Flash cards are a useful teaching tool for all grade levels of elementary school and they can be used to teach a plethora of subject matter material. You can easily create your own flash cards to suit your curriculum with a set of index cards. Instead of drilling students at their desk with flash cards, use them in more engaging ways to spark student interest. Use flash cards when lining up for different activities: Hold up a flash card and show it to a student; if she answers it correctly, she gets to line up; if she doesn't, show the card to another student. Another idea is to scatter flash cards on the ground and provide students with bean bags. Instruct them to throw the bean bag on a card and read or define the flash card.
Manipulatives are small objects that represent a concrete example and are often used for mathematics instruction, as they provide hands-on learning and help students visualize different math skills, concepts and functions. Manipulatives can be used to teach different math skills in kindergarten through fifth grades. In kindergarten and first grade, use candies, stickers or small toys to teach one-to-one correspondence, addition, subtraction and sorting. Have students make analog clocks from a paper plate and a craft brad and use them to teach time in first and second grades. Candy bars and pieces of paper can be used to teach addition of fractions in third and fourth grades. Use beads or beans to teach long division to fifth-grade students.
Pictionary is an engaging game that can be modified to meet the abilities and curriculum of kindergarten through fifth grade students. In kindergarten and first grade, you can draw pictures of different topics students have learned and have your students guess what the picture represents. Starting in second grade, students can become the artists for this game; simply provide them with a vocabulary word, instruct them to draw a picture that represents the word and have their classmates guess the vocabulary word based on the drawing.
Use charades to reinforce vocabulary words or parts of speech throughout the elementary school grades. Select a student to begin and provide her with a vocabulary word, a verb or an adjective. In the early elementary grades, the words should be simple, such as "run," "jump" or "cold"; in later elementary grades, the words become more complex. The student who correctly guesses the word that is being acted out becomes the actor for the next round of the game. This activity is ideal for exercising students' minds and bodies and engages them in learning.