Assign word art for spelling practice. Students use markers, colored pencils or crayons to write their spelling words in squiggly lines or word shapes on a piece of construction paper. Instead of writing sentences with their words, direct them to write a letter to someone special or write a silly story or poem using as many of the spelling words as possible. They can also look for their spelling words in a newspaper or magazine, cut out the words they find and glue them to a piece of paper.
A grocery store sales paper can provide review for different math operations. First, obtain enough sales papers from a local grocery store for each of your children to have one. Write and print out a grade-appropriate task list for the skills that you want them to practice. For example, one task could be to add two items together. Another could be to find the cheapest item and the most expensive item, and then find the difference between the two. They get multiplication practice if you ask them to calculate the price of a certain number of pounds of a produce item.
At the beginning of any science unit, pass out large index cards, each with the name of a scientist associated with that field of study. Ask students to find that person's contributions to science and write the information on the back of the card. In class, they share and compare the information they have found. When they study a particular topic, such as the rain forest or solar system, challenge them to uncover at least three facts that they find interesting about that subject. They can use the Internet or other resources. When they share the information in class, it usually leads to a lot of discussion and more questions.
Assign students a specific city within a state or country. Ask them each to design a travel brochure for that location. Give them a list of information to include in the brochure, such as population, exports, languages spoken, attractions and historic sites and events. They can draw pictures or gather them from other sources. You can give them a template to use for the brochure, or they can fold a long piece of construction paper into thirds. Another alternative is to use a graphic organizer, such as a tic-tac-toe grid or flowchart, to write facts about a particular person, place or event in history.