Academics and the Arts Jan- May 2018
This semester we have seen some excellent projects! Students are creating and learning. Here are some of the lessons we have done this semester. each of these are Universally Designed Lessons. I have included here the Grade Level for the Lesson, a brief summary of the Lesson and in some cases, copies of the student’s work. It is all award-winning work as far as I am concerned!
2nd Grade Lessons in Writing: After teacher modeling, Students tell a story using cartoons. Folding a paper into four or eight parts, with each part telling the beginning, middle and end of the story using hand drawn cartoons (stick figures or other) and cartoon bubbles that provide dialogue. 
2nd-4th Grade: Write a story. After teacher modeling, students tell a story using words and pictures. Its wonderful to see older students read the stories to their younger siblings or parents.
2nd Grade: Blend Blocks. To help students learn the consonant and vowel blends, we put them on blocks – one blend on each of the six sides. Then we “toss the blocks”. Students have the word parts and they can see how the words are made.
1st-6th Grades: Make card desk, use card decks. Students love card decks because the cards are very interesting to touch and hold. Card decks can be made by students for root word study, for number study and they can also be used to compose stories with parts of speech on each card, to put the cards in order to show correct sentence sequencing.
3rd-6th: Root Words. Kids love root words! After seeing the Root word trees in teacher modeling, students make their own root word trees. For prefixes and suffixes we use cards. A fun game is the “Code/Decode” game where students draw cards and make words or “decode” a word by knowing the meaning of the prefix, root and suffix.
Grade 3+ : How to use Siri and Google to clarify words you do not understand and increase your vocabulary daily!
4th – 7th: Write a song! Using newfound knowledge of rhyming and following “beats for kids” provided (rhythm without lyrics) on YouTube, students compose their own songs – this is especially good for subjects where you have to memorize the details such as the steps to write an essay, or the four operations. Many wonderful learning songs are available online to provide examples.
3rd-8th Grades: Writing sequence:
Sentences: Parts of Speech: Take a walk and notice and describe what you see using each of the parts of speech (example: ladybug (noun) walking (verb) along a leaf (prepositional phrase).
Paragraph writing: “write” paragraphs verbally including each of the parts of the paragraph (topic sentence, examples, conclusion)
Essay writing Blocks: Many students have difficulty putting their thoughts in order. So we write the topic sentences on cards or blocks, put them in order, add in more.
concepts for examples and put the whole essay writing practice on the table -literally!
3-8th Grade+ How to do Research. Teacher modeling followed by practice finding a subject of interest, looking up age appropriate research, taking notes and including them in an essay
