Lesson Activities
The following activities can be used after the video and interactive presentation to help students apply what they have learned about the parts of speech. These activities integrate both language arts and visual arts and are designed to appeal to a diverse group of learners and a wide range of learning styles and multiple intelligences. Students are engaged as they interact with each other and work together, act out scenes, create artwork, compose sentences, and share their work with the class. There are opportunities for both group and individual projects and more advanced students can be paired with lower level students to aid learning. These activities incorporate both technology and collaboration which help prepare students to become successful 21st century learners. The teacher notes include ideas for connecting the activities with with online resources listed on the Resource page.
In his book, Weaving Technology into Your Teaching, David A. Dockterman declares, “While student computer use has value, it shouldn’t come at the expense of teacher-student and student-student interaction. The technology should support, not upstage, the teacher in her quest to build and maintain relationships in the classroom” (12). Keeping this in mind, these activities are created to foster interaction and collaboration
between students and between the teacher and his or her class. The technology aspects are integrated as tools to use in the midst of this human interaction to equip learners for success in the 21st century.
In his book, Weaving Technology into Your Teaching, David A. Dockterman declares, “While student computer use has value, it shouldn’t come at the expense of teacher-student and student-student interaction. The technology should support, not upstage, the teacher in her quest to build and maintain relationships in the classroom” (12). Keeping this in mind, these activities are created to foster interaction and collaboration
between students and between the teacher and his or her class. The technology aspects are integrated as tools to use in the midst of this human interaction to equip learners for success in the 21st century.
Describe That Action!Videotape students at recess and show video to class. Have students work in small groups (2-4 students per group) to write 3-4 sentences utilizing all 5 parts of speech (noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, and adverbs) and describing something that happened in the video. Students draw a picture to show which scene from the video they are describing. Each group shares their descriptive sentences and drawing using the document camera and acts out the scene in front of the class.
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Silly Stories and IllustrationsProvide a simple fill-in-the-blank story for your students (also known as a “mad lib”). Use blanks for different parts of speech with the corresponding label underneath (noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb). Have students work in pairs to create a silly story using the appropriate parts of speech correctly. Have students create a drawing to go with their story. Let students share their stories and illustrations with the class.
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Photographic DescriptionsHave students take a photograph of an action at home or at an after-school activity and bring it to class. (Give students who do not have a camera an opportunity to take pictures on the playground at school.) Students glue their photo to a piece of paper and write a paragraph underneath with colored pencils or crayons. Instruct students to use a different color for each part of speech (e.g. blue nouns, purple pronouns, red adjectives, green verbs, and orange adverbs). Students share their paragraph with the class using a document camera and projector.
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Word ArtHave students create sentences using word art for their parts of speech. For example: “The tall, green tree swayed briskly in the wind” could be shown by writing the word “tall” taller than the rest of the words, by drawing leaves around the top of the word “tree,” by writing “green” with a green marker or crayon, and by italicizing “swayed briskly.” Discuss the parts of speech the students used and display their artwork around the classroom.
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Parts of Speech CollageHave students find a partner to work with and give each pair a copy of a simple story utilizing all 5 parts of speech and written in a large font, double-spaced between lines and between words. Students work together to highlight the parts of speech with different colored highlighters. Students then cut out their colored words and organize them in a collage according to their parts of speech. Students decorate their collage with the 5 parts of speech names and add drawings that correspond with at least one colored word in each category. (e.g. the verb “ran” might be accompanied by an image of a child running.) Also provide students with a variety of craft materials such as stickers, buttons, glitter, ribbons, cloth scraps, and magazine photos for decoration.
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