Historical Hall of Fame

I found this idea recently in this blog post:

Who Has Influenced Mankind? Let Your Students Be The Judge Of That – The Historical Hall Of Fame

I think this would be a great big project for any class on any level. 

“The project centers around the students getting the chance to nominate someone they believe is worthy for induction into this Hall of Fame.  This can be anyone from any time and place.  The nomination should be someone they feel has impacted or continues to impact mankind.” 

Students pick a person and fill out a nomination form including an essay saying why they think this person is worthy of the nomination. Then they do research and come up with a 3-5 minute presentation that is presented to a panel of judges. 

Judges can be adults within the school or school district or even business people. 

Judges’ scores and student grades determine who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. A ceremony can even be planned where students receive a certificate in honor of their nomination. 

I think this would be a fun activity and would incorporate a lot of different skills. 

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

SARCNET (a.k.a. School Amateur Radio Club NET)

(Guest Post: Jeffrey A. Meyer is a Radio Amateur and Model Railroader, and Retiree currently residing in Painesville, Ohio.)

SARCNET opens up the average classroom to an entirely new way to offer, conduct, coordinate and teach classroom STEM topics. They have accumulated fun, relevant, and practical lesson plans to teach elementary school-aged kids STEM topics for grades 3-6.

If your school doesn’t have something like this, your kids are really missing out. You also need to know that there are less than fifty programs like this in elementary schools nationally.

First and most importantly, I’m not here to tell you how to manage your classroom or how to practice your craft. You are the professionals, it’s your territory and you deserve both the praise and the respect that goes along with that level of responsibility.

TEACH ALONE OR AS A TEAM?

What I am proposing is that you don’t always have to do all the teaching alone. By approaching some teaching opportunities as a team, the employed teacher doesn’t have to be the subject matter expert, so the “other half” of the team could actually be recruited from hobbyists in Amateur Radio, Model Railroading, etc., as well as aviation and a host of other interesting STEM relevant professions.

Now take this tag-team approach and designate the non-teacher to be a local Amateur Radio hobbyist. The Radio Amateur would bring the needed practical side of the hobby, i.e. radio science, electronics, kit and antenna building, propagation, communication skills, project management, decision making, etc.

This collaborative approach, coupled by using a hobby (Amateur Radio), to explain and supplement classroom learning, is exactly what we are talking about. This is SARCNET.

HISTORY

SARCNET started back in 2015 when an elementary school librarian noticed some kids weren’t interested in playing kickball at lunchtime and thought these kids may be more interested in doing something else. Being a Radio Amateur herself, she brought her radio in, introduced it to the kids and SARCNET was born. What started out as an easy lunchtime diversion, has now expanded to six schools and two countries with a host of lesson plans and activities that are pure genius.

The kids learn Morse Code, radio communication protocols, assemble electronic kits, talk to the entire world, seamlessly learn geography, build solar and microcontrollers to both monitor power output and control plant growth, build antennas, search for sources of radio interference, locate hidden transmitters (aka “Fox Hunts”), manually track satellites, etc…..

The kids love it, the parents support it and the principal (Michael Day, St. Kevin’s Primary School, Ormond, Victoria, Australia) had the following to say about it:

“It is interesting that in this day and age of mobile broadband networks and social media that Amateur Radio, the pioneering radio hobby of the last century, would be an excellent way of introducing science and technology to young children today. Amateur Radio enthusiasts are an amazing, untapped resource for educators. They are hidden away in every community and can provide their own equipment and expertise. They also have a zeal to pass on this technology to the next generation. So this largely free and enriching collaboration, between the schools and the Amateur Radio fraternity, is a classic win-win situation.

When I first introduced the school Amateur Radio club at St. Kevin's Primary School in Ormond Victoria, I had no idea what a success it would be. We were lucky to have an Amateur Radio enthusiast within our ranks, so the introduction was initially driven by this staff member. The teachers, parents, and students are now raving about it. To see the children confidently building electronic kits or talking to other schools over shortwave radio is quite incredible. I am now exploring ways to expand this program. The following article, by Julie and Joe Gonzales, (our staff member and her husband) introduces the modern world of Amateur Radio. It explains how they set up Amateur Radio clubs at three primary schools in Melbourne and it provides all the information needed for other schools to get involved.“

ANOTHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL USING AMATEUR RADIO IN THEIR STEM CURRICULUM

Now let’s turn to W. B. Beam Intermediate School in Cherryville, NC, and what they started in 2021. One of the school’s 4th-grade teachers there, Mark Reep, is also a Radio Amateur and he set up an Amateur Radio Club. I personally spoke to him in February of 2022 and with a total school enrollment of 200 students, he already has 77 of them actively participating in it, right now. That’s nearly forty percent of the total enrollment!

Why are these programs so popular? Plainly speaking, the kids find the topics interesting, relevant, valuable, and most of all, fun. As a teacher, this is possible anywhere in the U.S. and why not in your school?

As a teacher, using a team approach can reduce your stress, better connect you to your community, is likely to be FREE of charge, and offers a win-win-win for everyone involved. By partnering with any hobbyist or other relevant occupational professional, it’s a win for you, a win for the volunteer, and most of all, a larger life-changing win for your kids.

After all, it does take a Village and both hobbyists and professionals are just waiting for the chance to help you and make a real difference for the kids.

Your Fellow Villager,
Jeffrey Meyer
Painesville, OH

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Vocabulary Video Challenge

When I saw this, I just knew that some students would really enjoy this!

9th Annual 15 second Vocabulary Video Challenge

December 1, 2021 - January 12, 2022

“We invite middle and high school students to create a 15- second video that defines or teaches any of the words in our Word of the Day collection. Your video should help viewers understand and learn your word. You can act the word out, animate it, use puppets, draw, sing a song, create a dance, incorporate photographs, create a Claymation, or anything else. Make sure you pronounce your word aloud, define it and give its part of speech.”

Here is an announcement you can post in your class: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/2021-vocab-video-contest-pdf/88578ff1334815d0/full.pdf

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Poetry in the Classroom

In Ekphrastic Poetry from Engage Their Minds, engagetheirminds shares,

“Today I want to give you some ideas for using ekphrastic poetry in your classroom. If, like me, you have no idea what that is, don’t feel ashamed.”

April is National Poetry Month. This author shares some resources to use when planning ahead for this month. I was intrigued when she talked about Ekphrastic Poetry. Not only can I barely pronounce but I had no idea what it was.

According to ThoughtCo:

“Ekphrastic poetry explores art. Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art.”

This would be a great classroom activity that all students of various abilities can take part in.

First I would teach them different types of poetry such as rhymed poetry, haiku, limerick, blank verse, and free verse. I wouldn’t pick more than five because I think it would be too overwhelming for the students. I would pick one type and spend a few days teaching about it by showing examples, substituting words, and then making up our own.

After I have taught all the different types, we would start looking at different pictures of art. I would give students a choice of artwork and ask them to pick out three and write a poem for each but each poem must be a different type of poetry.

For students having difficulty with writing, I may pick out some poems and have them create their own artwork to go with the poem.

I believe this would help students appreciate poetry and artwork at the same time. By helping students see that poetry can be fun, I think this lesson would be successful for the entire class.

How do you teach poetry to your students? Please share.

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash

Teaching Online: Parts of Speech

I am currently teaching a practicum class online and we run a virtual school program. I am learning a lot of things and want to share some tips along the way.

When teaching online, I notice the students are more engaged when movement is involved and less when worksheets are involved.

One of the teachers was teaching adjectives and I was thinking of fun ways to practice parts of speech. Let’s face it, parts of speech lessons are boring anyway but they are a necessity for communication.

One day, the teachers with the youngest class had a scavenger hunt. They called out a letter and the students had to run and get an item in their home that began with that letter. You could substitute the word letter with the word noun. Have the students find a noun that begins with a specific letter.

You could also do the same activity with adjectives. Find something that could be described by an adjective such as blue. (Other adjectives could be other colors, big, small, tiny, dirty, ugly, beautiful etc.)

One activity you can do involves movement. The teacher reads a sentence very slowly. The student starts off seated. f a noun is mentioned, the students stand up. If a verb is mentioned, the students sit down. If an adjective is mentioned, the students wave their arms in the air.

Another activity like the one above that involves movement but less whole body and just hand and arm movements. The teacher reads a sentence very slowly. The students make an N letter by holding 2 fingers on one hand down in an upside-down V when a noun is mentioned. The students hold their 2 fingers up in a V shape when a verb is mentioned. The students make an N letter by holding 2 fingers on one hand down in an upside-down V and then use their other pointer finger to go across the V to make a letter A when an adjective is mentioned

What other activities would you suggest? Please share.

Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash

Language Arts Activities for Home

Many schools are closed and either doing learning online or sending work home. I also thought it might be a good time to do suggest some activities for children to do at home that might not require the internet.

Journal Writing – Now would be a good time for the student to start a journal. Every day they can write using the prompt and then add a paragraph about how they are feeling. Here are several prompts:

If I had a Superhero Power, it would be…

If I could meet one famous living person, it would be...

The best part of not going to school is…

What I miss most about not going to school is…

Something new I’ve learned is…

Nouns – using post-it notes or index cards, label all the nouns in your room. If there is more than one child, give them different color pencils, pens, crayons or markers to write the labels.

Treasure hunt – With smaller children, give them post-it notes and have them find things in the room that begin with a specific letter. They put the post-it note on each object they find.

Read – Find a book that you want to read. After you are done, pretend they will make a movie of the book and you have to create the movie poster.

Cook – Find a recipe that you want to try to make. Check that you have the ingredients in your house. Follow the recipe and create your food.

Word games –

·      Word connections – One person says a word. The next person has to use a word beginning with the last letter of the previous word.

·      Ghost – One person says a letter. The next person has to build on that letter by adding a letter for a real word. The next person adds on another letter towards building the word. Continue taking turns with all people playing the game. Each person will add a letter to the previous ones to create a real word. The one who ends the word gets the letter in order from the word GHOST. The person is out of the game when they have all the letters from the word GHOST.

Board Games:

If you have the game Scrabble, this would be a fun game to play at home.

Turn all the tiles over so the letters can’t be seen. Each person draws 7 tiles. Use the letter tiles to form words. These tiles can’t be used again. Each tile counts as one point. Draw however many tiles from the pile that you used. The one with the most points after all possible words are made, wins.

What other language arts games would you suggest?

Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash