Grammar

hi i'm jamie from matza would-be teacher and i'm excited to talk to you today about teaching grammar and I'm guessing that for a lot of you when you think about teaching grammar it doesn't sound fun I know that teaching grammar was not my favorite part of the school day and in fact I found grammar to be a whole lot of work to prep and prepare like every week I was taking the skill and I'm going to Pinterest to Google searching trying to find stuff for that one skillet everything that I could use to teach nouns and prepping it and doing it that week and then the next week having to start all over again first and then finding that my students weren't really remembering any of these skills and so even though I was working really hard I wasn't getting the results that I had hoped for from my students and so I I actually examined what was working well in my classroom and other subject areas and it got me thinking that's what I needed to do with grammar what was working well for me where my math centers my writing areas where I had a routine my vocabulary I had routines every Monday we did the same thing every Tuesday we did the same thing this made prep so easy for me because at the beginning of the semester I could prep all my Monday activities I know exactly what I was going to do I wasn't doing that with grammar I wasn't making it consistent and I wasn't involving the students enough so I went ahead and created a much more consistent routine that students can use when learning grammar and I think this is going to make it easier for you to teach it and I think it's going to make it easier for students to learn so I have a lot of tips and ideas for you if you were in the same position that I was in where grammar wasn't going so well or was taking too much time so let's get started let me show you some things my DEA's are right first of all mondays you have to actually teach the skill okay you can't just get a bunch of cutesy gains and worksheets and think that your kids are going to learn the skill from worksheet or agate those are fun games are but they don't teach the skill you you really do have to have a lesson to teach it I found in third grade this was essential they weren't ready necessarily to look at a sentence and tell me what part of speech each word was or why this sentence was good or how it can be better because they didn't know the basics of grammar yet so we had to start from the beginning before we were ready to go into deeper analysis students needed straight-up mini lessons and so on Monday I would introduce the skill whatever skill we were working on that week I would introduce it using a PowerPoint now I am NOT a huge power point type teacher I don't make a PowerPoint for every lesson and then just sit there from the class and read the slides to them while they sleep this is not who I am so my powerpoints are a little different first of all it's just one skill broken it broken all those grammar standards down to just one skill on Monday okay and I'm gonna keep it quick and I'm not gonna make a fifty slide presentation and talk to them for half an hour that's boring nobody wants to listen to anyone talk about subject and predicate for half an hour absolutely no one so I keep it super quick if I don't I grab my lessons are about to ten minutes aim for that if you find that it's seeking you longer than ten minutes to give this mini lesson you're probably being a little boring practice it at home ahead of time are you repeating yourself too much are you getting too deep Monday is the introduction your students don't have to master it that day it's just introducing this skill the rules the world breakers because it's English don't feel like everyone needs to master it give them examples give them very you're examples in my powerpoint it'll say here's how you make a noun plural if it ends in a consonant and then a Y and then it'll show them several words just like that that way my visual learners can see it repeatedly and my my audio learners are hearing me say it and then we are going to involve those kinesthetic learners too I want to involve my students in this PowerPoint so as many slides as possible have them answering questions whether it's as a whole group again my putt when I teach punctuating address we together work on writing the school's address but other times have them turn to a partner turn and give your partner an example of a past tense verb this is important this gets them a chance to move from their current position of staring at your board to your PowerPoint turning to somebody talking moving getting that blood flowing again okay so make sure that even though your powerpoints quick like maybe 10 slides long even though it's quick that maybe at the bottom of at least every other slide there is a task for students to do it doesn't have to involve writing but Ken you can have them have white boards up and writing samples down but make sure it's very quick so practice this routine so if they're gonna need a white board make sure they know that every time you say it's grammar time they just get that out so that this really quick lesson doesn't drag on while they're searching for whiteboard markers or figuring out who their shoulder partner is hey so Monday real quick mini lesson I like to use a PowerPoint so that students can really see my examples all right Tuesday gets more fun okay I not I'm not a very good PowerPoint type teacher so I like Tuesdays even better Tuesday's my students complete a notebook activity and interactive notebook activity this gets students practicing the skill that we're learning in class okay so this is adjectives and they're having to find the adjectives and the nouns that the adjectives are describing so it's actually still a spiral reviewing those nouns we already learnt besides them practicing and writing which is important they're moving they're connecting besides that they're also creating this wonderful resource that they can come back to all year when they don't remember what an adverb is when we get to comparative and superlative z-- they can come back and look it up themselves remember it more if they look it up themselves and they have this great reference to look at it but it's also practice they're also doing some output they're working and you can do it together as a class you can do it in the center but you want to make sure at the end of the day their answers are correct because you want this to be a wonderful resource shouldn't look back on I just go ahead and do it full whole whole group and I give them maybe eight minutes to do the activity and we review it for two which means they have to be quick cutters and lures and so I keep the activities really simple cuts I like nice straight cuts I don't want them cutting out cutesy clipart I don't want them having to cut a bunch of circles and things that take a long time very straight simple cuts make them faster but also just practice speed with them how we race with them see if they can beat you getting the note book activity done kids are very competitive and so I think that my students every now and again when I say I'm gonna race you it really does pick up the speed okay but they also just get better at it throughout the year because we do this grammar notebook activity every Tuesday and we do notebooks also in math so my students get very good at this hey they're creating a reference they're practicing and they keep it you're keeping it quick you're getting them involved they are engaged this is so much more fun than a worksheet okay you already be a cool teacher Wednesday Wednesday I want to incorporate some writing I do a Writers Workshop where my students are going to learn all the writing skills they need to be a fantastic author grammar is a part of writing but during my Writers Workshop I don't like to focus too much on mechanics because whether or not going to have great grammar or great spelling is not the sole deciding factors whether you are a good author it is just one minut part of it but it is a part so I do grammar right before my Writers Workshop and I want my kids to use these skills in their writing so on Wednesday I like to show them how it relates to writing what I do is I keep this super quick this is not a create a huge story thing we have a Writers Workshop for that this is just a creative quick paragraph okay students are gonna be given up prompt I have PowerPoint and they're given a prompt it says write five sentences about and it tells me exactly what's right about and it will tell them what skill they need to make sure and use I just have them use the side of their notebook paper we did confit abstracts they can write the paragraph right here next to it they just follow the prompts directions so if it if they're writing a story about what they had for lunch that day and it might say do your best to use at least one abstract now okay and so that gives them a chance to say my my turkey sandwich brought me joy today and they can underline joy as an abstract nap because that's what the next slide on the PowerPoint is gonna say it's gonna say trade notebooks with your partner they love this part and read their work underline all of their concrete their concrete nouns and circle all their abstract nouns okay so they're having a great time but now they've been detectives through their partner's writing looking for nouns and then my third slide is always let's raise our hand give me an example of an abstract nay on their partner use it's a great chance to share their partners work okay it's lots of fun really quick cuz I'm only asking them to write three to five sentences and then we do a quick trade get a couple minutes and then maybe a minute of sharing okay and I go out and put that all on PowerPoint slides so I don't have to write on the board you know it's prepped ahead of time click on the slide it's got the prompt kids can read it over and over and I don't have to keep repeating directions that's important when you only have 10 minutes we cannot repeat directions Thursday's are super fun for my students it's task card day I love task cards use them a lot in the classroom these in my life task cards that get kids out of their seats it gets them moving and when we're moving while we're learning increases our memory okay we have much more blood flow going to our brain and it will increase them on things that our students remember but also it makes them happy and we are happy you remember things better so I get them out of their seats this daughter than worksheet basically what I do is I take the test cards most sets come with 24 they're a couple based on skill to have 16 just because there were longer task cards but I take the set and I put like one task card on each desk if there's more than more tax cards than desk maybe on the couple tables and I get my students they're recording sheet each just week that were recording sheet and they say answer the card that's closest to you first and so for Joe that might be number 15 maybe number 15 sitting on his desk so he answers that one and then I tell them to work around the table and then go to the next table until you have answered all of the questions so they're up there walking they're moving you don't have to have a task card for every student because they're sitting on the desks and tables around your room where the one student can actually read a task card at a time so you don't have to worry like well I have 22 kids I can only have 22 task cards I have 30 kids and there's only 24 in house part you don't catch of a card for every student you're just spreading them around the room and letting students walk around and can't start them okay I do suggest putting them in numerical order sometime though I didn't take the time to put my numeric order and I just spread them out and then I'd have kids but I never found over 13 I don't know it is if they're kind of go around in numerical order and they miss number 13 they'll note that it's some weights between 12 and 14 so it makes it a little easier to find in your classroom that's the tip I've learned along the way now I don't get my kids a ton of time on this just cuz I don't follow the ton of time for grammar I usually do 10-minute grammar lessons sometimes on Thursdays I can squeeze out 15 minutes for TAS cards but that's about it and so at the end of our time however many that got done is however many they got done I don't take a grade for this I consider it practice so I usually give them up to 10 minutes to do test parts and then maybe we spend five going over them we won't get to every one but I'll say hey I'll pick up a card closest to me and say oh this is number 15 let's go number 15 together and go through several that way students can check and see if they understood I can check their work they can ask questions of me of course they can ask questions while they're working - I send my kids around by themselves or with a partner so - not like maybe one week they do it on their own on the next week you're like a you pick a partner go around with your partner but I'm up there so I can also go around with my lower readers if they need me to read the tasks virtual I can it can help differentiate that way another easy way to differentiate with TAS cards is that your kiddos that are struggling a bit have them only do 12 task cards don't have them do the whole set tell them just do this table here then it takes off some of the stress and I'm thinking they're behind the whole time but I love that you can differentiate with tasks are very easily by removing certain task cards giving extra time or scooting around with them and reading the text to them it gives you a lot of options if you're lower learners are really struggling - you can take these task cards into their guided reading groups during the week and at the end of the guided reading group just go over one task card with them just gives them a little bit of an edge because by Thursday they've kind of already gone through some of the task cards so it'll help them to be a little more successful all right so every Thursday we do a set of task cards and by the way I get asked all the time these little task card boxes I use their photo boxes actually they're meant for pictures and I buy them at Michael's and I love them they come in like a big they come in one of these tubs here and they're just fantastic so Michaels photo boxes they just help me keep all of my different tasks card sets nice and neat I also get asked about the covers and say how did you make the cover this is the cover that came on my resource but it's eight-and-a-half by eleven if I just print it how it comes so I just set my printer to print this first page the cover at 50% and then I can cut it out and it fits right on the box I just use tape or glue dots to stick it right to the box so that I don't ever have to guess which tasks are set this is because I had so many okay so pass cards on 30 get him up get him moving if you like to grade the task cards that you can I mean you could make it their assessment if you'd like to and maybe they do have on Thursday and half on Friday there's there's some wiggle room to do what works best for your students or switch it up every now and again routines fantastic but then when you start to feel like they're getting too used to it throw in just a little bit something different all right my Friday we're ready for an assessment I always meet assessments on grammar because it's a standard and um and I have to take grades on everything that's a standard and so I like to give a simple assessment because we assess kids on so many different things and I tend to give the most assessments on Fridays and I got a grade at all I don't want it to be super complicated and they don't think you should make your grading in your life super complicated so keep your assessments or my grammar assessments or half of a page I have ten questions pretty much ten that's also easier to grade when it's out of ten and it's just real quick there is a right and a wrong answer there's not like well maybe I mean there's a right and there's a wrong right the correct possessive form okay and this mimics what we have been doing all week this is not written in a totally different language this mimics tasks artists this mimics the notebook activity and the PowerPoint so my students are going to be a lot more successful right really quick to grade I can actually if they start turning them in I can usually grade the first half of the class just as they're training and it only takes them really like five minutes even for my slowest learner to complete this okay really quick assessments that are easy to grade all right so ideas really important that you have a pacing guide that you have a direction if you're just like okay I'm going to teach grammar I've got all all these standards and they're good we haven't quite a few standards and I know it's pretty similar in second and fourth grade so you've got all these standards you're just like willy-nilly pick one like plan it out like a road map this is my pacing guide for the year so it's broken into four units or four quarters and each unit or quarter covers seven new skills and then ends with a week of review because even though we were phenomenal whatever her teachers for the last seven weeks by week eight some of those skills are getting a little bit fuzzy so a review week is built into each of those quarters that way we're continuing to spiral okay so if you want to use my pacing guide you are more than welcome to do so there is a bitly address here at the bottom bit dot ly backslash grammar pacing you do have to get the capitalization correct in order for it to work but I'll also drop a live link into the video description so that you can click over there and grab a PDF of this pacing guide if you'd like to use it you can always just cross things out and use arrows if you need to make changes or use it as a checklist but I went ahead and grabbed all the language skills and standards and just put them in an order that made sense to me right all right so to make this super easy for you I went ahead and put everything that you would need to teach grammar into unit so that you don't have to make or create or search for any of this because it told you the beginning finding all of these resources was taking so much time and then it would look different in different directions and then my kids wouldn't understand it and I would have to spend valuable classroom time teaching them how to do it so I went ahead and I put together grammar units for that entire pacing guide that I just showed you it includes powerpoints for every single Monday that's 32 powerpoints it includes notebook activities for every Tuesday writing prompt powerpoints task cards for every Thursday and assessments for every Friday so you'll have consistency the whole year you'll have 32 powerpoints 32 notebook activities 32 writing prompts 32 task cards and 32 assessments that covers that would cover the 28 skills plus four weeks of review okay so I'm going to put a link to that bundle of resources and if you're not looking for a year-long resource each one of those skills is available individually too so if you're like ah all I need right now is subject and predicate that's available as well to make it simple for you so I'm gonna put a link to the bundle and you'll notice that in the bundle there are links to every single one of the skills for you alright that's it everything I my tips for teaching grammar and hope that it was helpful for you good bye guys

Channel: Not So Wimpy Teacher

Views: 10,300

Rating: 4.8994975 out of 5

Keywords: grammar, teacher, teaching, third grade, 3rd grade

Id: YrqVCTdSeS4

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2018