Engaging Students in Inferring Word Meaning

Students follow directions that include both academic and content vocabulary, using their context clues to determine what step to take next.  It's hard to see in the second photo, but....Look at that great strategy of identifying the words they don't know to begin deciphering them!

Jane and the Magic Commas

What makes this lesson on inferring word meaning so powerful are not only the great gestures, but also the focus on the "magic comma," a comma that separates the unknown word from its definition within the sentence.  Check that out - I just used a magic comma!

Look at this great slide where students practice figuring out the unknown word - they don't have the distraction of the word, but they do a great job of inserting appropriate options.

Emphasizing "Why we do what we do"

This morning in a Flyertime class, a teacher was using a video that emphasized the importance of why and connecting it to the Flyertime door contest.  He noted that by selling "why" we do what we do instead of "what" we do, we touch more people.  It's a great reminder to all of us to focus on why we have Flyertime rather than what we do in Flyertime.

If you're interested, here's the link to the video (be warned, it will require you and students to "infer word meaning" - feel free to use the strategies from Friday's PD): 

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html.  A short clip is all you'll need.

Keeping Flyertime Student Focused

 

I love walking into Flyertime and seeing students "owning" their experience, whether it's leading the discussion on what kind of door decoration, sharing the announcements or sharing their definitions of showing respect.

 

Clever Alliterations and Engaging Activities

I love when I can find time to stop into classrooms and see all the great things happening at TMS! 

In 8th grade today, I saw teachers doing "Texting Tuesdays" and "Terrible 10" grammar mistakes.  What a great way to remind students about grammar in the real world. 

I also got to witness students designing a Ziggarat - they had 180 workers and had to make real world connections to use each of their "employees" to their fullest potential to get the job done! 

And don't even get me started on those engaging science experiments - as we speak, students are finalizing their Pringle packages to send to Sperreng through the mail.  I hope those Pringles don't break!

I thought I should use tacky colors in this post in honor of TACKY TUESDAY!

Celebrating Birthdays

Some great ideas to celebrate student birthdays:

• Have them make a birthday card for themselves - give it to them on their birthday.
• Design birthday celebrations as a class.
• Student choice day - students choose the Flyertime activity on their birthday.