This past week I only taught for two days. Although no one wanted to be back, it was a good transition in from Winter break. I eased in by taking a break from literature in Language Arts and focusing on grammar. We made a one word resolution that they had to figure out what part of speech it was and then write a paragraph about how it would guide them throughout the year. We also played parts of speech bingo which was really fun. You could tell with more repetition of hearing examples that my students were becoming better at correctly identifying the parts of speech.
In social studies we reviewed what we had learned last year. We then added information onto the dragon we made that is hanging in our hallway.
We learned about the religions and beliefs of ancient China, including Daoism and Confucianism. It was fun to have deeper conversations this week really connected how these beliefs shaped the Chinese culture. In college I read The Tao of Pooh, which is a book that uses Winnie the Pooh to illustrate the Taoist principles. I read some of a chapter to my classes and we tried to infer what the chapter was saying Inner Nature meant. It was a lot of fun because all my students knew the Winnie the Pooh characters to be able to relate to what the chapter was discussing.
Next week we will continue learning more about the different dynasties in China. I have some fun activities planned to keep them interested. We will be having a debate, learning to say a few Chinese words and possibly trying to use chopsticks if I can find some cheap enough.
I have added two new books to my books to read list. For Christmas one of my friends bought me Fires in the Middle School Classroom and The End of Molasses Classes. These are two books about better understanding middle school students. I'm not sure when I will have time to read all that I have now but I look forward to it.
This week was full of ups and downs in my classroom. There were times when I almost wanted to give up trying to get my students to learn anything and times when I was rejoicing because they wanted to keep reading! Here are my five random things from this week.
1) I FINALLY started to teach pronouns this week. We had been reviewing parts of speech up until now and I'm happy to say we are finally learning the sixth grade language component. This week we focused on subject and object pronouns. We made an anchor chart that they are responsible for memorizing and understanding. I'm really excited about starting pronouns, but the look on my students faces about making this chart was as if I was speaking another language.
2) After reading some very interesting parts in Where the Red Fern Grows I had my students do discussion posters. I put them into groups of four and taped a page of the story to it that they had to respond to. They also could respond back to their peers which made for some really interesting discussions.
3) I have started to utilize I Can Statements more in my room. I bought some already made I can Statements from TeachersPayTeachers. I laminated them and posted them in my room. I draw a random student to read the I Can Statements for the day/week and then have another student explain how we learned that statement at the end of the day/week. It was great to hear my students actually saying how they learned what I wanted them to learn. I will be doing this as a closure any day that I have a minute or two of extra time.
4) Pencils, Pencils! I have tried almost everything I can think of to get my standard group to keep up with pencils. I've tried buckets on their desk with pencil sharpeners which somehow always seem to get gone. I even try to check them at the end of the class period and students can't find them anywhere! Even when students have a pencil they always are having to have it sharpened. The sharpener on their desk doesn't work somehow so they just have to get up and use one or else they won't have a pencil. It has become ridiculous so I went out and bought a bunch of mechanical pencils. If they need one they have to write their name on the board, erase it and give it back before they can leave class. I'm hoping this will work because pencils are just taking up too much class time.
5) One of the rules for object pronouns is that it is used after a preposition. Of course this meant that my students needed to be able to recognize prepositions, so we broke out in song in order to remember them better. For anyone who wants their students to learn prepositions try The Preposition Song by The Bazillions. My students loved it so much they were telling me they posted it on Facebook! Have a listen, it's quite catchy. By the end of the week my students could all name the most common prepositions.
I'm so thankful that it is the weekend. I finished my lesson plans yesterday for next week so I'm going to try to think about school as little as possible. My weekend has already been off to a great start with a date to a trampoline park yesterday. After attempting to do flips on a trampoline and still being scared, I gained much more respect for my cheerleaders who are able to tumble on the gym floor. Only three weeks until try outs for next year get started...but why am I thinking about that?
I have belabored parts of speech since the beginning of the year but my students STILL don't understand the basics. I've spent days of each part of speech and provided plenty of examples. We watched all the Schoolhouse Rock videos and did activities with each. I guess grammar is like multiplication facts, they just need to study more. Sixth grade grammar is mainly all about pronouns which I have only barely touched on. I'm debating on continuing with the basics or just moving on to what they have to know for this year. I think I'm going to try at least a few more things before moving on.
One idea I had was to let students print the lyrics to their favorite song and have them color code the parts of speech. Another thought I had was to have students make a chart on construction paper of the different parts of speech and then glue words from newspapers to go under each.
I'm really hoping that next year my students will have a little more of an understanding of the basics. It's been hard this year because it will be the first time students are actually tested on grammar. I don't know that some of my students were ever even taught parts of speech before at all. I have a lot of work to do with them, but luckily this is one of my favorite things to teach!
What has worked for you when teaching grammar?
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