Riddles?

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Home : 2008 : May : 31

Riddles?
By 1956BD

I teach third grade. Each morning I write a riddle on the board in cursive. I want them to learn to read cursive as well as write it. After we say the state and national pledges we choral read the riddle of the day. They
have all day to come up with an answer to the riddle.

At the end of the day they are anxious to guess the answer, but they know they have to complete all the end of the day procedures first. Then one of my weekly "councilmen" (helpers) gets the first guess. Then I just call on students at random. If someone gets the answer they receive a treat from the treasure chest. If they

do not guess the correct answer, I tell them the answer. Then we exit for the end of the day.
Some riddles are logic riddles and some are based on play on words. I collected a year's worth from various sources into a notebook.The students quickly learn the difference between these two types of riddles and ask what kind it is for a hint.
I have done this the last two years and the students really seem to enjoy this fun, but also thinking process. Also both years they have started bringing me unsolicited riddles that they wanted to share because they ejoyed them so much.

I don't know if this will help you at the end of your day, but it has helped to motivate my students to complete their end of day procedures, which makes things less stressful.

I also do a poem a day. I put it up on the elmo and we read it chorally. Then we discuss it. It is great for reading fluency, author's purpose, similes, personifcation, metaphors, rhyme scheme.......
Maybe that would work better for you at the end of the day. Again I just collected poems that I liked, thought the students would like, and had connections to other things we study and put them in a notebook.