Back To Basics Is KeyGetting back to basics is key this year as many children strive to catch up after a year of online learning and missed opportunities for individual support due to the pandemic. Last week I spoke about focusing on the mental health of the kids first and academics second. That doesn't mean that we stop teaching the academics and following the curriculum, but we need to find the balance that will support the students where they are at. Returning to some of the basics will be key. Literacy IdeasFor younger children, literacy is huge. Developing and nurturing literacy skills is important. This may include phonics, phonemic awareness, word attack skills, emergent reading and writing activities, and guided reading groups. Sometimes all of these will be needed as the range in primary classrooms can be developmentally wide. Choosing activities that are interactive and hands on will be more engaging than worksheets and will also allow for small group work so that everyone can be working on different skills or concepts that are appropriate. This will require some assessment, preparation, and scheduling, but it will be worth it. Check out my guided reading post to see how I managed this in a multi-level classroom. Math ideasFor math, most curriculums work with a spiral approach so that skills are reviewed and then built on as the concepts are mastered. This is a good practice and makes it easier to adjust to meet the needs of the kids. In the primary grades it is important to make sure that the activities start with the concrete before moving to the abstract. Some kids are able to do this quickly and others will require additional practice with hands on activities. Small group activities and guided math situations will help with this as well. As with the literacy activities, you will need to assess, prepare, and schedule things to make them run smoothly. Check out this blog post for tips that help kids struggling with math. Social studies in the primary grades can be global or community based depending on the specific concepts being taught. Mapping activities can be simple or complex to fit the needs of the children. Studying about the community and more global ideas can also be made simpler or more detailed for the children. Project based activities work well for this. Check out this post to see how I successfully used projects with my primary classes. You can also grab a mapping activity from my followers free resources page if you have subscribed to my newsletter. As for science choose a few different areas and focus on them. It isn't necessary to do all the different topics. This will allow deeper learning and concept development. Kids love doing science experiments and learning about how things work. You can even add in a project if it works. There is a free gravity experiment on my followers free resources page as well as some other free resources in my TPT store that may help you out. Related Posts
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Language Ideas for the holidays and seasonsThe holiday season is here and kids are getting excited and restless. The weather is changing and winter is almost upon us. We need to find activities that capture the attention of our students while continuing to provide content and skill development. What better way to excite kids than to focus on the holidays with these activities. There are many different subject areas that can be considered here. For now, I would like to focus on language arts. Being able to read, write, and speak well are goals that we would like to see achieved. This is a great time to focus on new activities that expand vocabulary and help with creating more detailed and descriptive oral and written experiences. Using games and other hands on activities will help to engage kids and motivate them to learn. For students learning a second language this is especially important. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be focusing on French, but the concepts and ideas are appropriate for any second language. Why vocabulary development is so important for second language learnersSecond language learners often feel tongue-tied when they start to learn a new language. They know what they want to say, but they don't have the words yet to say it. They struggle to make themselves understood as they attempt to use the limited vocabulary they have been given. They are self conscious and often afraid to speak out loud. Doing activities that help to broaden their vocabulary will help them with communication. Holiday vocabulary activities will work well for engaging them in the excitement of the season. There are many different types of vocabulary activities, but I would suggest that they focus on fun and interactive games and activities. As they continue to develop their vocabulary skills, they will gain more confidence and begin to speak out more often. The more they speak, the more they get practice, and the more confident they become. The same goes for reading and writing. The more comfortable they become with the language and the vocabulary, the more they will use it. Win-win. French/English resources for the holidays and seasonsI have been creating French resources for younger kids and for those going into late immersion. I created many of them in both French and English so that they could be used for those who might be learning English as well. They are also great for primary English classrooms. Here are some resources that may help you through the next few months as your students continue to learn new vocabulary and develop their language skills. le vocabulaire thématique/J'ai, qui a? combos (les prépositions, les vêtements, les légumes et les fruits, les émotions, la météo, l'hygiène et la santé, les adjectifs opposés, les parties du corps, la cuisine rapide et la collation, la cuisine, le temps, le calendrier) Themed vocabulary/I have, who has?? combos (prepositions, clothing, vegetables and fruits, emotions, weather, hygiene and health, opposite adjectives, body parts, fast food and snacks, the kitchen, weather, calendar) Here are some holiday vocabulary activities that will make learning fun. le Noël des mots de vocabulaire - French Christmas Vocabulary Task Cards Activities and Games le Noël des mots de vocabulaire - French Christmas Vocabulary Game I Have, Who Has? J'ai, Qui a? le Noël Parts Of Speech Silly Sentences French Version Christmas Vocabulary Task Cards Activities Christmas Vocabulary Game - I Have, Who Has? Christmas Parts of Speech Silly Sentences l'hiver - le vocabulaire l'hiver Parts Of Speech Silly Sentences French version Winter Parts of Speech Silly Sentences Winter Vocabulary Activities And Games Winter Vocabulary Activity - I Have, Who Has? For more French holiday resources, check out this blog post from another teacher with links to more resources that will help you make it through the Christmas season. Preparing for a new yearIf you are looking ahead for the new year, check out some of these resources and ideas. Click on the images to find out more. Well, I hope you have found some helpful ideas and resources here. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with as you continue to work with kids. Related PostsHelping kids expand their vocabularyAre you looking for ways to help kids with writing and sharing their ideas? This seems to be a common issue with younger children as they begin to share their ideas, but they don't have the words yet to describe things in detail. Instead, they tend to use the same few words over and over. We sometimes refer to these as "worn out words". How to develop a rich vocabulary baseDeveloping a rich vocabulary base helps with writing and expressing ideas and it also allows kids to create more detailed and creative stories. There are many different ways to expand the vocabulary. Here are a few. Brainstorm as a classChoose some of the worn out words, such as nice, good, happy, fun and come up with a list of words that can be used instead. Try a thesaurusYounger children might find this a bit challenging, but they can still give it a try. A thesaurus will provide many synonyms for words. Do a vocabulary challengeTake a simple sentence and challenge the class to come up with different variations that make the sentence more interesting but still maintain the meaning. Then share the sentences with others. Create a themed word wallSometimes kids just need words that fit the various themes. They can help them to get their stories started or provide some extra ideas to expand their stories. A themed word wall can be changed as different themes are explored. If you don't want to devote space to an actual word wall, you can store the words on rings and allow the students to take them as needed to use. Use word games and activities to review vocabularyIt is important to make sure that the kids get lots of exposure to the words they need for various writing tasks. This ensures that the words become part of their working vocabulary. Then they will be able to access them more readily in future literacy situations. I find that word games and activities work well for working with vocabulary words as they are engaging and fun. Kids learn without realizing they are actually studying the words and phrases. The more they play, the faster they begin to recognize the words. Sight word games, silly sentences, I Have, Who Has? games, and task cards for matching games are a few examples that have worked well for me over the years. I created many of these games for literacy centers and they were always very popular. Using the same types of formats helps the children to focus on the content rather than how to play the games. Just change up the themes and let them play. Here are some vocabulary word sets I created for the seasons and special days. I hope to be able to add to the special days in the future. There are sets of I Have, Who Has? cards for each of the seasons and special days as well. If you are teaching French, check out the French versions. My students loved making silly sentences, so I created several themed sets for them. They enjoyed making the sentences and practiced parts of speech at the same time. As an extension activity, we would sometimes take the words and illustrate them and then put them into a flip book of silly sentences. You can check out my special days parts of speech silly sentences here. If you would like to try out a free vocabulary activity, sign up for my newsletter. I am offering my I Have, Who Has? Christmas set to my followers for free. There you have some ideas for expanding and developing a broader vocabulary base for your students. I hope they work well for you. I would love to hear what other ways you use themed vocabulary in your classroom. Let me know in the comments. Related PostsCapturing Imagination In WritingChristmas is fast approaching. This a time that is full of excitement and wonder and kids look forward to it all year. They start talking about it and making wishes. They enjoy getting gifts and being part of the decorating and family times. They have fun playing holiday games and activities at school. It is a great time to capture their imagination in their writing. I used to tell my students to use descriptive writing with the five senses to paint a picture in the reader's mind. We would come up with lists of words and juicy details that would help to describe images. I even used paintbrushes as symbols for different types of descriptions. Check out my graphics and templates for this kind of detailed writing. Using images and graphic organizers can be really helpful for students that struggle with writing. They can even use them like a checklist as they get started. Eventually they will not need to rely on them anymore. One of my favorite projects for this season is Christmas Writing Using The Five Senses. It is a poem that shares images from four different settings. I even shared it with another teacher and her class after I retired. We had fun working together and seeing the poems that the children wrote. Here is one of the poems that a grade 2 student wrote. Another thing that we did was create a special craft to go along with the poem. You can check it out here. If you are interested in more writing ideas using the five senses, check out my products that use images and photographs to practice descriptive writing. Grab this free sampler by signing up for my newsletter. Have fun watching your students create magical stories and poems this Christmas. Related PostsEngaging Kids Up To HalloweenHappy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends. I hope you are enjoying this weekend. This week, we are changing gears and focusing on a day that kids love. It is almost Halloween and kids are already thinking about what costumes they will wear and different parties they might attend. It is a good time to share some activities and resources that are fun and also help to engage the kids in good learning strategies. I have found that kids need a routine and structure even during special days in order to stay regulated when they are excited. That is why I usually take time to focus on different activities that will keep them learning, but engage them due to the theme. Halloween activities can be started earlier in the month, or they can be kept until a day or two before Halloween depending on what you choose. For me, I usually kept more to a fall theme until near the end of the month and then added in the Halloween theme. It helped to keep the excitement level manageable. Also, it didn't stretch out the wait for the kids as much. Literacy Ideas For HalloweenKids often like to hear scary stories and write spooky stories or poems. This is a great time to try a scaffold for those who struggle with getting started. My kids enjoyed writing using this starter: I Was So Scared.... Literacy games and task cards can also be fun to use. They help with stretching the imagination and they can be tied into different elements or concepts that you wish to teach. I found that my silly sentences for working with parts of speech were a hit with the kids in my class and in other classes as well. I created them for English and French and found they worked well in both languages. Math and Science Ideas For HalloweenThere are many different opportunities to incorporate a Halloween theme into math. Data collection and graphing can be done for costumes, treats, characters, and a host of other categories. Practice of math facts and operations can be done with worksheets or task cards that have Halloween themed graphics or clipart. Doing activities with pumpkins can also be fun and can combine math and science. Counting seeds, comparing designs, pumpkin shapes, cooking the pumpkin, and using it to make different recipes are just a few ideas. Pumpkin glyphs are also great to try at this time of year. One of the things that really fascinates kids is potions. Using terms like "eye of newt", "frog toes" or "drops of blood" is sure to engage them. I remember when we would make up potions to drink and give all the ingredients fancy potion names. It was quite entertaining to watch as they saw these drinks being prepared. Really, they were just cola, grenadine, gummy worms, licorice babies, and some other gummy candies. Sometimes we would add orange juice as well. This might be fun to try with your students. You could even create a potion sheet with the "ingredients" listed. Don't Forget Halloween Safety TipsFor younger children, a focus on safety is important too. This is a good time to talk about how to have a safe Halloween experience. They can make posters, and do some role playing or write stories that talk about what a safe Halloween should look like and sound like. Creating activities that help to discern what are safe and unsafe activities might be worth trying as well. Doing some art activities with a safety theme might be fun to do as well. Halloween can be fun for kids, but it needs to be safe. I hope some of the ideas here help to make this Halloween fun and educational as well. Check out my Halloween category in my TeachersPayTeachers store for more resources. Related PostsGetting back into the swing of thingsSummer break is over. School is back in session! For some, you have already been in session for a few weeks. For others, this is your last weekend of break. The question on many teachers' minds is "What will this year bring?" Some kids are excited, some are anxious, some are disinterested, and some are unhappy. There are so many emotions during the regular return to school, but with the uncertainty and constant changes last year as we navigated through the unknowns of the pandemic, some emotions escalated. Many kids experienced more anxiety, confusion, and frustration as they tried to learn in new environments and situations, many parents experienced anxiety and frustration as they navigated online and at home instruction, and teachers experienced anxiety, uncertainty, frustration, and burnout as they tried to balance in person, online, and hybrid teaching situations. There was hope that we would be closer to a more normal school year, but things are still changing and we need to be ready to change gears at any moment. This uncertainty is causing teachers stress even before school begins. Many of my teacher friends are still waiting to find out what grade level they are teaching, how many students they will have, and even where they will be teaching. Primary teachers ready to go kitIt is important to have some things ready for any situation to help get through the transitions of the first weeks. You might call it a survival kit. This kit would need activities for various grades, subjects, and configurations of students. The question is, what should be in this kit? Here are some ideas for primary grades. (Some could be modified for intermediate classes, but since most of my teaching was in primary, I have decided to focus on that level for this sample.) Literacy ideas that are ready to goHere are some literacy activities that will engage and provide reading and writing practice for your students. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Refreshing Idioms Task Cards (sample from the full product) 5 Senses Stories Story Board Fun (activity from Back To School Math And Literacy Ideas) Summer Parts Of Speech (one set of cards from the package) Fall/Autumn Parts Of Speech (one set of cards from the package) Find The Evidence (sample pages) Soundo (part of Alphabet Game Boards) Vocabulary Mandalas (one mandala) Basic Vocabulary Activities ( activities from the product) Quick and fun math activitiesHere are some fun math activities to help your students work on basic math skills. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Ipad Glyphs (sample from the full product) Pumpkin Glyphs (sample from the full product) Measure Up! (activity from Welcome Back To School) Summer Sports Activity Bundle (activity from the bundle) Measurement Games Team Events ( one event from the games) Number Mandalas Addition and Subtraction ( one of the mandalas) Literacy and Math Game Cards (2 game cards) Science fun and experimentsThese science activities will keep kids entertained while learning about science facts. Selections are from various free and paid products. The full products are listed below. Amazing Weather Facts Posters (freebie) Are You A Rectangle Or A Square (freebie) String Telephones The Clink-Clunk Test Team building activitiesTeam building is important at the beginning of the year, but also throughout the year. Here are some activities that can be done in groups or with partners. Back to School Ice Breaker (freebie) Escape Room What Am I? Vocabulary activity (one activity from the set) Find Someone Who (activity from Back To School First Week Activities) Stumpers (activity from Back To School First Week Activities) What Am I? (sample pages from What Am I?) Self esteem activitiesMaking sure that children understand that they are valuable and important will help to develop positive self esteem. Here are some activities that will help with this. Paying It Forward (freebie) Optimist or Pessimist Task Cards (one set of cards) Goal Setting And Reflections (freebie) Brain breaks and active gamesHere are some active classroom games that can be played as brain breaks or in the gym or outside to provide movement and stimulation between other subject activities. Each of these areas is available as a separate package, or you can get the whole bundle to keep on hand for activities to use throughout the year. It will be helpful when you need to prepare for substitute teacher on short notice or if you just need a quick activity to use. You can find the kit here. As I indicated, this is just a sample of some of the things that could be done. It will be up to you to add your own creativity, experience, and preference to your ready to go kit. For more ideas and resources, you can check out the various categories in my TeachersPayTeachers store. If you are looking for back to school resources, you can check out my recent blog post for resources and tips. I wish you all the best as you venture into a new school year. Note: This resource has been updated and more resources have been added to it. For free resources, tips, and ideas, sign up for my newsletter.
Week 6 Focus: Summer Support For Primary KidsHave you ever worried about your child forgetting what was learned during the school year because of the long summer break? This is often referred to as the summer slide. Maybe you have had some experience with that yourself if you have taken a course and then not looked at the material for a long time. Although there will be some lag after a break, if we do things to help make connections with the skills and concepts during the break, the lag will be short lived and with a bit of review, learning can continue. Here are some different ideas for summer support for your child. Take a break from academicsJust as we need to recharge and refresh, so do children, especially this year after a much more stressful and different type of year. Taking a break from the academics and doing something different for awhile may actually help with improving learning and retention. Fresh ideas and more attention will be easier after a break as long as the break isn't too long. Connect activities with real lifeDo activities that connect the real world with the skills and concepts taught at school. If you would like more details about the various subjects, you can check out my previous blog posts in this series. Week 1 Focus: Primary Language Arts Week 2 Focus: Primary Math Week 3 Focus: Primary Science Week 4 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 1 Week 5 Focus: Primary Social Studies Part 2 Make activities engaging and funKids want to feel like they are having a break from school. There are many ways to help them continue learning without making them feel like they are doing schoolwork. Using games and hands on activities help to engage them and the concepts get reinforced while they are having fun. Here is an example. This is a blog post I wrote about using manipulatives and games in math. Enjoy the outdoors while learningLet them get outdoors and soak up the sun while learning at the same time. There are so many ways that learning can be done in the real world. Here are some examples. Try having races and using stopwatches to see how fast they can go. Compare with others. See if they can better the times. Go geocaching as a family and search for treasures. This is a great way to learn about places around the community that you may not have known existed. It is also a good way to practice using coordinates and mapping skills. Collect rocks and sort them by different characteristics. Then find ways to use them for other activities such as graphing, crafts, and rock studies. Let your child help plan a camping trip. They could help with planning meals, doing the grocery shopping, making lists of what equipment is needed, and looking at routes and distances. History, Family Heritage and TraditionsLearn about local history by visiting museums, historic landmarks, interviewing long time residents or doing research at the library. Help your child learn about your family heritage, culture, and traditions. Create a pictorial timeline of the family. Get creative practicing academicsIt is important to sometimes do activities that specifically reinforce and review skills and concepts in order for them to be maintained. This is the time to get creative with the academic activities. Mix them up with active games and brain breaks to keep learning fun. Try to avoid too many worksheets and drills. Engage your child in reading and writing activities that have themes or special hooks to make them interesting. Perhaps the library has a summer program where different authors visit or they may have incentives for reading a certain number of books. Puppet shows are a great way to practice acting out stories. Maybe your child could write some different stories and then create puppet shows to present to the family. Try using nursery rhymes or simple songs and using them as the springboard for writing new lyrics based on a variety of themes. There are many different examples floating around on the internet this year that are parodies using popular themes. Check out my blog posts for struggling readers, writers and learners for more ideas. Motivating Reluctant Readers Tips For Helping Struggling Writers In The Classroom How To Engage Your Reluctant Learners In The Classroom Math is definitely an area where I suggest using hands on activities and making things as visual as possible. Math is abstract and therefore hard for many young children to understand if they don't get lots of practical exposure first. I have worked with many older children that struggle with understanding how to do basic operations and more complex math because they haven't figured out how it works. By doing lots of games and hands on activities with them, they have been able to move on and be successful in more difficult math situations. Check out some ways that I have worked with them to help math make sense. Tips For Helping Math Make Sense These are just a few ideas that may help to keep the learning going throughout the summer. Remember to have fun and the learning will happen.
Week 1 Focus: Primary Language ArtsHome-school connections have been more important than ever this year because of the pandemic. It has also created some new and sometimes overwhelming situations for teachers, kids, and families as they have tried to navigate this new way of learning. For the next few weeks, I will be focusing on different subjects and providing teaching tips for school and home to support kids and parents. This week the focus is primary language arts. I will be providing teaching tips, activities and games to connect school instruction with real life experiences, and also some reasons that it is important to have this connection between school and home. Language activities start at homeBeing able to communicate is important. This communication has many elements that are all included in language arts. Language arts includes reading, writing, oral communication, and language development. It is not just something that is taught and practiced at school. Children get their first exposure as babies and those that have a rich exposure to language when they are young have an advantage when they arrive at school. Family members are the first teachers of language arts. They introduce kids to oral communication, stories, and sometimes the start of written language. At school, teachers work with these beginning skills and help kids develop them. Connecting school and home with real life activitiesAt school, children are introduced to the mechanics of language. They learn to recognize letters, use phonics to decode words, make sense of written language, start writing ideas down, do oral presentations, and develop a deeper understanding of these ways of communication. If they are able to connect these skills with real life activities at home their learning experiences will be enriched. There will be added benefits of quality family time and involvement. Activities and games to reinforce language skillsGames and activities are great ways to engage kids and help develop their skills. They have so much fun doing the activities, they don't realize that they are practicing the skills. Here are some suggestions that might be fun to try. (Some of these are products that I created. They are linked so you can check them out.) Phonics and Vocabulary Activities - sight word games - Boggle Jr. - Scrabble Jr. - Soundo games - Hangman - Word searches - Crossword puzzles - Vocabulary Mandalas - computer activities Reading Activities - Reading aloud/story time - Reader's theater - Re-enacting stories (example: Stone Soup) - Novel studies (example: Horrible Harry series) - Book review Writing Activities - poetry using nursery rhymes or songs (example: Orchestrating Writing Poetry) - 5 senses writing - using scaffolds - Mad Libs - Silly sentences (parts of speech) - keeping a journal or diary Oral Communication Activities - retelling stories - reading aloud and changing voices for different characters - reader's theater - discussions - interviews - listening to audiobooks Teachers are willing to help support families as they provide everyday enrichment for the skills and concepts presented at school. It is important to remember that they may also have children at home that need that support and time, so we need to remember not to overwhelm them either. As teachers and families develop a connection, everyone will get through these challenging times. Remember: we are all cheerleaders for the kids. We want what is best for them and as we work together, they will succeed. I hope these tips are helpful as you navigate through the next few months. Next week I will be focusing on Math tips and activities. Related PostsTips For Teaching Sight WordsSight words are important for developing reading fluency. Using sight word games and activities will help engage children in learning them. The English language is complex and many words are not phonetic and need to be learned by sight. Other words are phonetic and can be decoded, but fluency and comprehension will be affected if too many words need to be decoded. Being able to recognize high frequency words by sight will improve fluency and comprehension. It is important to make sure that the children are ready for learning sight words before starting. They need to know their alphabet letters well. Phonics should be taught at the same time so that they have the phonemic awareness necessary to decode when needed. Tips For Introducing and Practicing Sight WordsIntroduce only a few words at a time and do several activities and games to reinforce them before adding in more words. Review words that are already known before introducing new words. It is important to keep revisiting these words as you add new ones so they don't get forgotten. Children will progress at different speeds, so they need to have some individualized instruction to make good progress. Small group activities can be done, but only as the kids are ready for them. Doing activities during guided reading can also help. Usually the kids are of similar ability and they would benefit from some directed teaching of the sight words. Tactile activities can help kinesthetic learners. Try using playdoh or wix sticks, tracing letters in sand, or moving around letters on a magnetic board. The goal is to practice the words in as many ways as possible to imprint them into memory. Another great tool is a sight word ladder. It is a folder with pockets that hold sight words. the goal is to move the cards up the ladder as the words are mastered. The basic sight words are divided into groups and assigned colours. When all the cards of one colour are mastered, the student moves on to the next colour. Sight Word Games And ActivitiesOnce they have mastered several sight words, it is time to add in some more games and activities. Memory games, bingo, letter scrambles, word searches, puzzles, etc. I have created several sets of themed sight word cards and some bingo cards as well as sight word practice activities for 220 high frequency sight words and 95 common nouns. You can check them out by visiting the Sight Words Category in my store. Here is a sampler activity to try. I hope these tips are helpful. I would love to hear what you use to help kids learn their sight words. Related PostsWhat is Figurative Language?Have you ever been told to "get your head out of the clouds"? How about "hold your horses"? Can you just imagine what a person who is new to the English language must be thinking when they hear these expressions? I really didn't think too much about it until I had a student in my class who was a very literal thinker. I had no idea just how many different times during the day we used figurative language in the classroom. We are so accustomed to it, that we don't even realize that we are using it. There are several types of figurative language. Today I am going to focus on idioms and some fun figurative language activities for kids. What is an idiom?According to the dictionary, an idiom is an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own. For example: when we say that someone has "ants in their pants" we don't really mean that they have ants crawling around in their pants. Instead, we are referring to them being wiggly and having trouble sitting still. Here are a few other common idioms: full of beans sick as a dog a dime a dozen back to the drawing board once in a blue moon spill the beans down to the wire in hot water play it by ear raining cats and dogs in a pickle There are many more, but I think you get the idea. My daughter-in-law is Korean, and when she moved to Canada, she was often confused by the expressions we used. She would ask me what I meant when I said something that didn't fit with what the words said. This made me more aware of what I was saying. She has been here for six years now, so she is comfortable with the way we talk and often uses figurative language herself. Back to the student I had who was a literal thinker. I introduced him and my class to the Amelia Bedelia books. The author, Peggy Parish, had a wonderful way of helping us understand how much we use expressions when speaking. The character Amelia Bedelia did everything as literally said which led to some very comical situations. The children loved the way she reacted and they found it amusing to see how she would behave in each situation. My literal student began to understand that sometimes when we say something, it might have a different meaning than the words used. Fun Figurative Language Activities Using IdiomsHere are some activities that worked well with my students. You might like to try them with yours. 1. Create an idiom booklet Out of this situation, a new activity was born. We began a study on idioms and started to collect a list of expressions that we found in the books and in our daily conversations. Our goal was to come up with 100 since hundreds day was coming up soon. Needless to say, we could barely get a word out without someone saying "idiom". It was fun for the class, but it also had the potential to distract us from other things we were working on. We had to start making some guidelines to keep it in check. Once we had our expressions, we decided to do some activities with them. We created a class idiom booklet and each person was given 4 or 5 idioms to illustrate for the booklet. This booklet was a favourite for free reading time and barely lasted throughout the year because of its popularity. 2. Use Idiom task cards for a center activity I created some idiom task card games that we were able to play in small groups or as center activities. I used the theme of turning lemons into lemonade for these cards. You can check them out here. The following year, I created another set of task cards. It is called Figurative Language Task Cards. You can check it out here. 3. Use Amelia Bedelia stories to study figurative language The Amelia Bedelia series of books was very popular with all my students. Herman Parish, a nephew of Peggy Parish, continued her legacy with Amelia Bedelia and wrote some simple readers and some chapter books about Amelia's childhood. These books provided me with enough differentiated material on the same character for everyone in my class to read. We were able to study the characters, learn about idioms, and work on our reading skills at the same time. 4. Try out this activity for Good Work, Amelia Bedelia When I retired, I continued to work with small reading groups at my school. I found that the Amelia Bedelia books were still a good fit for some of the guided reading groups I was working with. I created an activity to go along with the Good Work, Amelia Bedelia book to use here. If you would like to find out more or get your own copy, check it out here. 5. What does the idiom mean? I have been thinking a lot about language lately, and I decided to create another idiom activity. It includes 39 different idioms with 10 of them that have two different images, so 49 pages in all. I have also created a small sampler of it that you can get here by clicking on the image. So there you have a few ideas for using idioms in your classroom. I hope your students have as much fun as mine did. Don't forget to grab your free sampler of idioms here. I would love to know more about how you use idioms in your classroom. Related posts |
About Me Charlene Sequeira
I am a wife, mother of 4, grandmother of 9, and a retired primary and music teacher. I love working with kids and continue to volunteer at school and teach ukulele. Categories
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