Tag Archives: sports

Sports Page Scavenger Hunt

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Look through the Sports Section in your newspaper to locate the following items. Make a note of what you found and record the page number.

  • A starting time for an event
  • The name of the Herald’s Sports Editor
  • The name of a happy person in a photo
  • A close score
  • List all of the different sports mentioned in the section
  • Two headlines that indicate victory
  • A photo indicating conflict
  • An article for a sports event that is not occurring in the U.S.
  • A verb that indicates a win
  • A verb that indicates a loss
  • Name (3) teams from North Dakota
  • Name (2) teams from Minnesota
  • Find the current record of a North Dakota team
  • Write down all of the adjectives used in the headlines on the front of the Sports page
  • What sporting events will be on TV tonight?

To download a printable copy, click on the following link:

http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/NIE%20SPORTS%20SCAVENGER%20HUNT.pdf

 

Credit: Brownsville Herald, Sandy McGehee, ED. D. Director of Educational Services

Language Arts 1-5 Maintain the Brain

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LANGUAGE ARTS ACTIVITIES 1-5

The following activities are from Newspapers Maintain the Brain: A Teacher’s Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills. The guide was produced by the Newspaper Association of America.  Each activity is labeled to indicate approximate grade level. E = elementary, M = middle grades and S = secondary. You will probably find it easy to adapt the lessons to the ability level of your students. 

The activities will help students improve their skills in reading and writing. These skills are among the ones they will practice: how to find the main idea, how to increase vocabulary, how to compare readings, how to form sentences, how to ask a good question and how to write a great summary. They will employ many critical thinking skills as they are required to interact with the authentic material found in the newspaper.
 

ACTIVITY 1 – SPORTSMANSHIP (M)                                                                      

Skill: Student forms his/her own ideas about what has happened in a text and uses specific information from the text to support these ideas. The Institute for International Sports encourages all athletes to be good sports and to play fairly. Have students make a list of the characteristics that a good sport should have. They can use today’s newspaper to find an example of an athlete demonstrating good sportsmanship and explain why they think so.
What athletes are not good sports? Why do they think so?
 

ACTIVITY 2 - FACT OR OPINION (M)                                                                    

Skill: Student determines fact from opinion. What is the difference between a fact and an opinion? Read an editorial from today’s newspaper aloud to your class or allow students to read independently. On the printed copy, have them circle the words or phrases that are facts with a colored marker and underline those that are opinions with a different color marker. Talk about which words show facts and which show opinions. Did they find more facts or opinions?
 

ACTIVITY 3 – PREDICT THE FUTURE (M)                                                             

Skill: Student uses background knowledge to make complex predictions from a reading selection. What do your students think about people who say they can tell fortunes?  Do they think anyone can predict the future? Have them read their horoscopes for today. What does it say about the kind of day they’re going to have? Have them copy the prediction and write a paragraph telling whether or not they believe it and why. Then they can write their own prediction for today. Tomorrow, they can write another paragraph describing the kind of day they actually had. Which prediction was closer to reality?

ACTIVITY 4 – SPORTS GLOSSARY (E)                                                                       

Skill: Student uses a variety of strategies to analyze words. Have students select an article from the Sports section. As they skim the story, they can make a list of vocabulary words that are used in the sport. Then they should write a definition for each word and draw a picture to illustrate what the word means. They can add any other words they can think of that also have to do with the sport, but that do not appear in the article. Now they have a sports glossary!

ACTIVITY 5 – TAKING NOTES (M)(S)                                                                        

Skill: Student uses strategies to clarify meaning such as note taking, summarizing and outlining and can write a grade-level appropriate report. Explain to students that a good way of taking notes is to make an outline of what they are reading by writing down the main points and a few important details. Have them read a news story in today’s newspaper that they think has an interesting topic. They can skim through the article again to find the main idea in each paragraph. On a piece of paper, have them number the ideas. The main idea for the first paragraph would be Number 1, the main idea for the second paragraph, Number 2, etc. They will need to leave space between ideas. Then they can look for the supporting facts in each paragraph and write them below each paragraph’s main idea and label them a, b, c, etc.

Newspapers Can Spur Talk with Teens

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Here’s another article from the 2005 NIE Literacy tab on how newspapers can spur talk with teens. The article, written for the 2005 NIE Literacy tab, comes from the National Center for Family Literacy, a nonprofit organization recognized worldwide as the leader in family literacy development. For more information, visit www.famlit.org. The tab was produced by the Newspaper Association of America and sponsored by VerizonReads.com.

You ask your high school-age child, “Where are you going?” and “What are you going to do?” only to hear “Out” and “Nothing” in reply.

If communicating with your teenager seems harder than beating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, try a different conversation starter—newspapers! The newspaper covers a broad range of topics—from local, national and international news to business, entertainment, health, technology and science. It also includes editorials, opinion articles and letters to the editor. Any of these sections may get your teen to talk and may even spark a healthy debate.
 

In addition to opening lines of communication, the paper also offers opportunities for building and practicing reading and math skills. Try some of these ideas with your teen:

ASK YOUR TEEN TO READ THE REVIEW OF A NEW MOVIE HE/SHE WANTS TO SEE.  Suggest using the Internet either at home, school or the library to check out how reviewers from around the country feel about the movie. Point out that the reviewers are merely stating their opinions, and everyone’s opinion is not the same. How do the reviews in a West Coast paper differ from those in the East or South?  After he/she has seen the movie, ask your teen how he/she would write the movie review. Is his/her opinion the same or different from the review in your local paper?

NEWSPAPERS PRESENT A LOT OF INFORMATION THROUGH CHARTS, GRAPHS AND MAPS SO THAT PEOPLE CAN ACCESS INFORMATION QUICKLY AND SIMPLY. Point out some charts and maps in your newspaper. Ask your child questions about what they represent. Combining reading and math skills sometimes makes both a little more appealing to teenagers. Have your teen find the number of ads for five or six types of used vehicles (BMW, Corvette, SUV, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen, etc.). What car is featured most often in the used car ads? Which car holds the greatest percentage of the total number of ads? The lowest?
 

THE HEALTH AND FITNESS SECTION OF THE PAPER CAN TRIGGER MEANINGFUL DISCUSSIONS WITH YOUR TEEN.  Articles on new beauty products, fitness equipment, healthy foods and exercise routines often capture teens’ attention. Parents can build on this interest by asking their teen to plan a week’s worth of dinner menus for the family. Ask him/her to consider a diversity of food groups, cost and preparation time. Give your teen a certain amount of money to spend on the ingredients for the meals and see if he/she can stay within the budget. Prepare some, if not all, of the suggested dinners. Talk about the meal and why your teen chose the food that he/she did.
 

THE SPORTS PAGES OF THE NEWSPAPER MAY BE THE FIRST SECTION YOUR TEEN TURNS TO.  Games played by local high school, college and professional teams are of special interest. If your teen has a favorite sport, suggest finding out about the history of that sport—how did it get started, in what country did it begin, and what countries play it now? This could be a long-term project involving books from the library, Internet searches or even visits to a sports Hall of Fame museum.

The teenage years can be challenging for both teens and their parents. Having a common meeting ground like the newspaper helps you stay connected.