Bubbly Funky Wordy Stories
For regular esl classes (can be adapted for grades 3 to 11)
I noticed that students (especially teenagers) tend to fill their school agendas with colorful and wierdly designed words. It's funny, I thought, how much time and energy they spend scribbling in their agendas when actually they'll hate most writing assignments. That's when I had the IDEA!!!!
Why not marry writing with drawing?
For Grades 3 to 5 (enriching vocabulary)
Pick a theme: (example: animals)
The children then write basic sentences using adjectives and verbs.
The fun part is that they draw out the word.
For example, if they write, The rabbit hops. The word hop could be written in a semi- circle (to imitate the action of hopping).
If they write the word, scary, it could be written with jagged razor-cutting, long out-stretched letters.
For the word, walk, the students could add shoes onto the bottom of the letters in the word.
Encourage the students to use different colors and styles.
It would be good for the teacher to provide models. (Comic books are good examples to show students different ways inwhich a word can be demonstrated)
The students can create little books either individually or in small groups or create giant posters. ( maybe with class rules)
This idea is terrific also for introducing colors.
For older students:
This activity is wonderful to introduce synonyms for the word said.
Students look up synonyms and the write (draw) them out. Imagine the results for words like scream ( huge and red), argue (letters all intertwined) etc...
Students can then make up a comical dialogue or story where words are creatively illustrated.
The students don't easily forget the new used vocabulary after this fun activity believe me!!! They hunt and hunt for new words and don't want to stop!
Imagine the possibilities when using adjectives like ugly, big, tiny, cloudy and also emotions like mad, love, etc.....
I bet your kids will really get into writing. Also, very important, it's alot a fun for the teacher as well.
Thanks so much to you all for your wonderful ideas and to Dave for this website.
Thetford Mines, Quebec
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