination lock because it secures a
possession’s well-being that cannot be assured through trust
alone. Odyssey is an elliptical trainer because it has a beginning,
middle, and end, and along the way, we encounter moments of
endurance, doubt, despair, and elation, leaving comfort and
returning again.”
Common Analogous Relationships
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Antonyms
Synonyms
Age
Time
Part : Whole
Whole : Part
Tool : Its Action
Tool user : Tool
Tool : Object It’s Used With
Worker: product he creates
Category : Example
Effect : Cause
Cause : Effect
Increasing Intensity
Decreasing Intensity
Person : closely related
adjective
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Person : least related adjective
Math relationship
Effect : cause
Action : Thing Acted Upon
Action : Subject Performing the Action
Object or Place : Its User
Object : specific attribute of the object
Male : Female
Symbol : what it means
Classification/category : example
Noun : Closely Related Adjective
Elements Used : Product created
Attribute : person or object
Object : Where it’s located
Lack (such as drought/water – one thing lacks
the other)
Metaphors Break Down
“You can’t think of feudalism as a ladder because you
can climb up a ladder. The feudal structure is more like
sedimentary rock: what’s on the bottom will always be on
the bottom unless some cataclysmic event occurs.”
-- Amy Benjamin, Writing in the Content Areas, p. 80
“A classroom is like a beehive.” Where does the simile sink?
• Students are not bees.
• Students have a variety of readiness levels and skill sets for completing
tasks. Bees are more uniform.
• Students don’t respond blindly or purely to the pheromones of the
queen bee.
• Students are busier throughout the day and night than bees.
• Students don’t swarm when angered.
Descriptions With and Without Metaphors
Friendship
Infinity
Solving for a variable
Euphoria
Worry
Obstructionist Judiciary
Immigration
Balance
Economic Principles
Poetic License
Heuristics
Embarrassment
Family
Imperialism
Trust
Mercy
Trouble
Honor
Homeostasis
Temporal Rifts
Religious fervor
Semantics
Tautology
Knowledge
Same Concept, Multiple Domains
The Italian Renaissance: Symbolize curiosity,
technological advancement, and cultural shifts
through mindmaps, collages, graphic organizers,
paintings, sculptures, comic strips, political
cartoons, music videos, websites, computer
screensavers, CD covers, or advertisements
displayed in the city subway system.
The economic principle of supply and demand:
What would it look like as a floral arrangement, in
the music world, in fashion, or dance? Add some
complexity: How would each of these
expressions change if were focusing on a bull
market or the economy during a recession?
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
1113213211
Discern the
Pattern and Fill
in the Last Row
of Numbers
- From, Creative Thinkering, 2011, Michael Michalko,
p. 44
A picture is worth a
thousand words, but the
right metaphor is worth a
thousand pictures.
-- Daniel Pink, 2008
“I used to
think…,
but now
I think…”
Personal Processing
“I like, I wish, What if”
(p. 121, Seelig)
Resources…
• Mindware: www.mindwareonline.com (1-800-999-0398)
• Fluegelman, Andrew, Editor. The New Games Book, Headlands Press
Book, Doubeday and Company, New York, 1976
• Henton, Mary (1996) Adventure in the Classroom. Dubuque, Iowa:
Kendall Hunt
• Lundberg, Elaine M.; Thurston, Cheryl Miller. (1997) If They’re
Laughing… Fort Collins, Colorado: Cottonwood Press, Inc.
• Rohnke, K. (1984). Silver Bullets. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.
• Rohnke, K. & Butler, S. (1995). QuickSilver. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1991). The Bottomless Bag Again. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall
Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1991). Bottomless Baggie. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt
• Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowstail and Cobras II. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt