The Final Countdown

There are about two more weeks until Winter break and they can be the hardest two weeks of the year.  It is difficult to keep the students excited about reading, writing, and learning exciting things like subject and predicate, helping verbs, etc.  Over the years I have found that key motivating factors for middle school students is making the activities relative to their lives and giving them choices.  Now, more than ever, it is easier to create interesting and multimodal activities using IPads or anything digital.  Here are a few activities I have done recently that the students really got into and seemed to enjoy.  They are all inspired by other teachers' activities that I have found on Pinterest, so I cannot take credit for the ideas.

ANGRY VERBS

Students had to choose 3 different birds or pigs and on each write a sentence - 1 with an action verb, 1 with a helping verb, and 1 with a linking verb. 

 

 

HAUNTED HOUSE FOR SALE

After students learned about adjectives and paragraph form, they then wrote a two paragraph persuasive report trying to sell a haunted house.  They used a graphic organizer first and then wrote a rough draft. They described the inside and then the outside of the house and why someone should buy their house using lots of spooky adjectives.  Then they made their own house out of construction paper.  October was the best month to do this activity!

 

 

 COMIC SENTENCES

My students are studying different types of sentences, simple and compound, run-on, and fragments, etc.  They reviewed the four types of sentences - Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, and Exclamatory - by using the app, Comic Book, on the IPads.  They had to take pictures of themselves with different expressions and in the speech bubbles they had to use each kind of sentence.  Check out the app, they had a lot of fun with this project and loved being able to put their own pictures in and create something digital.
 

   

 

 The next projects in the next two weeks are a creative writing project, "If I lived in a snowglobe...", and Story Elements drawn as apps on an ipod.  We are reading a novel, A Wrinkle in Time, and when we are finished they will complete a project that is presented as a menu, so they have different choices of activities.  Pictures to come soon... 

 

 

 

 Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!

 

 

 Amy

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