It's Aliiiiive!!

How asleep are your kids this week? Maybe it’s the rainy weather or the fact that a chunk of kids  are out sick this week. Maybe it’s just the January blahs.

Well, let’s wake ‘em up. Let’s get ‘em moving. Let’s make those little monsters come aliiiiiive!!!!!

So remember that I wrote last week about movement in class? It’s kind of a big deal.

Sooooo ....  let’s get our kids up, for just a minute. You don’t have to ask them do dance or jump or anything crazy. Just .... move to another partner and talk...

Here’s a quick, easy strategy that can work with any content. It’s called Words Alive, from Teacher Created Materials. It’s actually adapted from strategies to use with ESOL but because it involves movement, it should be useful with all kids.

How do I do this?  

1. a. Before class, choose a text to tackle together and a list of terms from that text you want to emphasize. Try to be judicious so that you choose ONLY the most important terms. Try to keep the number of terms down to 5-10.
2. Read the text together. This can be a document or a textbook selection or an article.
3. Write the 5-10 most super-duper important terms on the board for your most struggling group. You can skip this scaffold if a particular class doesn’t need it.
4. Give each kid an index card. Explain that they are going to create their own card. If you don’t have index cards, just cut blank paper in half.
5. Explain to kids (with written directions) that on one side of the card they will write a selected term. On the other side they will draw a visual representation of the term.
6. Give the kids a few minutes to do that.
7. When they have completed their “Words Alive” cards, divide the kids in pairs or small groups. Explain that they will be working as a group to guess the words based on the visual representation, like pictionary.
8. Students should only show the back of the card (the term written) until the other student has guessed
9. Have students change groups/partners so that they get to guess another word from another classmate.
10. Keep the cards to use later on in the unit/year and to increase the number of exposures to the terms.  

How do I keep my kids on task?

1. Make sure they know what the terms mean before they make the vocab cards.
2. Partner them strategically.
3. Use a timer to keep things moving.

Why should I try this one?

• It can be a valuable frontloading strategy to pre-teach vocab before a lesson.
• Or, it can be used during/after a lesson to review, clarify, and solidify understanding. It works because the KIDS make the meaning. THEY make the images and THEY do the guessing.
• They’re not passively copying vocab. They’re doing the thinking.
• It gives the kids a chance to use the terms in a non-threatening setting (not a test or whole-class embarrassment)

What could go wrong?

1. Kids could not understand the terms and therefore have misconception-oriented visuals.
1. Fix by checking their visuals before they group up

2. Kids could get off task during the partner/small group time

1. Monitor closely and use a timer

What do you think? Will you try Words Alive? I think it can be an easy, controlled way to use movement for a learning purpose (not for just stretch-breaks). Let’s make words come alive -- and in the process, let’s make our kids wake up and look alive. Will you let me know how it goes? As always, I love to hear about it! Email me! newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy