My students struggle with homophones and multiple meaning words. So they are creating a super visual to remind them of the difference. I found an amazing online site that has researched based activities that I have been using and the students love. The Florida Center for Reading Research has an amazing intervention page and has activities by grade level and reading subject click here.
We reviewed that a multiple meaning word is 1 word (like a bug has 1 head), 1 word that has multiple meanings. Example for our bug is the word Bug: 1) an insect 2) to annoy someone
We are looking for multiple meaning words/bugs to add to the ground at the base of our tree.
Our homophone tree began with a pair of pears. Students have really been thinking about homophones and will even stop while we are reading when they make a discovery!! "Hey, I found a homophone." Anyone can add to the tree as long as the word or pair of words is not already there. We also are using this as our exit word wall reading practice.
It will be full by the end of the year!!...actually I couldn't wait to show you how much the kids have loved this..in just a couple weeks. The students come in at recess because they have found a word to add to the tree!!!
And because we want another way to remember what 2 words that mean the same thing..homophone pairs on a pear tree..pairs of shoes..we wore our homophones on our feet!!
I thought I better post lessons that went really well and that the students loved. This is one. There were so many opportunities to learn and review other concepts that it was like a learning snowball.
Day One:
Discuss the events of the weekend or break.
Watch Adjective Video from School House Rocks.
Relate video to how they used adjectives to describe their weekend. (Activating prior knowledge and linking to information each student knows)
Hunt for adjectives in the video (we added words that we thought should have been in there)
What we learned: An Adjective describes a NOUN...and what is a noun? Person Place Thing Idea
Day Two:
Have students use adjectives to describe the classroom. Post a note on something new or add to an existing post it with your own adjective. This is NOT a spelling activity...we are learning adjectives.
An added side note to the sticky note activity: students for days have been adding more adjectives and reading the sticky notes all over the room! More reading opportunities!! I LOVE it.
This stapler brought on quite a discussion about how different people have varied ideas..some thought heavy and some thought light! We decided it is okay to be different and opinionated.
Any student who says "helpful" when it comes to books...is brilliant in my book!!
accuracy I can read the "ADJECTIVES": flat, shiny, silky, and thin
I have to agree with the adjective "slow" when it comes to my student computers. LOL
Day Two:
Write down adjectives that describe yourself. Use one word descriptors!
Pick 5 that describe you best and write 1 each on a color strip. Write your name in the cloud.
Day Three:
Have each student number a blank piece of paper to write down their guesses.
Read the adjectives and have them guess who it is.
Discuss which adjectives gave students away and how some adjectives are better descriptors.
Day Four:
Pick a very simple shape that is a noun. We brainstormed house, star, tree, flower, alien, football, hair, stick person, heart, butterfly, moon, and Pokeman.
We talked about ways to describe these items using adjectives
Day Five:
Have students create their chalk drawing
Have students go around and add adjectives to the drawings
Jen and Kellee’s meme have a weekly link for reading enthusiasts who would like to share what they are reading. This week we are reading Christmas books!
We wanted to work on our predicting skills this week. What we did while looking at this wonderful pop up book was to look at what we know about the celebration of Christmas and then predict what we thought each letter would be.
As we made our predictions we would discuss how some of us thought the same but on other letters we had lots of different ideas. We discussed that most of the time we have different ideas and how that makes things more interesting.
Each letter has an exquisite pop up and all of our smiles at each one was amazing. Everyone loved this book. Although..we wondered and discussed: Why Y was not for Yo Yo? Why Z was not for Zebra? Although we all laughed when we saw what Z was. And Why R was not for Reindeer?
Here are some of our "Tricky" Word Wall words. The kids find words while they are reading and post them for practice. Students have to read the tricky word wall on their way out the classroom door, as their exit ticket. Most of these tricky words are no longer tricky at all.
The students loved creating the wordle (at wordle.net) and being able to read the words while we made this. In fact, they were so excited by creating the wordle that they didn't even realize they were reading!!!
