Multimedia Vocabulary--Easy and powerful!

Here's an activity that is guaranteed to help your students develop depth of knowledge about their vocabulary words.  Go to gotbrainy.com where your students can create posters that define words in a number of ways.  Let them choose and upload a picture that represents the word they've chosen (or that you've assigned) and write something that succinctly explains/defines it.  Allow students to present their words in this multi-media format.  The words are sure to stick with the creators as well as the class members to whom they're presenting them.  By the way, there are lots of good examples on the site for you to see.  It's easy to get started!  Let me know how it works for you!  

Allowing Students to Co-Teach

This is a great time of the year to acknowledge that your students have all become experts in some area of writing.  During your conference time in your Writing Workshop, zero in on whatever area of expertise a child exhibits---great leads, superb use of exclamation points, perfect groupings of paragraphs, lively use of dialogue, etc.  Use one of the child's writing pieces that demonstrates that feature and plan together to use it as a mini-lesson for the class.  When the time comes for the mini-lesson, have the student stand upfront with you at the overhead projector or electronic board to show his piece and to explain the feature.  Then, add his or her name to a chart in the room that proclaims him to be an expert.  Encourage other students to see the listed experts if they want to try that feature in their writing.  They can all be experts at something!  

End of the Day

In classrooms that are self-contained, if you've never tried an End of the Day Journal, it's not too late to try it this year.  At the end of the day, gather your students and write an entry into your "journal"---which could be at your overhead projector or on a flip chart.  Summarize the major things that you've accomplished that day.  Not only does this reaffirm to your students that their time has been well-spent with you, but also students are more likely to respond to the parent who asks, "What'd you do in school today?" since they've just thought about it with you.  

Bring out the riddles!

This is a great time of the year to model and suggest that students write riddles in a poetry format.  Just start them with: Who am I?  or What am I?  They're fun, fast, and creative...not to mention a good springboard for teaching verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech.  Here's my for  today...for primary students:

Who am I?

In school all day!

Blowing bubbles,

Flapping gills,

Swishing through cool water,

Swimming happily.

Showing shiny scales

Flashing sharp fins

Who am I?  

(a fish)

revising and editing

Are you sometimes convinced that your students spend more time erasing than writing?  If so, I have a simple solution for you.  First, understand the reason for the erasures.  The usual explanations for this are: 1) Some students want their first attempts at writing to be their final attempts!  They hate having to write pieces over again (...and shouldn't have to do that any more than necessary!).  Also, 2) A few clever kids erase a lot so that they don't have to write.  They're likely to be the same ones who sharpen their pencils endlessly or thumb through the dictionary with abandon (if you allow it).  Here are two solutions to the problem--all too simple.  Offer pens to your students to use during their drafting.  Even the little ones love to experiment with pens.  Of course, they can't erase with pens and must learn to cross out and write above.  Another solution is to furnish lots of pencils for writing---pencils without erasers!!  Just pop those little tips off so that no one is tempted to erase.  Problem easily solved!  

Comics for your kids!

You're gonna love this web site for students of all ages: MakeBeliefsComix.com.  Students can create short comic strips, choosing their own characters, dialogue bubbles, and features and can then print out to share.  This should get all of your students thinking and even the most reluctant writers moving!  

Developmentally Appropriate...or not??

 

I thought the following was an interesting quote, worthy of some careful thought as we consider how much we should or should not be adjusting our expectations of young children.  I would love to hear your responses to this issue:   “Is there anyone with a historical sensibility who can see how vastly we’ve shifted over two or three decades in our understanding of what children need?  I believe we need to keep a historical perspective in order to see more clearly how the concept of ‘developmentally appropriate’ has been perverted into a mandate to teach things that were clearly developmentally inappropriate 30 years ago.”  Thomas Armstong, learning and human development expert.  “Historical Perspectives on What is ‘Developmentally Appropriate'," The Whole Child Blog, Nov. 18, 2010.