Great Minds Think Alike

     Sometimes I think I relate to my students a little too well.

     Today our lesson in Social Studies started with a discussion of the Greek roots of the word hemisphere, and ended with a loosely related debate over the merits of one Transformer over another.  Um . . . not something you find in the Common Core.

     I started by introducing hemisphere as a vocabulary word, and we discussed why it was  NOT, in fact, a compound word.  We then looked up sphere {ball or globe} and hemi {half}, and I posed the following question:  How many pieces to you get if you cut something in half? (response:  two!)  Then how can there be FOUR hemispheres, if the word literally means half of the globe? (lots of sharing followed...I live for these kinds of discussions!)

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      Anyway, we went on to take some notes and label the hemispheres in our notebooks, along with the continents found in each, and important lines of latitude and longitude.  As I mentioned the Prime Meridian, one of my munchkins jokingly asked if we were going to label Optimus Prime, too.  Imagine the looks of shock on the 8- and 9-year-old faces in my room as I responded with a knowing smile, "No, and we won't label Megatron, either."  

WHAT!!??!! Our teacher knows the Transformers BY NAME!!??!!

     And so began our discussion of the meaning of the word prime and why it's used to label that particular line of longitude and that particular Transformer {and what mega means, as well}.

     Am I the only one who LOVES these seemingly random connections students make to their lives?  I love knowing that more students will find it easier to remember Prime Meridian because of our seemingly "silly" discussion today.

     Since I had achieved my objective at that point and the class had their maps labeled and ready to go for tomorrow's lesson {and recess was going to start in 5 minutes}, we continued our discussion on to how I knew so much about Transformers {and Barbie, and G. I. Joe, and My Little Pony. . . }.  I think I went from "teacher-person" to just "person" today in some of my students' eyes.  

And that's only one of the reasons I love my job.

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A Vocabulary Activity to Make Them Think

     A new week means new vocabulary words from our basal reader.  How can we practice them in a way that makes students really THINK about the meanings and REMEMBER them?  Worksheets are ok for some things, but learning and practicing vocabulary words aren't on that list.  I like to have my students get creative with their words... using them in sentences, poems, and songs, giving examples, synonyms, antonyms, and non-examples, and creating illustrations with them.
     My munchkins are always up for a challenge, but when I introduced a new vocabulary activity a few weeks ago, they were a little skeptical.  I could see the wheels turning and the voices in their heads were screaming, "What, is she NUTS?"
     You see, this activity involved taking all eight of their weekly vocabulary words and using them in one picture.  Yup, you read that right... ONE PICTURE.  And it couldn't be just any jumbling of random items thrown together to include all of their words.  No, their picture had to have a CENTRAL THEME.  The words had to relate to each other and their picture had to show that relationship.  AND they had to write a sentence or two to explain it.
     It took them a while to really think and talk to each other and throw some ideas around before the ball started rolling, but once they started working, my munchkins were on fire!  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the finished products (I hadn't started blogging then, and didn't realize how important my camera would become).  I did post the activity on teacherspayteachers.com and you can find it here.

I also posted my Vocabulary Boxes for free!

     You can also find several other vocabulary activities I recently posted, and you can get them individually or in my Vocabulary Activities Bundle, which has 5 activities you can do with virtually any group of vocabulary words, from any subject.  Let me know how well they work (or don't work!)!

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