I only had two days of lesson plans for a three-day assignment.
The music teacher was only supposed to be out for a two days, but unfortunately he could not return until the following week. The school asked me if I could finish out the week, so I said OK.
I knew that the morning classes wouldn’t be a problem because they played instruments, so I told them to break into groups and create their own music. Which worked well for some, but very noise for others.
However the afternoon classes would be different story because those students were in classrooms and didn't play instruments.
I could have turned the classes into a student hall, but if you are a substitute teacher, you know that unless you are a tough or have a another teacher with you, study hall is more talking than reading.
I was screwed...or so I thought.
While I was cleaning up the music room (students are messy at every age), I noticed that one of the students left their history assignment, which was a word puzzle on the civil war.I was about to toss the puzzle out, when it hit me. Why not create a musical word puzzle!
I scoured the net until I found a number of websites that allowed you to create your own word puzzles.
Instead of Bach and Beethoven, I decided to make the word puzzle a bit hipper.
I used the names artists that the students knew like Drake and Nikki Minaj, but I also added artists like Prince and the The Beatles to give the word puzzle a sense of music history.
The word puzzle had around 25 names and it was pretty difficult, so I allowed the students to work in groups, but I said it was also a competition to see which group could correctly finish the puzzle first.
Surprisingly, the students really got into it.
I would walk around and to give words of encourage, but if I noticed a group that was doing more talking than solving, I would change the group's members.
For groups that were moving a little slower, I would say “You guys doing a great, but **Keisha’s group is almost finished. I know you can do it, but you might need to work a little harder.”
I believe that slight nudge helped some of the students focus and work as a team.
When I passed the puzzle out to the next class, some of the students said it was too hard.
I responded by showing them the puzzles of the previous class and said that while the puzzle is tough, the last class was able to finish it and I knew they had the ability to do the same.
Towards the end of class, we talked about the artists that the students didn't know.
Most of the time, I didn't have to say much because there was always a student who said their parent brother, aunt,etc. exposed them to an artist like Led Zeppelin or Al Green and they would rattle off some facts about the artist, (if there was one older artist that students knew the best it was Michael Jackson, which is amazing since most of them were born way after his peak.)
Although word puzzles may not work in every class, it's a great and fun way for students focus and promote teamwork.
(* Have you ever been in position where you were without a lesson plan? What did you do to make a stressful situation, a productive one?
(* *Keisha is a fake name, but her group did finish first. )
Try these sites to create your own word puzzle:
www.puzzle-maker.com
www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/
www.discoveryeducation.com/puzzlemaker/
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/words/search/
www.edhelper.com/crossword_free.htm
www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/
www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment