Thursday, September 21, 2006

Sara's FIRE Lesson

Here's one of my lessons that went well. (I used this with 6th graders but you could change the words to make it more or less difficult). First I wrote FIRE on the board and asked them to tell me about fire- what is it? etc. Then I told them that in English we have alot of words that start with the word fire.

I gave them each a paper with a 'fireword' on it (I made it seem random but I gave the harder words to the kids who I knew could handle them and easier ones to the kids who struggle a bit.) I then told them to draw a picture of what they THOUGHT the word was. I left one word out to use as an example- this time it was FIRE TRUCK, I said, "I know what a truck is, it is like a car, and I know what FIRE is so maybe a FIRETRUCK is like a car with fire on it that can drive through fire" and I drew a picture of a flaming car.

After they drew their pictures they shared with the class. "This is FIREFLY, I think it is like a fly that looks like fire." They were all very into their pictures and used lots of color- some drew some very funny ones (I gave some hints- I told the boy with FIRE HYDRANT that hydro=water.)

Next I passed out slips of paper with definitions of each word (from a learners dictionary and simplified) and had them go around the room and find a match. Once they had a match they wrote a sentence using the word. Then they shared their sentence and told the class the definition of the word. (they all thought it was hilarious that a firefly really was like a fly that looks like fire!)

I used: firefly, fire truck, firefighter, fire station, fireworks, firewood, fire alarm, fireplace, fire hydrant and fire eater (this one was also a hit)

-Sara Noel

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