African elephant Bubble Map - graphic organizer

Once a week, students go to the listening lab where a Cambridge CD is played and they are to respond to questions.

Chinchu monitoring the students and providing assistance to the listening activity worksheet.

Earlier in the week, Chinchu had used a Bubble Map graphic organizer and was very proud of the student's work!  As she noted to me, students were totally engaged in the lesson while completing the Bubble Map.  Chinchu found the Bubble Map to be a much more effective strategy to help students take notes on a article, as compared to the traditional note taking process.

Sometimes, it helps to take a classroom break and do something different!

The energy level in the classroom had dropped. Needed something to re-activate the students' brains..... a puzzle!

All three houses need to be connected with gas, water and electricity.  However.... no lines can cross.  Students, you have three minutes to solve the puzzle... starting now!

Students began drawing lines..... and it was not long before they'd boxed themselves in!  The trick with this puzzle, like many puzzles, is to think outside of the box!

The classroom suddenly became a beehive of activity and energy as the students raced, against the timer, to solve the puzzle.



"Think outside of the box," I tell students!  One student did solve the puzzle interestingly enough.... when I gave this puzzle to teachers during the professional development workshops at Meynaa.... no one could figure it out.  So often, we overlook the obvious!



Writing - it's in the details!

It's never too late to teach an old dog, like me, new trickes!  Ten years ago or so, a teacher I was mentoring taught me a writing strategy.  Ever since then I've used a modification of The Four Square Writing Method to help students learn how to write. 



First I verbally gave a topic and asked the teachers to come up with three examples.  i.e. three types of animals, or three cities, or three famous people etc. 



Next, I model the use of a graphic organizer on the board where I now write the topic and three examples.

The third step in the process, write topics on the white board and have students come to the board and write three examples under the topic.



Then I check for understanding..... the topic is world cities and the examples were Paris, Sidney and U.S.A.  So I go through the list and ask the group one-by-one "Is this a city?"  Of couse when the group gets to U.S.A. the response is no!  That's a country. 

Now, after having modeled this step first, I write a topic, ask the individual to give three examples AND under each example to write three details. 

Whether it is teachers or students, this is a difficult step.  The individual at the whiteboard knows that everyone is watching them!

The last step is to show the group how to take the information from the three examples and their subsequent details, and turn this brainstormed information into a written text.

The modified Four Square Writing Method works like a charm!  The step-by-step approach which is auditory, visual as well as kinesthetic, is one the student pick up on immediately and see immediate results.

Creative thinking exercise!



I shared with teachers a fun activity they can use with their students to activate the creative part of their brain.

Write a series of words on the board.  Ask the students individually to look at the words and think about what they have in common.  What possibly links all those words together?

After giving the students individual thinking time, have them share their thoughts with a partner.  Once this has been done, the teacher can ask students to share their ideas with the whole class.

An extension could be for the students to write a 3 to 5 sentence summary using all of the words.

No right or wrong answers with this activity.  Just brain stimulation!