“Multi-Tasking” Task Cards
Most sets of task cards are created
for one task. Reading task cards have students reading a paragraph or two
to find the theme, main idea or make an inference, etc. Math task
cards ask students to solve problems, choose a measurement or manipulate a
number, etc. But it’s time to make your task cards work
harder! Here are a few ways to get more use from your task cards.
Student Line Up:
Make your students think a little before they line up to head home, or walk to
lunch. Take a set of your task cards and give one to each student. Ask
them to find the answer and write it on their white board or small slip of
paper. You have the answers, so say one answer at a time. The
student with the answer holds up his/her card and shows you their work.
If they’re correct they get to line up. If no one has the answer tell
them to check again because you know someone has that card. This is
easy to differentiate for students because you are in charge of handing out the
cards. You can make sure everyone gets a card they can read or solve.
Write it Wrong!: Use
a set of task cards with a short paragraph. Ask students to rewrite the
paragraph, leaving out the capitals and punctuation marks. Then students
can trade papers and correct the paragraph they receive. Once paragraphs
are corrected they can be returned to the original person to check. Since
this involves quite a bit of writing you might want to do this over two
days. If you choose to do this on different days make sure students write
the task card number on their paper, along with their name.
Mix it up: Once
again use a set of cards with a short paragraph. This time have the
students write the sentences from the paragraph in a different order.
After they trade papers, see how another student would order the sentences to
put them back into a paragraph.
Grouping:
Need your kids divided into 4 groups? Use a set of task cards that have
multiple choice questions, like 1, 2, 3, 4 or A, B, C,F, D to do the
dividing. Make sure you know how many As, Bs,
Cs and Ds cards you hand out because that will be how students put themselves
into groups. After students answer the question on their card, all the As
meet in one spot, the Bs meet
in another, etc. Now you have your class divided into 4 groups for
your next activity.
Number Sense:
This would work well with any task cards that have a number as the answer.
After students find the answer to their card ask them all to line up from least
to greatest, or greatest to least. Ask students with a number between 50
and 75 to stand up. Have students multiply their number by 5. Or
they can find a partner and then find the sum and the difference of the
answers. Lots of possibilities that can match to your current math lessons.
Call two students to the front of the class to compare the numbers.
Example: 75 is greater than 43.
My new set of task cards has the
multiple tasks built right in. The Order Up Sentence Task Cards have sets
of 4 cards. Each card in the set has a sentence with grammar, spelling,
punctuation and/or capitalization errors. Not only do the students have
to correct the mistakes they have to arrange the sentence in order and then
write them in paragraph form. Finally they add their own sentences to
complete the little story. Click on this picture to see the task cards in my
TPT store.
You can download a free sample and
give them a try with your class. Click on the picture below for your sample.
How have you gotten multiple uses
out of one set of task cards?
No comments
Post a Comment