The past two weeks in English, we have been working with fairy tales and learning how to retell one in our own words. We studied the main structure of all fairy tales including the setting, characters, problem or goal, 3-4 main events and the solution. After a variety of activities that allowed the students a chance to become familiarized with these components, students each chose one fairy tale to retell to a small group of peers. We made "yellow brick roads", which were paths made out of 8 squares of yellow bristol board, each labelled with one of the components of a fairy tale (setting, characters, etc) that the children walked on as they practiced retelling their tales. The classes really enjoyed this kinesthetic practice and I was very impressed with the final results of their presentations.
In earlier posts, I described the classroom management tool that I had been using called the Bingo board. I wanted to try something new, so I have replaced the Bingo board with the Bead board. Each student in the class has a pipe cleaner hanging from the wall. When they are caught working hard, answer one of my challenge questions correctly, modelling good behaviour, helping out, or they "beat the teacher" (catching an error or omission that I make!), I have them add a bead to their pipe cleaner. Sometimes the class will earn a "class bead" and the whole class will be rewarded with a bead each. At the end of the month, the pipe cleaners and beads are taken down, and each student gets to take it home as a bracelet. The kids have really taken to this incentive and I am finding it much easier to manage.
A relatively new weekly activity that we have begun is called "Mystery Word". Each week, I choose a new secret word from our word wall. Then, each day, I reveal one clue that will help students guess the word. The clue may be the part of speech the word is, the number of letters, an antonym for the word, etc. This activity has been a hit! If the students guess the word correctly before the end of the week, they receive a bead on their pipe cleaner as a prize.
Next up: some grammar! We will be reviewing parts of speech (adjectives, adverb, nouns and verbs), as well as word endings ('ed' for past tense, and words that change before an ending is added such as baby to babies, ride to riding, cut to cutting).
