My classmates don’t know me at all!
The truth is that only one student was terribly misjudged by his classmates. In fact, most were so accurately labeled that all they could do was say yes (hooray for repetition!)
It went down like this:
Last week, we selected activities (verb) vocabulary first through brainstorming, then categorizing, then a little polleverywere action (though I confess it worked better with good old-fashioned “check-mark-next-to-your-favorites” in the smaller class).
Today, we reviewed with Sra. Cottrell’s regular vocab review (I like to call it the 5-minute mumble), then, after some gustar notes, a whip-around the room of something each kid likes and doesn’t like to do. From there to a journal linking activities back to the just-completed weather mini-unit (“When it’s…I like to…”).
And then on to the indiscriminate labeling.
I divvied up the 25 (mostly) democratically elected words into 5 groups of 5, then passed them out for cutting and taping. Then we talked semantic grouping, and how it helps to associate vocabulary in groups to make connections.
Are we going to tape them on the board? In our notebooks?
No, on each other. Tape your words on the backs of whoever in the room you think would like to do those things. Then, when the melee winds down, pair off, and you’ll take turns asking each other about the activities affixed to your back–in front of the class (yay! repetition!)
A couple of things I really liked in this:
- Struggling students started to grasp rephrasing to help with comprehension (esp. “ver la tele” to “television” for cues) when their partners didn’t get what they were asking about.
- By the end, students would really react to what their classmates guess about them (poor SM–not one was right, but his twin brother’s was dead on!) They would show disgust when it wasn’t true, kind of giggle and admit when they were “accused” of liking to talk.
- They learned something about each other–albeit late in the year. Who knew SL played guitar and piano? Apparently someone who stuck the activities on her back, but not I!