Language Arts Ideas For Teachers

Writing

Burger Writing - The burger method is useful in most writing.  If you are just writing a paragraph, The topic sentence is your top bun, the details are the burger and the condiments, and the concluding statement is your bottom bun.  When writing full papers, the inrtoduction is the top bun, the informative paragraphs are the burger and toppings, the conclusion is the bottom bun.

Make this fun, wear chef's hats, eat burger candies/ real burgers, helping kids add more "toppings/ condiments" to their burgers means more details and better writing.  There are burger writing bulletin boards available commercially, it is definately a good teaching tool.

Computer generated projects -  Use the computer to generate brochures, Power Points, posters, etc.  All of it is writing, the more creative, the more the student's will want to participate.

Publish creatively - Glue it to construction paper, draw pictures for it, print pictures from the internet to illustrate your writing, hang it from a clothesline, do anything you can to make writing more desirable.

Reading

DEAR time

Required book reports - Use Jr. classics, Newbery books, biographies, mysteries, historical fiction. Once a child has read a jr. classic, they want to read more.  They discover the reason that these books are classics, they learn why a Newbery has been chosen for awards, they feel like they are meeting famous people when they read a biography.

Trade books immediately after an oral book report presentation or do a round robin read where a student reads one book for 10 minutes and then passes it on.

Watch the movie- If a portion of a book is in your basal reader, watch the movie.  It helps the children put the story in the rest of the book and makes some want to read the book.

Book Projects -

There are hundreds of ideas for book projects out there, I just want to give you a short sample of things I have been successful with.

There are the basics- diorama, poster, etc., but you can also jazz it up and make the kids think it's something new and unusual.

Have a book parade- everyone makes a float on a shoebox, a float is different from a diorama in that it needs to be seen from all 4 sides, the students enjoy making them look like real floats.

Write a letter as if you are one character in a book to another character in a book.

Make up an alternate ending.

Make a map of the events in the book.

Dress up like your biographical character and tell us about yourself.

Make an advertisement for the book and record it.

Spelling-

Turn spelling into a weekly packet that is due on a certain day of the week.  This does not have to be graded every day and a quick glance can tell you whether or not the child was careful. Grade it on the day of your test or if you have a pretest on that day.

Do weekly spelling bee. Keep a visual track of the winners - the students love to have a weekly competition know will be happening, even the students who struggle with spelling love it and it inspires them to try a little harder. Try to keep it from being a negative to those who struggle, it takes time, but even they will beg for a spelling bee.

Spelling Sparkle  with sparkly stickers.

Give a chance for a retake, give a pretest.  Only those who get a 100% do not have to take the test. I know this an old fashioned thing, but kids like it. They feel like they are getting a second chance. They have to write every word they miss 3 times, this ensures that those who did not practice at least gets a little practice.

Test is given by one student each week who gets an automatic 100%.  However, that student still ahs to do teh packet and take the pretest.  The student thinks they are getting something for free, but really they studied those words anyway.

Grammar

One word "Winston Grammar"!

Prepositions first!  Prepostitions are the confusing word in the family.  If a child can get a grasp on them first, it will make all of the rest of the parts of speech come much easier.

Prepositions - start by playing the "hide a penny" game. Everyone hides a penny somewhere in the room.  Then they have to tell where they hid the penny, for example "in the plant", "under the desk", etc.  Use that as your jumping off point for prepositions.

Tell this story, and make it BIG - Preposition and Object of the Preposition are best friends. Prepositions cannot go anywhere without their partner OP.  However, Prep (as we call him) is always the leader (in elementary grammar).  He cannot go anywhere without OP. Then show that they have handcuffs on (Parenthesis going around both of them).  They need to be hooked together whenever you can find them and Prep is always the leader.

Do a preposition poster. Everyone draws a picture of an animal.  Then the picture needs to show where it has been. All of these need to be labeled. The hummingbird flew-around the nest, under the eaves, through the window, etc.

Once students have mastered the preposition and the OP then you can move one to noun, verb, etc.  but, if you move before they know it, you will always fight the confusion battle.