Haiku -Easy and Fun

Haiku are fun and teach students that words have syllables.
Make sure to use the 5-7-5 timing and have a focus on nature.



Here is my Haiku:

Snow Day

It's snowing outside.
Will we have school tomorrow?
Yes, no, maybe so

Compound and Complex Sentences Video

This video is friendly and fun for middle school aged students:



When the students have mastered simple sentences and can define the parts of speech, I intend to take the Grammar Game to the next level- compound and complex sentences!

Centers in the Intermediate Grades

I have been contemplating trying literacy centers in my classroom. However, I have never seen this modeled in an intermediate classroom before. Over the weekend, I purchased two books on amazon that I hope will help me pave the way.

I think centers might be the answer for me to get through all the material I need to in one week. Knowing my students and how they operate, I really feel like they'll respond to this. I know the major battle will be behavior management.

My hope is to find time over Thanksgiving break to get my plan in place and implement centers soon after in my class.

Does anyone have any tips or words of enlightenment that could benefit this endeavor? :)

Students Can Be Critical

I was wondering what you think of this idea:

Students can be critical (mostly to each other) so let's allow them be critical. I once took a class in high school that was called Film Critiquing. We had to watch films and write critiques about them. It helped me be more analytical and use higher thinking skills. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot at the same time. Consequently, it has become a hobby. My husband and I love watching films with an analytical perspective. We tear them apart, picking out what we like and don't like, but mostly focusing on how it is directed or the predictability of the screenplay.

I think our upper elementary students would love doing this as a writing assignment. We would have to make up rubrics, but that is pretty easy using Rubistar One rubric would be used by the students to evaluate the film and another would be applied to their writing assignment. The students could even come up with their own rubrics for evaluating the films, since that would require using higher thinking skills.

Welcome

With all the great minds at GPA, we can definitely improve the minds of those in our charge. We can use this platform to make successes happen more efficiently and effectively.

The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

I hope everyone at GPA participates and writes often, thus sharing the gift of their intelligence.