Exciting

We have been writing short stories lately, and we had discussed adverbs and adjectives (as well as similes, powerful verbs, and "show don't tell" when describing how someone is feeling). We had done some exercises to help students learn what adverbs and adjectives were, but more importantly, to know when to use them. (Adverbs describe how you do an action. Adjectives describe a person/place/thing.) In one game, I would say, "Point to a tall person!" or "Walk slowly!" and they would point to a tall person or walk slowly, then I would ask, "Adverb or adjective?" And they would look at their list of adverbs/adjectives to see what it was, then tell me.

One of my students went up to help the other teacher today by erasing the board. However, he began to walk VERY slowly back to the desk. One of my students that tries hard but struggles came over to me and whispered, "John is walking dramatically," then walked back to his desk. He was demonstrating his knowledge to me, and I thought it was hilarious. I walked over to him and asked, "Adverb or adjective?" and he looked at the list, thought about it a second, and said, "Adverb." I high-fived him.

Excerpt from a letter I wrote to my university consultant

I just wanted to share a little something interesting about this week. The last two weeks, I had half the class (15 students in grade 4, 13 in grade 5) play xylophones while the other half stayed on the risers and vocalized something related to the playing (FCFCCCFC or 1+2+3+4). It worked alright, but I really had trouble keeping them INTERESTED. It was bugging me. This week, I made a little more room at the xylophones and had everyone come down and sit with a partner. Their job was to help their partner if they needed help. THIS WORKED AMAZINGLY. My grade 5s were almost ALL helping their partners and it made their playing so much better! My grade 4s were a little crazier but it still went well. Then today, I added an embellishment to the song (to be played on high xylophones or glockenspiel but everyone was learning it on any size xylophone). The partner thing again worked great. Also, it was simpler than the ostinato part, so they learned it quickly. My grade 4s had time to play the ostinato, sing and have the embellishment over top, and it sounded great! (Until some of the ostinato players got a little ahead, but that didn't happen right away.) Anyway. It was just hilarious and fun. And the students are so cute with the way they want to help put away instruments after class. I think I will publish this to my blog. (There are probably 2 people who read it.)