The importance of literature for Children

Children are born with the need to express themselves. They possess a natural instinct to be creative. We can encourage those instincts and basic needs by providing them with unstructured time to play, daydream, and explore. We can encourage their individual instincts for creativity by filling their worlds of wonder with art, music, dance, wordplay and rhyme. Enter the writing process with a childlike sense of wonder and discovery. Let it surprise you. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Albert Einstein One such creative style, involving the skill of writing, can be developed in children at a very young age. Because communication is crucial to our society, teaching children to write well will often lead to children, and adults, who can communicate well. Therefore, finding creative options for our children to develop writing skills will set the foundation for many additional years of creative writing and learning.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Parts of Speech! Week 3, 2012

Parts of Speech Jeopardy!


After a couple weeks of working out the different kinds of parts of speech, it was time to put the kids to the test!

Stuff you'll need: 
- Cue cards (or piece of paper the size of cue cards)
- Tape 

Prep time (should only take 5-10 minutes): 
What you'll need to do to prepare for this game is start by writing out different kinds of parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc) on each card. One per card. For example, the first card would say: School - a noun card. Do this for about 15 cards. Afterwards, you're going to prepare for the bonus round. On these cards, you'll write down a complete sentence on each card. For example, one could say "Mr. Darcy and I travelled all the way from New York City to Maine." For these cards, underline a certain part of speech. So, if you're going to focus on 'verbs' for that card, you could underline 'travelled". After you've made about 5-10 bonus cards, stick them up on the wall (face down so no one can see the words) in lines of five, then you are ready to play! 
 
How to play: 
Split your group up into two teams. Pick a team to choose a card on the wall first. Once they have chosen a card, read out the word. The children must then discuss within their group - quietly so the other team won't hear them - what they believe the answer is. After a specific allotted amount of time (whatever you feel your children need), ask the teams to whisper to you their answer, this way the other team won't steal their answer. If the team is right, they get a point! If both teams are right, they both get a point! If a team is wrong, no point. Continue this until you are out of Round 1 cards. Afterwards, begin the Bonus Round. For this round you will read out the entire sentence and ask children to find a specific part of speech within it. As with the first round, if they get it, they get the point. There is something special about the bonus round, though. Many sentences tend to have more than one specific part of speech. So, you could read out this sentence "Reed sat on the bench waiting for his Coach to let him play football." Notice, there are three verbs in that sentence. You could say, for every verb a team finds they will get a point! At the end, count up the points and the team with the most points wins!!

Tips: 
- I used ages 8-11 for this game.
- Boys v.s. Girls formed an outstanding competition.
- When the bonus round does come along, some children require a visual of the sentence. Some children work better while looking at the sentence instead of just hearing it. If this is a concern, a whiteboard is a great help. Write out the sentence as you read it to them.
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