As we first began our jump into 1:1 with our 6th graders in our building this year, we wanted to encourage play and exploration of the iPad as a resource.  Of course, without setting up some structure for our middle schoolers, we found that some students were finding themselves off task when they had “free time”.   We all have students who naturally move through the content at a faster pace and then we hear, “I’m done with my work.”   How can we utilize the time that students spend playing and exploring during this time, in a way that continues to support and extend their learning?  Our answer:  anchor activities.  Each of our teachers has these anchor activities posted in their classroom so that when students are done with their work, they know the expectations for how the remainder of their time in class should be spent.

Anchor Activities by Candace Marcotte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.