April 2017 | Crafting Connections
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Anticipatory Set: 8 Ideas for Engaging Students

Sunday, April 30, 2017
The very first principal I had was a huge fan of building anticipatory set, or a short activity that "hooks" your students and focuses their attention for the instruction that will follow. I don't remember a single detail about my first observation lesson (I don't even remember what subject was observed!), but I do remember the followup meeting in her office. Apparently my anticipatory set was lacking (or perhaps even nonexistent!), because we spent a lot of time discussing the importance of building anticipatory set at the start of a lesson. She provided many examples for me, and then sent me on my way, urging me to focus on this critical part of each lesson when I was writing my lesson plans.

As a new teacher, I was eager to please, so I tried my best to create engaging "hooks". I can't say that I have always incorporated an anticipatory set activity into every lesson, but I have found that they help students retain information, so I really do try to take the time to plan this introduction step. Below, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite ways to build anticipatory set, and I've included a short explanation or example. (Amazon affiliate links are included in this post.)
8 ideas for incorporating an anticipatory set activity into your lessons!


1.  Ask an open-ended question related to the topic.
  • Ask students to think of a scenario that shows why it's important to understand fractions.
  • Ask students to think of advantages and disadvantages of living in various regions in the United States.
2.  Play Hangman.
  • Choose a meaningful word or two from the lesson, and play Hangman with your students! After they determine the words, tell them that at the end of the lesson, you will be asking them what the two words mean, so they should be sure to watch and listen for these words.
8 ideas for incorporating an anticipatory set activity into your lessons!

3.  Play Charades or Pictionary.
  • Let's say today's social studies lesson is about the transcontinental railroad. Write "train" on a slip of paper, and give it to a volunteer. That student comes to the front of the room and tries to act like a train without speaking. 
  • Consider a topic like the water cycle that you know that your students learned about in a previous grade level. Tell your students that you are going to draw something on the board without talking, and it's their job to guess what you're drawing. Proceed to draw a water cycle diagram on the board. This is an excellent way to check your students' prior knowledge.
  • NOTE: If you want to keep the noise level down, designate a student to be the "caller". When students have an idea they want to share, they raise their hand. The "caller" calls on students to share their idea.
4.  Watch a video.
  • Thanks to YouTube and educational websites like BrainPop, there are no shortage of brief videos that can be used to build anticipatory set!
5.  Anticipation Guide
  • I love to create anticipation guides. Below you will see the anticipation guide I created for my Constitution Day Readers' Theater script. Before handing out the scripts, students read each statement and predict whether it's true or false in the first column. After reading through the script as a class, students return to the anticipation guide and complete the activity again, writing true or false in the second column. Students usually enjoy discovering which of their predictions were correct, and which were incorrect.
An Anticipation Guide for Constitution Day!

6.  Do something unexpected!
  • Tell students that they will silently watch you for 1 minute. Proceed to walk around the room with a pad of sticky notes. Write an adjective on the sticky note that describes an object in your classroom. For example, write the word "smooth" on a sticky note, show the word to your students, and then stick the sticky note to the table. Look down at your clothing, and choose an adjective to write on a sticky note, such as red. Show the word to your students, and then stick it to your article of clothing. Repeat with other words, labeling nouns in the room with adjectives. After the minute is over, ask students how all of the labels are alike.
  • Walk into class wearing a pair of the glasses from the Googly Eyes game to introduce a lesson on concave and convex lenses. Take the lenses out of the glasses and let students pass them around, along with the extra lenses in the box, and let students look through the various lenses. Students can even make some predictions about the science behind these lenses!
7.  Read a picture book or play a song.
Looking for a fun anticipatory set activity for introducing idioms? Check out the book Even More Parts by Tedd Arnold!
  • Play the song Ironic by Alanis Morrisette before introducing the term "irony". Use a document camera to display the lyrics so students can follow along. When the song is over, ask students to discuss with a partner what irony might mean.
  • To introduce idioms, read Even More Parts by Tedd Arnold. The character in this book makes a list of all of the crazy things he hears (idioms) like "I keep changing my mind" and "I lost my head". The illustrations in this book are so FUN!

8.  Use a prop. (This one is my favorite!)
  • Bring an object to class that is somehow related to the lesson, and ask your students to predict how it might represent today's lesson. 
  • Sometimes I use a direct representation. For example, if your lesson is about the Pony Express, you might show your students an addressed envelope and a plastic toy horse, and ask how these two items might be related to today's social studies lesson.
  • Sometimes, I create an analogy that is a bit more abstract. Check out my post at Upper Elementary Snapshots for a complete example of employing this type of anticipatory set by clicking on the image. (This post includes a freebie, too!) 

To get the most out of your anticipatory set activity, be sure to revisit the activity at the end of the lesson! Incorporating an anticipatory set activity and referring back to it during the lesson will certainly result in improved student retention!

Teaching about Author's Perspective

Friday, April 21, 2017
Hello! Welcome to our mentor text link up! The book I chose to feature this time is A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech. I have found that this book is an ideal mentor text to use when teaching students about identifying the author's perspective. Full disclosure: this blog post contains affiliate links. :)


A Fine, Fine School- Mentor Text for teaching about identifying an author's perspective or an author's point of view! Includes a FREE follow-up worksheet!

A quick summary: Tillie enjoys school, but she also enjoys being a kid. One day, the principal at Tillie's school, Mr. Keene, decides that the teachers and students at his school are doing so well, that he wants them to have school on weekends. The teachers and students didn't want to go school on the weekend, but no one knew how to tell Mr. Keene that. Mr. Keene is so proud of his school, that he decides to have school on holidays, too. A few months later, he cancels summer break. Finally, Tillie speaks up. She explains to Mr. Keene that although the kids are learning a lot, there are also many learning opportunities that have to be missed, like learning how to climb trees. Mr. Keene realizes that Tillie is right, and he changes the schedule back to the normal Monday-through-Friday schedule. The teachers and children are ecstatic! 

I LOVE THIS BOOK for so many reasons!! First, the author finds a subtle way to express her views on the current state of our educational system, with its overabundance of testing and procedures that are not in the best interest of our students. Along with that, the illustrations by Harry Bliss are fun to look at, but also quite profound. He further emphasizes the author's viewpoint with his illustrations. When I read this book with students, we have fun looking at the details in each illustration.
A Fine, Fine School- Mentor Text for teaching about identifying an author's perspective or an author's point of view! Includes a FREE follow-up worksheet!
Notice the banner that is hanging in the lunchroom that reads "WHY NOT STUDY WHILE YOU CHEW?"!

A Fine, Fine School- Mentor Text for teaching about identifying an author's perspective or an author's point of view! Includes a FREE follow-up worksheet!
The sticky notes on Tillie's suitcase say "HUGE TEST SUNDAY", "MASSIVE TEST SATURDAY", and "THE LARGEST TEST IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE NEXT WEEK!"

A Fine, Fine School- Mentor Text for teaching about identifying an author's perspective or an author's point of view! Includes a FREE follow-up worksheet!
Notice the details in this illustration! The girl is putting a 10,000 count box of pencils in her locker! On the other side, a girl is carrying a backpack with a WIDE LOAD sign.

BEFORE READING

I'll begin this lesson with an anchor chart that explains author's perspective. (I will also take a moment to explain that some people also refer to this as author's point of view.)
Author's Perspective (Point of View) Anchor Chart- this blog post includes a mentor text activity plus a FREE followup independent practice worksheet!


After reviewing the information on the anchor chart, I'll tell my students that I am going to read aloud a book today, and I want them to try to figure out a belief of the author that is evident in this book. I'll show the cover to my students, and ask if anyone would care to share a prediction about the author's perspective, just based on the title and the cover illustration.

AFTER READING

After enjoying the book, we will use discuss each quadrant on the anchor chart. For example, we'll talk about the problem/conflict in A Fine, Fine School, and discuss how it helped us determine the author's beliefs about school. I'll record notes of our discussion on a sticky note, and add it to the anchor chart. After discussing each quadrant, we will ultimately determine that the author of the book believes that today's schools aren't as student-centered as they should be. Rather, most schools are test-centered... administrators are focused on making policies that will allow kids to test well. It's evident that the author believes administrators and policy-makers need to take a step back and realize that a lot of important learning happens outside of schools, too.

After this guided discussion, you can use the following worksheet as independent practice to determine which of your students can identify the author's perspective without your help, and which students need additional small group instruction. Just click on the image below to download the FREE worksheet!


FREE Author's Perspective (Point of View) worksheet! Determine whether your students can identify an author's perspective!

Also, if you are looking for additional resources that focus on the ability to identify the author's perspective, feel free to check out my PowerPoint and worksheet packet!

Perspective PowerPoint for intermediate level students! Includes many practice passages!

Author's Perspective Worksheet Packet- includes 6 practice worksheets!

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb

Five FREE Idioms Activities

Tuesday, April 4, 2017
I've always love teaching kids about idioms... the majority of English speakers use them so often in conversational language, we often don't even realize we are using them! When we study them in school with our students, though, we take a good look at their literal AND figurative meanings, and we realize how entertaining these language features truly are.

When I took my ESL endorsement classes the summer after I began my teaching career, I remember thinking about how perplexing idioms must be to our English Language Learners. However, when I got a chance to teach idioms to my ELLs the following school year, I found that they enjoy learning about idioms just as much as native English speakers do. They just may need more repetition and practice opportunities before they memorize the meanings of the countless idioms in the English language.

Since repetition is key, I decided to compile a list of idiom activities you can use with your students!
This blog post features five free idiom activities, like a free idioms PowerPoint, game, task cards, and an engaging anchor chart!

1.  Post an anchor chart in your classroom. 

Write the idioms on the anchor chart before class begins. Then, enlist the help of your students by asking them to help you figure out the meaning of each idiom during class.
Idioms Anchor Chart- This blog post features Five FREE Idiom Activities!
This fun clip art by Monster Wrangler Mike is available on TpT. Just click HERE to check it out.

2.  Go through this free PowerPoint with your students.

FREE Idioms PowerPoint and companion handout when you sign up for my newsletter. 44-slide PowerPoint with many multiple choice practice questions!
Access this PowerPoint by signing up for my newsletter at the top of this page.

This PowerPoint contains many direct teaching slides and multiple-choice practice slides, like the ones below.
FREE Idioms PowerPoint and companion handout when you sign up for my newsletter. 44-slide PowerPoint with many multiple choice practice questions!

FREE Idioms PowerPoint and companion handout when you sign up for my newsletter. 44-slide PowerPoint with many multiple choice practice questions!

I also teach my students to use context clues to determine the meaning of unknown idioms. Therefore, I included some of these practice slides, as well.
FREE Idioms PowerPoint and companion handout when you sign up for my newsletter. 44-slide PowerPoint with many multiple choice practice questions!
To access this free PowerPoint, just sign up for my newsletter, and this will be sent to you automatically. (There is a sign-up form at the top of this page.)

3.  Download this free "I Have, Who Has?" idiom game.

I found this free resource in Cassie Dahl's store! How awesome, huh? Cheers erupt any time I bring out one of these games, and this one looks super fun!
Free I Have Who Has Game... featuring idioms!

4.  Download this free set of idiom task cards.

I found this resource in the store of The Teacher Next Door.  32 idiom task cards are included!
Free School Idioms Task Cards


5.  Make a class idiom book!

Students seem to LOVE illustrating idioms because they are so zany! Your students will likely enjoy creating this class idiom book by Nicole from Learning Lab! (It includes a list of 50 idioms!) Plus, then it is complete, this will become a cherished addition to your classroom library.
Make a class Idioms Book!

My favorite idiom activity- Memory!

Finally, I'd like to share my all-time favorite idiom activity! My students have always LOVED this game! After printing out the cards and cutting them apart, we turn them over and play Memory. I am very purposeful when I play this game with students. When it is a student's turn, he turns over ONLY ONE CARD to begin. If he turns over a picture card, he reads the short passage aloud, identifies the idiom within the sentence, and guesses the meaning. If he flips the words-only card, he reads it aloud, and tries to recall an idiom that matches the definition. AFTER the student has completed that crucial step, he can turn over his second card, and determine if he has a match. 

Idioms Memory Game- This game features 17 common idioms!

If you do some of these fun, engaging activities with your students, idioms will be a PIECE OF CAKE before you know it!


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