Creating Words with Starting Sounds- Dice Game
April 13, 2022
The students in my grade 1 class were focusing on digraphs as part of their literacy block while I was there. On the final day, I was there, I created a worksheet where students used dice to make words using digraphs as starting sounds of words. It was a very interactive activity, and students needed to use their knowledge of the digraphs to create words. At the top of the page, there were the faces of the dice and the digraph they corresponded with (sh, wh, th, ch), and at the bottom of the worksheet, there were endings of words that had a blank place for the digraphs. Students rolled the die and used the digraph that they rolled, went through the list of digraphs, and tried to find a word that made sense.
Before sending the students off, I modeled the game on the projector camera. I showed students where to look for the starting sound they were using (i.e., sh), and then went down the list of endings, adding a sh- sound to the beginning until I created a word. The students were very excited about this activity and that made me feel confident that it would go well. I liked this activity because students were stretching out their words, and using their knowledge of sight words to help them create words. I would do this activity again, but next time I would start with partners, and then have students do it alone. Some students had a lot more experience than others, and partnering up with other students would make this activity a lot easier to understand for the ones who needed extra help.
As a follow-up activity, I would try to add the digraphs to the end of the word, have students work in partners, and then have it as an individual activity. In my opinion, dice are a very helpful and exciting manipulative, and I believe that this activity can be adapted to different situations. Not only do students practice subitizing, but are learning whatever subject that they are using the dice for in the activity. For example, you could use dice for a place value activity. Give students two dice, and have them create the number using the numbers they roll.
The Colour Wheel
April 8, 2022
After successfully leading two visual art activities with the grade 1 students in my class that were explicitly inspired by the expectations in the art curriculum, I asked my associate teacher if there was anything that was not explicitly stated in the curriculum that needed to be taught to the students. She explained that has been meaning to teach students about the colour wheel, primary, and secondary colours. I looked back at the curriculum expectations and realized that some of the expectations stated that students should be aware of colours in their surroundings and the meanings that are associated with the colour. I thought I could incorporate this into my lesson. I introduced students to the colour wheel by showing them what it looked like, and going through the colours one-by-one. On the next couple slides I then went through what primary and secondary colours were (primary colours can be combined to create secondary colours, etc.) We then went through some items in our world that are certain colours, how the colours make us feel, and why things are coloured certain ways.
After we went through the colour wheel, we created colour wheel umbrellas through directive drawing, where I showed students how to draw a person in the rain with an umbrella on the projector camera. This lesson went very well, and the students all loved learning about the different colours, and guessing what colours could make another colour. While going through the colour wheel, they also noticed that there was a pattern, and the wheel went primary, secondary, primary, secondary, etc.
One thing that I think made this lesson so successful was all the visual aids I used during the presentation. I had primary colours on one side of the slide, with plus signs, and an equal sign before the secondary colours. I also put a lot of different coloured items on the bottom of the slide, which gave students different visuals of what the colours look like in our world, and it could give students ideas of what feelings can be associated with the colours.
In the future, I would love to have done a painting activity where students can experiment with making secondary colours with primary colours, and then we can create colour wheels that way. This way students can see the colours being changed before them, and they can do more experimental learning before doing a directive drawing. If I was teaching this lesson in the future, I would definitely use this experimental idea as a starting activity. I could potentially have students create their secondary colours while going through the slides.
