Colour coding words – Dyslexia

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Hi, remember me? It’s been a while since I last updated my little side project.

Why so long you ask? Well. Turns out, I would MUCH rather write all these wonderful English essays, and pedagogical reflections that university is making me do. Oh, what joy they bring me! 

So, what brings me back you ask? Well. I have quite a number of students who have dyslexia, and quite a number of students who are just learning how to read  in English, and learn all of our wonderful pronunciation and spelling screw-up-ery. I mean, English is a mix-match of Latin, Greek, Germanic and French… plus you also have Shakespeare who bombarded the English language with a whole plethora of new words… spelling just couldn’t keep up.

To sum it up: I really FEEL for anyone who is an ELL (English language learner) and needs to read this damn language. I can only imagine the extra challenge for those who have dyslexia.

As teachers, we are expected to differentiate as much as possible within the classroom, and this brings about challenges as well. How do we help those who have dyslexia to read without increasing frustration? How do we develop a lifelong love for reading?

Here is one little exercise that you can try with your students – those who are beginning to read, as well as those with dyslexia. You can find a similar idea on this fantastic website Beating Dyslexia

First, teach them how to count syllables. One easy way is telling them to look at how many vowels each word has, but it is pretty amazing how quickly students catch on to the whole “clapping words out” idea.

Then, give the the little muffins a short reading passage. Something they can really sink their teeth into – a little difficult, but within their range of learning.

Lastly, tell them that they are going to read their part (alone or with a partner), and colour in words. 

Green – 1 clap word,  Yellow – 2 clap word, Red – 3 clap or more words

This makes them focus more on the word they are reading through saying it out loud and reflecting over it with a friend.

There we have it! Colour coding words. Try it with your students, and let me know how it goes.

Now. I will muster up all the energy (and wine) I have left, and write an essay on something really important for my pedagogical course. 

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Learning Detectives – Class Dojo

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Image result for star trekCaptain’s log: August 10th… 2018… Classroom B2… Deep Boxholm.

Today is the second day of my 1 year mission here at Stenbockskolan… the more time I spend here at this strange place, the harder it is to remember when one day ends, and the next begins…

It can be a challenge to feel like I have the… slightest clue as to what I did last year with my classes… when even curriculum and lesson plans seem artificial…But… I will do what I can to make the students believe I know what I am talking about on the first day in order to establish firm, diplomatic ties. They smell fear you know.

However, the deeper into my materials I go, the more I find myself wondering…if I have something to make students take control of their own learning, while at the same time improving classroom mangagement.The possibilities are truely… endless.

BUT

 I remembered a great idea that I read in Challenging Learning Through Feedback by James and Jill Nottingham, and thought that MAYBE… just MAYBE I have found the ticket.

(10 points to those who got the Star Trek reference at the beginning of this post. 1 million points to those who read it as William Shatner.)

So – what are Learning Detectives? The idea is that it allows students to focus on the learning behaviours you want them to exhibit during class while at the same time getting them to give themselves and each other feedback.

How am I going to do this? I thought about the different learning behaviours that I wanted the students to show… seeing as this is the second day back to work, my brainstorming session was preeeeeetty brutal. Here is an exact re-enactment of the conversation I had with my brain.

Me: Alright brain. Whaddya got for me?

Brain: *Still sipping a white wine spritzer on the beach in Greece* Huh? 

Me: Image result for face palm

 

Finally after what seemed like a bazillion hours of slowly getting my brain off the beach, on the ferry back to Athens and on a plane to Sweden… I met my brain outside of the school, gave it a cup of coffee and made it think.

My brain cooperated finally, and has produced the following list. Is it perfect? Nope! But. It’s a start, and something I am pretty excited to try with my younger students this year. My thought is to have different categories of Learning Detectives in the future. I’m going for kind of a CSI theme (CSI: Miami, CSI: Las Vegas) Learning Detectives: Writing, Learning Detectives: Speaking… you get the picture.

Download

Class Dojo

I also thought it might be good to have something that tracks these learning behaviours, and possibly cumulates in some sort of reward after a certain amount of time. That brought me to this fantastic app called Class Dojo . 

I put the video below for you to watch. Personally, I don’t like trying TOO many new things at once,  so I will just use this for the “Instant Feedback” portion of the app (4:19 in video). I like it because I can edit it to the learning behaviours I want to recognize in the classroom. Here is an example below.

I would talk with the Learning Detectives, see what students they thought were showing the learning behaviours and then register it on Class Dojo.

The Learning Detective concept is something I haven’t tried before, but I am excited because it is always great when you get the children to feel more empowered and reflect on their own learning process.

If you try this, let me know how it goes for you – would love to hear what you think, or if you have any other fantastic ideas that my poor vacation brain has not thought of yet.

 

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The Amazing Race – More Countries

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Hey! I will keep this short and simple, because I am in the middle of grading and I am just a weeeee bit stressed out.  Here are some extra goodies for Amazing Race for those of you who are struggling to find something to do the last week.

Here we are with Spain. I did this with my students last week, and it proved to be a hit. They had some pretty hilarious Running of the Bulls commentary.

Video Player

 

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Here we are with Ireland – I didn’t get any pictures, but the students had to bend over and kiss the Blarney Stone

Download

Finally, we went to South Africa which was pretty fun also. They had to remember names of animals, learn about Nelson Mandela and even got to learn a little Zulu!

Download

Download

 

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I wrote that?! Comparing assignments and reflecting forward

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I have this wonderful Grade 7 class that has this willingness for constant improvement. There are so many kids that go through their writing with a fine tooth comb after I give editing suggestions, and the little muffins.. bless their hearts… you know what they do? They actually do what I suggested! *MIND BLOWN* They fix all their little tiny grammar mistakes, their sentence structure errors.. they add synonyms to “penny words” like good, bad, nice (by the way.. nice has to be my least favourite word in the English language… that and moist… but now I’m getting sidetracked).

It just makes me want to break into song.

Image result for oh what a beautiful morning gif

They just finished their newspaper assignments, and I thought this could be a perfect opportunity for self reflection which is a concept taken from James Nottingham’s book Challenging Learning. 

Here is another blog I did based on Challenging Learning’s ideas on giving timely and useful  feedback.

Personally, I think letting the students reflect on their own progress is is so important – and something I constantly try to fine tune.  This time I wanted to see if they could reflect over how they had improved from their very first assignment in Grade 7 (My Favourite Memory) to now.

So I asked them the following questions:

1. What is the difference between your first assignment and this?

2. What is something you think you have become better at?

3. What are two things you think you still need to be better at?

First, we talked about things they could look for. Word for the wise: Don’t rush this! I will definitely put more time into this, because I felt like this was a little hectic and stressful … you could spend an entire lesson just letting them brainstorm on this list. However, with some teacherly assistance…. we came up with the following list.

  • Spelling (has my spelling improved?)
  • I have / She has (verb agreement)
  • Capitals (Do I big letters on I, names of people and places?)
  • Synonyms (Did I use bigger words?)
  • Periods (Do I have punctuation?)
  • Sentence structure (Do my sentences make sense?)
  • Length (Can I write more now? Is it easier to write more?)

They wrote their answers on sticky notes and stuck them on my computer before they left for the day. I’m not sure if this was the best method either – maybe for Grade 7 it is – if I do a similar activity with the Grade 9s, I will get them to do something more substantial…maybe as a final writing task (Hm… I’ll have to have a thinky think over that one). 

Anyhoo! Here is the final result which I was pretty happy with considering this is their first time doing this type of activity.

You know what the best thing about this little self relection task is? Watching their little faces as they realize “Holy crap – I am on my way to being an English rockstar.”

 

 

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Photo Scavenger Hunt – Easter Edition

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Image result for Easter punsYour students too cool for Easter fun? Get them to be a little silly with this Easter themed Photo Scavenger Hunt.

Students have to run around and take pictures of themselves doing the chicken dance, hopping like a bunny, speaking in an Australian accent and reading Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

If you want the original version of the Photo Scavenger Hunt you can find that here ( just click on the download button under the excel file and it should work). 

 

 

Here’s the scavenger hunt for Easter. Now – if you will excuse me – It is time to binge on chocolate.

Download

 

Download

 

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Amazing Race – Ireland Edition

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Hey! Kiss my Blarney Stone – it’s St.Paddy’s Day!

Image result for kiss my blarney stone

Time to drink the green beer, and celebrate all things Irish.

In honour of this holiday, I have put together some questions for The Amazing Race (click for link to game). In this, the students find Irish Blessings, watch Guinness commercials and kiss the Blarney Stone. My Grade 6 students did it this morning, and had a really fun time.

Press the download button below the file, and all the questions SHOULD appear.

Download

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Newspapers – Subunit 1: Fake News

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Call me old fashioned, but I still think newspapers are the best way to get news. There is something about sitting down at the breakfast table, in your housecoat, drinking your coffee and flipping through the paper. Maybe it is just me, but I feel like I can channel my inner old man and grumble under my breath at something that someone did that I deem to be outside of societal norms. You just can’t grumble in the same way when you read the news on your computer!

I wanted my students to channel their inner grumpy old man, and create their own front page of a newspaper… mind you…there are other important reasons I wanted to do this assignment as well, such as the following:

  • Understanding the purpose and function of newspapers by writing entertainment, information and persuasive news articles

  • Being able to use language associated with newspapers (headline, byline, lead paragraph, body paragraph etc)

  • Most importantly though – introducing students to the newspaper and helping appreciate what a great resource the newspaper is

 

I will break each sub-unit down – because if I put it all in here – it will be information overload I fear. Let’s start at the beginning shall we?

Subunit 1: Fake News – Reading Intelligently

Fake news is EVERYWHERE… and although I am kind of sick of the term “fake news” because of President Drumpf it is SO incredibly important that students know how to analyze news stories to deem whether or not they or real, an exaggerated version of the truth or completely bogus (urban dictionary: wiggity-wiggity-whack; bullshit; unfortunate; silly; unbelievable; not genuine; the opposite of excellent).

Step 1: James Nottingham has a fantastic resource to get students talking about fake news on his website Challenging Learning –  https://www.challenginglearning.com/resources/. You have to sign up for an account (it’s free – yay!) and then in resources, you search for Fake News. 

In this lesson plan, it asks students about where they get the majority of their news from, among other really great questions. (He’s all about them in depth questioning). News flash. After talking with these kids, you find out that the majority of them don’t get their news from a newspaper. Shock and horror! My students they read their news on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or even Youtube. (This is actually perfect. Gives even more reasons why we should teach them how to read news intelligently.)

Image result for Australia immigrant sign work

Step 2: After this, I get students to BRAINSTORM the ways they know whether something is fake or real. You can start them small by showing them a picture like this… (which is just… ugh). Is this real? Fake? How do they know? This is just a diagnosis, so it is okay if they say things like, “It looks fake.” (which happens)

Step 3: Take them through this PPT. I didn’t use all of it, because I ran out of time.. but I did teach them tips on how to spot if something is fake or not. There is a video, (for those who like to listen) as well as a list (for those who like reading). Get them to take notes while they listen and read.

Download

Step 4: Students then watch this Youtube video from Buzzfeed (kind of obssessed with Buzzfeed) and as a class you can take a vote on whether or not they think the stories are real or fake. They can use their techniques that they had learned that class.

Stick with me – almost done. 

Finally – to hammer everything home – have the students do a little formative activity. They find either a fake news story or real news story and present it to the class. The class must try and find out if the news story was real or fake. How did you find out? This was probably the most fun out of the whole exercise – they really liked trying to trick their classmates.

They can use the following websites – or the techniques we discussed earlier

Fact Check

Snopes

Hoax-Slayer

Politifact

Happy fake news hunting! 

Image result for obvious fake news

Categories: Subunit 1: Fake News9 Comments

This is a WHAT?

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I have been meaning to post this activity for a while now – and finally got around to videotaping (does anybody even say videotaping anymore?!) this game so I could show you all. I thought it might get confusing trying to explain it, so a recording is probably better!

This game is called, “This is a WHAT?!”

The purpose is for the students to practice intonation and vocabulary. I also try to put in items where you have to use plurals and singulars. For example – THESE ARE keyS or This IS A pen 

 

  • Choose 3 – 4 items around the class (or even vocabulary that you have been practicing in class).
  • Start with item 1 and ask the class what it is.
  • Turn to the student next to you and follow the conversation below.

Teacher: This is a book

Student A: A WhhhAAAAAAttt?!

Teacher: A book

Student A to Student B: This is a book

Student B: A WhhhAAAAAAttt?!

Student A: A book

Student B to Student C: This is a book

and so on and so on…

I did this activity with the Grade 7 students in my extra English class. These students are with me because they need a little more support. It doesn’t have to be a small group though. I have done it with a full class before and it worked just fine.

Please keep in mind that not every student is going to be loud and enthusiastic about these sorts of activities… There will always be the shy ones who do not speak very loudly, and with much intonation…HOWEVER… I still consider it a step forward just by getting them to talk in front of a group of people while at the same time learning new words.

You might even catch a few of those shy students crack a smile.

 

 

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Lyrics Training, Pop Music and English

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Today is Friday – which means game day in my Alt-B/Modern Languages/Extra English… whatever-the-heck-you want-to-call-them lessons.

Today, I found this great website called www.lyricstraining.com which is almost like a karaoke meets cloze exercise for the students. It’s fun, because they have the music video there as well to be entertained with.

How it works: https://lyricstraining.com

Instead of doing it as a whole class activity, I put the students in groups of three and told them they needed to write the missing word on the paper as fast as they could and hold it up above their heads when finished. It kind of made it into a little mini-competition between the teams which seemed to be somewhat amusing for them… as amused as teenagers can get anyway…Anyhoo, this game only lasts for about 10 – 15 minutes so I scrambled to find something else to do with the muffins.

 

Pop Quiz: Can You Identify These Hit Songs by Just Their First Second? http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/07/02/pop_music_quiz_name_these_recent_billboard_hits_by_their_first_second.html

This is a GREAT little challenge for you and the students. You listen to only 1 second of the song, and then try and guess the name of it by writing it in the blank space provided. Pretty difficult actually!

And who knows! Maybe you will impress your students with your amazing musical knowledge!

 

 

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Tone and Mood in Poetry: OCD by Neil Hilborn

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Let’s be honest about poetry…students find it boring… groans can be heard near and far when I introduce the unit..

“Uggggggghhhhhh – poetry!? FY FAN! WHY BRIANNE?! How could you dooooo this to uuuuuuuussss…”

Thus cometh in…eth (?)  slam poems. These are the ROCK STARS of poetry because they are meaningful, dramatic and most of all captivating for students.

I wil admit that a lot of people find them easy to make fun of, just like Jonah Hill in this scene from 22 Jump Street…

 

 

I usually introduce the unit with a slam poem called “OCD by Neil Hilborn.” This guy is like a punch in the gut. Amazing.

This year, I decided to structure this lesson a little more  by speaking about Tone and Mood in poetry before they listened to OCD.

Here is my lesson plan – focusing just on Lesson 1 – Tone/Mood and OCD

Download

 

Tone/Mood Video – students take notes

Aaaand to hammer it home with a little humour, we watched the Frozen trailer (if it was a horror movie). Although, I guess I don’t get the humour of “youth” these days… I thought it was hilarious…Buuuuut…

I asked one student what she thought of the tone, and she replied .. completely deadfaced… “Brianne, that was lame.” Well then.

Yes… I am that apparently the age where I am considered “lame” now. Whatever. That’s cool.

 

Next step was having the class READ the poem first instead of listening to it (which is what I usually did). The purpose of this was to see if there was a different feeling between reading and listening. Would there be a bigger impact or a change in mood? 

Here are the lyrics:

Download

Here are the questions to go along with it – ONLY DO QUESTION 1 and 2. I let the students work in pairs or groups of threes – I thought it would be better if they could throw around ideas with each other.

Download

FINALLY, we took up the questions and then I turned on Neil Hilborn’s hearbreaking and impactful performance of this piece.

Enjoy.

 

I was very happy with the results of this. The students were extremely quiet and reflective afterwards… something I hadn’t experienced in other years of doing this poem.

I really hope you all try it, and have similar results.

Good luck!

 

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