It was announced that our school would be having visitors from the state last week, and my initial evaluation observation is scheduled for Monday, so I thought it might be a good time to get a couple of new student-made displays up. (They didn't tell us the state visitors were checking security, not education, and I doubt my observation will take place as scheduled; but they were good excuses anyway.) My seventh graders helped with the new door display: Shades of Meaning. I need to admit up front that this is not my idea, I stole it from Pinterest and their textbook. The book wanted them to create synonym charts that ranked words from weakest to strongest in meaning. I love graphic organizers as much as the next person, (ok, the truth is I've been accused of being addicted to them, and it's probably an accurate assessment), but the whole plan felt a little boring. Thankfully, I remembered seeing the idea of using paint chip samples to list synonyms on Pinterest, and a new door decoration was born. The students first used a graphic organizer to look up synonyms for the given words (pg 20 of this book I downloaded for free), and then they checked the definitions to help them rank the words in strength from 1-5. We then used paint sample cards from Home Depot and Sherwin Williams to list them, placing the weakest word on the lightest shade and the strongest at the bottom. The kids did a great job, and I've noticed other students stopping in the hall to read over the different cards! (Of course the one that gets the most attention is throw up, up chuck, vomit, spew; but hey, I teach at a middle school, what else would you expect?) The second display is the closet door inside the classroom and my eighth and ninth graders took control of that one. Picture Perfect Prepositions starts as a magazine scavenger hunt activity and ends as a set of posters. I give the students a list of prepositions (above, except, during, near, outside, until, through, inside, without, off) and ask them to find pictures that represent each. The students must then cut out the picture, glue it to a piece of paper, and write a sentence about the picture, using a preposition from their list. It's a challenging activity for low proficiency and beginning ESL students, but a lot of fun. My students were able to complete the project (with a fair amount of sentence help) in about three class periods. I think the seventh grade is about done with synonyms, but we're going to be headed toward antonyms soon. The eighth grade still has a long way to go with prepositions, but they've made a great start. Below the close-up of student work photos, you'll find links to my antonym flashcards, Going Buggy for Prepositions and Mousy Prepositions Games. |
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AuthorI've been teaching since 2000 and love what I do! Archives
May 2018
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