Introducing the School Year Curriculum: a student-centered approach

Although the teacher’s are on strike, many parents are trying to get their children into the school routine. After helping two young boys today, I realized that the way that I introduced the ideas they would cover in the school year was a really fun new twist on the ol’ KWL chart.

First I looked at the curriculum and created a visual document that had pictures to represent various aspects of grade 4 and 5 curriculum. In social studies 4, for example, I placed a picture of a map of Canada, an image of a man gold panning and so forth for math, science and language arts.

Once I had these documents I printed them. I handed out the document to each student and told them to look it over and come up with some ideas about what they thought the pictures represented.

Next I asked one brother to explain to his brother what he thought he would be learning this year. They were so excited. They both got a turn reading a page before the other person was able to chime in and suggest their own ideas about what the pictures meant.

What was really telling about the whole interaction is that I gave very little prompting and that they were helping each other reach really deep conclusions. For example, instead of saying “that’s a picture of a chart and money,” one boy said, “this is probably about currency and stats and maybe even about making profits in a business.” If I had given them a word document that said Mathematics: data analysis (which is what the picture represented in my adult mind), we would not have come up with such interesting connections!

Another great connection was the picture of Captain Cook. The boys said, “That’s Abraham Lincoln” and the other said, “No, cause he is American and you have a picture of Canada, so it is a Canadian guy…”

I learned two things: firstly, a picture tells a thousand words, while words are finite in their meaning. Secondly, when you place the conversation in children’s hands they come up with more than you could have planned for or anticipated.

The boys wrote down their ideas and then we discussed them and they added more detail. In the end they had a self-created syllabus that gave an overview of the school year, as well as accessing information that they already knew. What a confidence booster!

Feel free to check out the document I put together for these student, and to add your own ideas about introducing a unit in a student-centered way:

CURRICULUM document with visuals

PLO’s   with Curriculum targets

Kinaesthetic Grammar and Punctuation

What a challenge! How do we get the paper tasks off the page and into the body? Want a creative way to have students more engaged in grammar and punctuation lessons? Here are three of the ideas I have come up with:

Martial Arts PUNCHuation:

1. Brainstorm with students all the punctuation marks they are familiar with. Generate a list on the board. Optional: introduce any new marks.
2. Explain that you have been trained in the secret ways of punctuation martial arts and would like to share your secret. This step works especially well if you say you are not sure, however, if the students are ready for that type of intensity.          Explain that you will start small and see how things go. (Boxing gloves are optional)
3. Start with the period. Extend your fist outward with a simple fist punch. This, of course, if the PERIOD. This martial marks move is quick and clean. It is the ideal move to cut off a sentence in its tracks.
4. Have students model the PERIOD punch while they say a simple sentence: “The weather is nice.” will do.
5. Next, use the same punch but curve your hand downwards when your hand is extended, like a COMMA. This martial arts move, the punch and twist, demonstrates the need to continue a sentence, but allows for a brief pause. (Have students model with a sentence)
6. The third move is the COLON. This requires a double hand punch, like the period, but sideways. This move calls your opponents attention to an upcoming list. (Have students model with a sentence)
7. The fourth move is the SEMI-COLON. This complicated move is for the pros. It is a combination of a colon and comma. Extend two hands outwards in a punch; at the last second, curve your bottom fist downwards. This graceful move is used to take a breath and connect two sentences. (Have students model with a sentence)
8. The last move is the QUOTATION mark. This move requires two upturned arms that make a double, open-handed strike in the air. This move is to about quick repetition of a persons words or an author’s ideas.
9. Have the students come up with their own moves to show off. Once you feel they have the language and usage down, have them write out the new words with visual mnemonics and an example sentence.

Wanted: Grammar/ Writing Culprits:

1. Test students on their grammar prowess with the inquiry activity.
2. Assign each student/ group of students a culprit of their choosing from the following worksheet.
3. Allow students to create a wanted poster with clues about why this culprit is wanted. For example: a noun was seen being used as a VERB rather than a person, place or thing. The Creepy Colon was trying to pass as a colon.
4. Students should create at least three examples of situations where the grammar was used incorrectly. They should also provide tips for the public on how to use the grammar correctly to avoid criminal writing of their own.

SLAP JACK grammar, punctuation and new vocab: This is a favorite of students, especially boys. It can get wild unless refereed properly. This game works well with either words or pictures.

1. Create the vocabulary or key terms that you wish to study (for example, parts of speech). Print each word on a piece of paper. It is best to laminate the cards, as the nature of the game is  hands-on and cards will soon get crumpled…
2. This activity works well with magnets placed on laminated cards and stuck to the board, OR as a floor game, where students sit in a circle with words in the center.
3. Call out a key word. For example, in one slap jack game I created for Parts of speech, I printed off tons of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, pronouns, etc. I placed the cards in the center of the circle. When I called out the word “noun” the students had 5 seconds to find any nouns. (this is where the mad scramble can sometimes get crazy as kids get very excited!)
4. Students sit back and show which card they found. If it IS a noun, they can keep it to add up at the end of the game. If it is NOT a noun, they must put it back AND an additional card they have won or miss a turn.
5. Play until until all the cards are collected.
6. Students count up their cards to see who won!

Alternatively, if the cards are places on the board with magnets, students go two-by-two. When you call out “noun” two students rush to the board, the first student to slap a noun gets to take the card. This works better than the ground/ circle because everyone has a 50% chance of winning the card and students do not get trampled…