A big focus of mine over the past few weeks has been to come up with a little something special for my "high" kids to do once they've completed zoomed through their work. It amazes me how quickly they can finish their things! I feel like I need to be assigning these firsties a research project! **Which isn't a bad idea for our penguin unit!!
I found this brilliant idea on Pinterest (where else!) and got straight to work on my Brain Builders bulletin board. **The blog the post comes from is Sunny Days in Second Grade. Here you'll find a good explanation of what Brain Builder is all about.
I got my Brain Builder board up and running in a weeks time. I spent long hours at home and at school creating, printing, laminating, and cutting these fun little cards out.
Here's what my new and improved bulletin board looks like:
**I only have 4 sets of cards up in this picture but I keep 8 up at one time.
With the task cards there is a quiz sheet that the students take once they've studied the cards enough and feel like they're ready for a quiz. You could run this as a buddy test or with an aide. At this point in the year my littles are independent enough to work with a partner. Upon completion and a score of 100%, the students will earn a "Brain Bead." ** You can find a picture of the Brain Bead Braclets at Sunny Day's in Second Grade. In my room, since space is an issue, I give students a Brain Bead Braclet & their first bead once they've completed their first test.
Although everyone is welcome to participate, this is geared towards my high kids. I include task cards that are geared for both first grade and second grade.
Here are a few of the task cards that I've created:
I spent quite a long time "Google-ing" various sites to find pre-created task cards. I found quite a few useful resources. I'm type-A and recreate my my own versions of them and tweak them for my own liking but it would definitely be a time saver to use them as is! Here are a few sites that I've found useful:
Lastly, here's the answer sheet and directions found at Sunny Days in Second Grade.
What do you do to challenge your advanced kiddos?