ideas

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Home : 2003 : August : 5

ideas
By sj

These aren't ideas to replace your tutoring, but might give you both a good break. Many commercial games include the skills that you are probably teaching a 4th grader: dominoes, yahtzee, monopoly, scrabble, taboo, solitaire,
13, and others. You might want to look for a book of Hoyle for card game ideas. Almost all card and domino games hit math skills in some way, and they are good for critical and strategic thinking. Depending on your student's problems, even jigsaw puzzles could be good for him. Of course, the old standards you've probably already tried that can be played with facts of various kinds

on the cards: concentration, jeopardy, etc. You could even play a take-off on FEAR FACTOR if you kept the challenges within reason (like eating 1/2 cup of brocolli if he hates vegetables, or calling someone and doing a phone interview if he's shy, or writing spelling words a bunch of times--you know, things he'd think were gross but actually good for him! At that age, he'd probably get a charge out of challenging you with a few things, too, like baking cookies him, etc.) One thing that kids that age often won't admit they like, but actually love is being read to. My favorite read-aloud for 4th graders was The BFG, by Roald Gould. It has funny sounding talking, strange characters, and some bodily noise and function funnies that 4th grade boys just love, but that aren't really anything bad. Hope this helps a little, and that you stayed up late enough to get it before tomorrow! (cause it's getting kinda late here!)