To keep with the Halloween spirit, I created an extension activity that incorporated the holiday and student writing–Help Me With Halloween! Continue reading
Help Me With Halloween!
writing activity
Poetry Workshop
To connect on a deeper, more personal level to Tuesdays with Morrie, I had my students write poems about their ‘Morries’, the influential people in their lives. Continue reading
Speed Read Relay!
This week’s meeting with our ten-year-old boy was a little different due to the Easter holiday and having Monday off. For today’s lesson, my plan was to start with a review of what the student had previously learned, and also engage him in a way that would keep him active and not bored [since there were moments in the last session where he seemed tired and less interested]. Continue reading
Emotions/States of Being
The focus of today’s session was on emotions/feelings/states of being. My group and I gathered about 6-8 books at a fourth grade reading level that incorporated these: ‘Being Responsible,’ ‘Being Brave,’ ‘The Way I Feel’ and ‘Big Words for Little People’ among others. Continue reading
Four Corners & Personality Collage Doll
The ‘Four Corners and Personality Collage Doll’ activity is basically a strategy for getting students to both define themselves and write about themselves—thus everyone (including the teacher) gets to know one another. I feel that this is a great activity to start with in the first few days of my class. Students will be encouraged to align themselves with a certain ‘corner’ of the room based on their answers to personality questions.
From there they can create a picture collage and then write a response as to why they selected the pictures they did. For the start of the year, this is a great way to get students to write in the narrative form and hopefully push them to even enjoy writing.
Tuesdays with Morrie – Letter to Author, Mitch Albom
As my unit on Tuesdays with Morrie continued, I moved into a series of lessons I called ‘What’s the Point?’ which focused on the ‘why’ behind reading this book. I think it’s important for students to know the purpose of reading certain texts, and this lesson set discussed this and helped to make meaning between Mitch and Morrie and the students’ personal lives. Continue reading