Why Teachers Need Anchor Activities



Do some of your students find themselves do nothing? Many times some students complete their assigned activities or quizzes before their classmates. Also, teachers occasionally need to spend more time with slow learning students and not forgetting the other students.  This creates a valuable extra time. It gives an opportunity to enrich learning outcomes. Anchor activities are very helpful in these circumstances.

These activities are designed to be adequate for any lesson and suitable for all student levels in that class. These activities are prepared before and ready for students at any time. Usually, there is an instructional board which tells students what to do if they finished. It gives them options. It allows them to choose what is interesting to them. For example, in a language art class, reading stories and writing journals are good examples.

Such activities play an important role in class management. They help in eliminating boredom by engaging students in exciting and creative learning techniques. In addition, they maximize learning by providing more practice and drills.  Independent reading is a probable anchor activity that helps students building new vocabulary and increases their comprehension ability.

For lucky classes equipped with computers and tablets, the opportunity for providing more motivating activities is high. A student may watch a short movie clip and write something about it. Another student may prefer to prepare something for the next lesson or search something she or he is interested in.

Do all anchor activities need to be educational? Not always. Although educational activities are the main purpose, a teacher can allow some fun activities. Games like connect four or bowling refresh student minds. So, they become enthusiastic and ready for the next learning activity.

Anchor activities save teacher's time and make the class becomes in more controlled and disciplined. It keeps teachers from facing troubles caused by some out of work students.

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