As a teacher, you are always looking for new ways to engage your students in learning. Cooperative learning activities are a great way to do just that, and all you need is a set of task cards! Cooperative learning structures provide an opportunity for students to work together to complete a task or answer questions. This gives them a chance to practice communicating and collaborating with their classmates. Not only are they versatile and easy to use, but students love them too. Here are some cooperative learning structures you can use with St. Patrick’s Day task cards for math or language arts in your upper elementary classroom that might just add a little charm to your lesson plans this St. Patty’s Day.
My 3 Top Picks for Cooperative Learning Activities this St. Patrick’s Day
Round Robin:
Round Robin is a great structure for when you want all students to have a turn responding to a question. It pairs great with language arts task cards or any questions with open-ended responses. To use this structure, divide the class into small groups and give each group a set of task cards. Students will take turns responding to the questions on the task cards. As each student responds, their groupmates will listen and provide feedback. Once every student has had a turn, groups will rotate so that each group has a chance to work with all of the task cards. Let the students answer the questions in their best Irish accent to add some St. Patrick’s Day fun!
Gallery Walk:
With Gallery Walk, students move around the room to different “stations” where they read and respond to task card questions. It pairs great with math task cards! To set this up, post task cards around the room and divide the class into small groups. Each group will start at a different station. The goal is for each student to answer all of the questions on each task card. As they finish one task card, they will move on to the next station until they have visited all of the stations (and answered all of the questions). Gallery Walk is great for getting students up and moving while still allowing them to engage deeply with the content.
To add a little St. Patrick’s Day charm to your lesson, use rainbow-colored streamers to mark the path students will take around the room. You could also leave gold-wrapped chocolate coins in a little pot as a treat for completing each station.
Back to Back:
In Back-to-Back, students will need something portable to write on such as a small dry-erase board or paper on a clipboard. Students will find a partner and stand back to back, but in such a way that they can both see the board. The teacher will display a task card under the document camera or digitally on the large classroom board. Both students will solve the problem or answer the question on the task card by writing their answers on their clipboard or dry-erase board. On the teacher’s direction, students will turn to face each other and reveal their answers. If their answers match, they know they got the answer correct. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, they can dance a little jig or do a little hop to click their heels together leprechaun-style. To keep the fun going, students will shuffle and find a new partner.
Task Cards are such a versatile tool that can be used in so many different ways in your classroom. They pair so easily with cooperative learning activities. This is just the tip of the iceberg! I hope these ideas give you some inspiration on how you can use them with your students. Read more about using task cards in this related blog post! I’m so excited for you to give cooperative learning a try that I’m giving you this free set of St. Patrick’s Day task cards to use as you try one out!
Enjoy the St. Patty’s day fun!