Summarizing Stories - Succinct Summaries This
activity helps students to visualize
the difference between story
retellings and summaries. Through
group discussion, students will
analyze and eliminate details from a
retelling to construct a smaller
structure that represents sentences
to be used in a summary.
Expository
Writing - How-to Beez Students will design a
structure using Toobeez and write
"how-to" instructions so
another group can replicate the
structure.
Sentence
Structure - Sentence Switchers This activity helps
students understand the grammatical
terms of subject and predicate.
Students will use Toobeez to label
both simple and complete subjects
and predicates and then mix up their
sentences to build new complete
sentences.
Plot
Development - MountPlotPeak This
activity teaches students how to
construct a story plot. This
activity can serve as a review or an
introduction to storylines and plot
development. Students build and
label a Toobeez plotline to identify
elements such as exposition, main
event, climax and resolution.
Compare
& Contrast - The Double Diamond Using a Toobeez
"Diamond Diagram,"
students compare and contrast
elements from two similar stories to
enhance reading comprehension.
Poetry
- The Rhyming Tree Students explore the harmonic
device of rhyme pattern in writing
poetry. Students will analyze rhyme
schemes in poems and “label”
rhyme patters using Toobeez.
Creative
Writing - Anything Goes This creative writing
activity uses Toobeez structures to
stimulate ideas in students for new
and unique storylines. A creative
Toobeez structure is used as a
prompt for students to develop a
story.
Dialog
& Punctuation - Conversation
Carwash This activity helps students
learn to punctuate dialogue in
writing. In pairs, students “act
out” and punctuate dialogue
sentences.
Paragraph
Structure - Paragraph Plan Students will learn about how
to write a solid paragraph with a
topic sentence, supporting sentences
and a closing sentence in this
activity.
Spelling
Game - Spell-eez This game will help students
practice their spelling words in a
fun and engaging way!
