Submitted by Sara T., Maryland
Idea posted June 15, 2005
For those of you with lots of beanie babies and/or stuffed animals:
Divide your students into small groups. Give each group some beanie babies. Have the kids practice making the different animal sounds of the beanies and decide which ones are loud and which ones are soft. Have them organize them into a soft pile and a loud pile. You could use this to assess whether they know the difference between loud and soft. I have been really working with my first graders on being able to read the words "loud" and "soft," so I might have a set of two cards for each group (one that says "loud" and one that says "soft") for them to organize their piles. The more beanies you have, the fewer students you would need in a group.