Sunday, October 10, 2010

Literacy

https://sites.google.com/site/kissingmyfrogs/home/literacy     This link will take you to my website where you can view or download the lessons we have done.

     I love 7th graders.  I love their energy and excitement for life.  One of the highlights of my week is getting to go upstairs to the 7th grade hall and do a literacy lesson three days a week.
     Now literacy can be a boring subject and 7th graders don't have a huge attention span, so my goal is to make the lessons as fun, engaging, and memorable as I can.  I love the challenge!
     One of my favorite lessons this year was on choosing a good book.  The lesson itself wasn't that exciting, but my fellow frog kissers made it memorable for all of us.  Each of the teachers chose a book or two or three that they loved.  Now, most of these teachers don't teach language arts.  They teach science, math, history, and special education; but they all shared books they loved with the kids.  Imagine how fun it was for the kids to hear about Bob Dylan from their English teacher, Goosegirl - the book that made their history teacher love to read again, and Toxin - the CSI type book their science teacher loves to read...and these teachers were just three of eleven teachers who shared books that week.  It was an amazing experience for all of us. 
     Another favorite lesson was teaching the kids about using the OREO method of writing to write persuasive paragraphs.  I brought an OREO for each one of the kids.  While teaching them how to add paragraphs to their essays, I told them Mr. E liked his essays "triple-stuffed OREO style."  Mr E. grabbed three cookies, stuffed them all in his mouth, and smiled at the kids with a mouth triple-stuffed with OREOS.  You have never seen kids more excited to write!
     This week brought us to schema.  We shared Far Side cartoons to gain schema and used Laffy Taffys to share schema jokes.  I tossed a bag of Laffy Taffys to Ms. W thinking it was a closed bag.  It wasn't.  Laffy Taffys went flying in an arc across the pod and the bag hit Ms. W in the face.  She was so gracious and laughed good naturedly with the kids.  It brought a whole new schema for "epic-fail" in my mind.   
     It is amazing what a group of frog kissers can do for those wonderfully loved frogs.  

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