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Activate for better learning or Fishing for Learners

Q: What is the difference between a fish and a piano? A: You can't tuna fish.   
source: http://www.jokes4us.com/sportsjokes/fishingjokes.html

I recently had the opportunity to participate in sessions led by some of the the Instructional Leadership Team  in our district including     .  I initially agreed to participate because I was promised coverage and time to work with my teaching partner on a project of our choosing. Every session followed the same format and began with something the team called an Activate.

Initially I was frustrated with the process. Why am I being blindfolded and asked to put a puzzle together? I thought I was here to collaborate with my partner. It quickly became apparent to me that the team was trying to model good lesson design.

I remember being told when I was a student teacher that every lesson should have a hook. I also remember being told by experienced teachers that no teacher has the time to put a wig on every time they start a new lesson. In all the craziness of my first years of teaching hooks became something I did at the beginning of units. They were something I added to socials and science lessons. I never really thought about hooks when I was planning math and reading ones.

After those first few sessions of blindfolds and 6 word stories I started to wonder what this would look like in my classroom. It ends up that adding lesson activates to your teaching does improve student learning  and engagement. The research says so and so did my students.  Additionally, for me it improved teacher interest too! Also, I realized that I was already using a lot of activating activities in my class but wasn't calling them that.

 Why is that there?
A Ghost appears in the class when we start talking about silent letters
A Canada display goes up just before our unit starts.
                           

Lets read this great picture book I have! 
I wonder what we are learning about in Science next?

We get to play on the Ipads!   
Drawing pictures on the ipads for a writing activity.

 Why are you wearing that?
                                         

    A little drawing to get us thinking.
Drawing 3 picture stories before we learn First, then, finally.

                         
Some other ones I (re)learned over the last few months and have tried with my kids include....

What's in the box? 
I brought a box with something inside and my students had to guess what was in the box based on the clues I gave them. We used it to start a discussion about the importance of using descriptive language in our writing.

Picture clues
We showed students this Smartboard presentation to start our family unit and asked them what we would be learning about next.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Bx7a-eiX-WUHpBcnJlNFBROU0/edit?usp=sharing

Before we began talking about  jobs in our community, we gave students a copy of pictures in this notebook file and asked them to try and figure out what was going on in the picture.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1RvCmBr6sEdSnlsWUZDOHp1QnM/edit?usp=sharing

Listen to this!
I've done this a few times now with sounds or music. I put it on and ask students to think about what they see, what they feel and what they think.
Finally a reason to use the 300 sound effects album I bought a while back!
 https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/300-sound-effects/id287596958
or this app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/300-free-sound-effects/id776891102?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

What did I learn at school today?  I need to make a conscious effort to put some bait on the line and hook my kids before jumping into a lesson. There are lots of ways to do this and many really don't take that long for me to plan or execute. Those activate activities make school more fun for both my students and myself.

What about you? Have you given up on activates and hooks or are you a fishing wizard? What are you favorite activation activities?


Looking for some ideas?  Check these links out:

Teach Like a Pirate:
http://mathcoachscorner.blogspot.ca/2013/03/teach-like-pirate-crafting-engaging.html
http://mathcoachscorner.blogspot.ca/2013/03/teach-like-pirate-more-presentational.html
http://mathcoachscorner.blogspot.ca/2013/03/teach-like-pirate-still-more.html
Lesson Hooks:
http://lms.marshall.k12tn.net/evaluation%20stuff/Lesson%20Hooks.doc
Activating Stategies
http://www.cobbk12.org/Cheathamhill/LFS%20Update/activatingstrategies.htm

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