Think of one of the activities you did in this morning’s worshop. How could (and would) you apply it to your reading curriculum?! Give a specific example please! And then…. feel free to respond to others’ responses….
After you have your other workshop later this a.m., feel free to add more responses!
DREAM Institute 
I liked the interview activity and the bus stop. I think both of those could be incorporated in the classroom to teach character analysis. The “become or use” activity would also be great for teaching vocabulary words.
I would use the” fill the space” technique to brake the tension of the CSt’s. The students can warm up before testing and feel more relax and awake while testing.:-)
It might also be good on the first day, as a chance for students to explore the new classroom. 🙂
I agree that the “fill in the space” activity would be a great tension reliever for testing. I will definitely use it.
I plan to try Use Or Become on the first day of school. Students could use/become characters, vocabulary words, parts of speech, or scenes/places in the story. For example, with the story Mulan, students could become soldiers on a battlefield or the emperor’s court.
I would love to use the interview activity in my classroom to focus on character analysis. Students can take on another persona and have fun acting it out. I also like the idea of responding to the story in chronological order to retell beginning, middle, and end.
I’d like to use the interview activity to do character studies. I thought “use or become” could be a good way to teach parts of speech.
I enjoyed the interview part. Character analysis is such a hard concept for 3 Graders and they are often limited in their “pick up” of new vocabulary. It would be nice to not only learn the word, but see it acted out for the visual and audio learners. It might be a way to help them better internalize and visualize these new words.
I would use the interview activity to help my ELD kids work on their oral language skills. After we read a story, I would let them pick a character to be. Then I would pose the interview question and have them write their answers on paper. I would then give them time to practice their verbal responses before the actual interview activity. I think they would get into it.
Great activity for our ELD kids! Highly engaging while focusing on reading, listening and speaking standards.
I would use the use or become activity to make connections for students with story vocabulary. I would use the interview process for students to explore character perspective, problem/solution, and making connections across literature selections.
I would use the interview activity as a get to know you/get to know 3rd grade activity.
For example asking the principal/librarian/former 3rd grade student… what a 3rd graders needs to know, how he/she needs to behave, what is expected of them…
As an icebreaker!
We made a triorama of a beach scene. The triorama can be used for a myriad of reading standards. One could write a short summary on one of the folds while depicting cause and effect, fact and opinion, etc. on the other two folds.
I think I’d like to start doing one interview question with a set of characters from the story as we finish each story, even at the beginning of the year. As we progressed through the year, I think kids would get better and better at it and more of them would feel comfortable acting. It teaches how to identify the point of view of the character in such an easy and interactive way.
I enjoyed the theater activities (warm-ups, games) and I think these would be great for brain-breaks or as transitions in between activities throughout the day. I also enjoyed the interview activity and I think this would make it more meaningful to students during character analysis.
I would like to use the triorama for a book report – showing the beginning, middle, and ending. Another idea – to show the land regions of California.
I was thinking the same thing too. Great minds think alike! I am planning to use the trioramas for my kiddos to describe the four regions of California. I was thinking of making groups of four and assigning each student in each group a specific region and then connecting them together. Have fun! 🙂
For the regions, an idea we had is to make 4 dioramas, one for each region, and then glue them in carousel formation.
We plan to use the triorama activity with the story Akiak for display at Back to School night. Mountains in the background with a layer of forest in the middle ground. Akiak in the foreground.
There have been great warm up activities shared that I can definately use in the classroom. The “Interview Activity” is a great idea to involve all students in being responsible in identifying characters and understanding that we each play a role in life and to disect all the components of our roles. Being able to respond to an interview question as a character takes a good understanding of the role you’re playing.
A first week of school activity is to get to know who is who on our campus. I would like to try having the first modeling of the interview process be me asking,” What do you see as challenges or change for 3rd grader?” The panel would be the principal, librarian, custodian, cafeteria manager,and office staff member. Each would give a piece of advise, i.e. Cafeteria manager would say you have first lunch, so remember to bring snack to eat after school if you go to the after school program. Principal–You now will be on the upper grade playground and one of the rules that is different is…..
I would use character interviews to any shared reading story to help students get involved in the story, to help them understand characters, and to build classroom community.
Use or Become seems like it would be a good ice breaker activity to warm kids up physically and mentally for any creative work.
I would use the Interview theater activity at the end of an HM Theme to review all of the stories. Each group could choose a story and one important question that they feel would help the class review the story.
I agree that interviewing the characters at the end of a theme would be a great idea to reinforce what the students have learned.
Great idea! 🙂 That would also be a great time to use a theme-based question, and interview characters from all the stories at the same time. You could probably get some help from the comparison questions in the Think About The Selection section at the end of each story, and the theme introduction in the Practice Book.
We made the trioramas. We could use this in several ways. It could be used as a book report, with writing on the back. It could be used to show the 4 regions of California and put all 4 together back to back. I could also use it for the Gold Rush. They kids could design a mining camp in the front and then write a narrative about it on the back.
Great idea!!! I didn’t think about using it for the Gold Rush. Thanks! 🙂
I really liked the “Scoring the Role” activity. I teach multiple grades and could use this activity with a novel study or after a Reader’s Theater.
I liked the become or use game to teach vocabulary, parts of speech and character traits. By using total physical response, students are more likely to remember and use the words correctly. The interview game is also a great way to work with character analysis. I also enjoyed the idea of the characters from different stories interviewing together with a generic questions.
I will use the interview format in my classroom. English Learners and Lanaguage Delayed students often have the feelings and knowledge of the characters, yet do not have the vocabulary to express their ideas. By acting out their ideas of the characters and watching others they can make the connections to the words.
I think the interview activity would work for the comprehension strategy problem solving. The interviewer can ask the characters how they solved or would solve the problem.
The techniques that Mindi shared could be useful to refocus students, as someone shared during our session.
At the beginning of the year I would get students to act out how to address situations that can be controversial out on the playground. Asking students to help you make a list of things that can cause problems…Such as, “Someone races you to the front of the line.” They can partner up and practice. Then we can together identify the actions and objectives of the students. Even better, have the students assume the roles of a bully and a good citizen in each situation.
So many different ways to use the triorama! Book reports, social studies, vocabulary. I would use this activity to teach the setting of specific stories and possibly even character traits.
The triorama activity would work well with many of our stories…to illustrate, but also summarize on the back. Also, using three trioramas back to back would allow for beginning, middle, and end scenes for the novels we read. It also will work nicely with the other subjects.
I loved the art lessons and will use the trioramas to have students create the settings from the stories and in social studies to show the regions of CA. Our grade level is already planning to create artwork from the masters each Friday, so I hope to choose an artist where I can teach students to draw the human body and or face.
We plan to use the triorama activity with Akiak for our Back to School Night. The background will be mountains with forests in the midground. Then Akiak will be in the foreground.
I could have the students, in small groups or partners to create a “tri a rama”, 3d illustration, of a story we read.
I loved learning how to make the trioroma. I will use it in several different ways throughout the year:
book reports
put three together with a beginning, middle, and end—use for retelling a story and lead up to writing
Social Studies—3 together for 3 branches of the government
Science the habitats
I would use the interviewing activity for the fun of it and to help the kids to better understand and develop the characters from the story. It would be great for comprehension.
I would use the protrait drawing to go along with the character study. It would engage the students more to focus on charactristics of the main character. The triorama is an excellent way for students to focus on the details on the setting of a story.
The portrait drawing would be used at the beginning of the year to encourage a sense of community by displaying their work. Before they used any materials, I would have students repeat three times, “I am an artist.” Like adults, children think they can’t do things as well as others, and some activities are taken as a challenge.
This is a great beginning of the year activity. They could create a self-portrait and a personal narrative and share in a community building activity. Walla – instant display!
I plan on using the character(s) interview activity. I like the modifications that were shared by my colleagues. I also plan on using the “use or become” activity to teach parts of speech.
I would place my kids in groups of four, and have them create a triorama for each of the four regions of California. Each child would be responsible for completing, and presenting their region to the rest of the class.
This morning we did the visual arts. It was sooooo much fun. We made faces and trioramas. With the faces, I normally draw portraits the first week of school and my students write “I Am” poems. This time my faces will look like faces and not cartoon faces, Yippee! With the triorama, I will use them to make book report summaries or I have used them before to do social studies reports. Each student is able to get a section and of their specific Native American Indian report (e.g. location, food, clothing, etc..) and then we connect them together. It looks amazing! 🙂
I would love to do the triarama activity to introduce the regions of California, or in science. This year I did something similar, but with circles when we did the unit on The Gold Rush.
The role-playing activity is great for testing comprehension. I would conclude the story with the ‘interview’ activity and try to pair characters and students that are least alike.
I can use each and every one of these activities in my new classroom, which will be a 1,2,3 grade multiage. Every student can participate and play a role. The “Use or Become” activity was great and would be a great way to start the day. Character interviews are also a great way to check for understanding, as well as for character analysis, cause and effect, setting, author’s purpose, and so on.
We are going to use the triorama activity for Back to School Night with the story Akiak. Mountains in the background, forests in the middle ground and Akiak in the foreground.
Have students act out the problem and solution of the selection. Then act out other solutions and have the audience guess what it was.
Use the Sun and Raisin theatre warm up, for stretching activities, between prolonged sitting times.
I love all the activities we did this morning. I foresee the use of the tri-o-rama with stories and comparing how art and writing create rich pictures with the use of detail as well as harmony and balance with the use of transititions and beginning , middle, and end. I also like the idea of using the tri-o-rama with the elements of a story (time, place, charachers, events).
At the beginning of the year, we study landforms. I can see using the triangle diorama to demonstrate the student’s knowledge of different landforms. Also, students can also use this technique for a project in California regions. This activities are so useful in teaching shapes and measurement, too. I love it! And I know the kids will definitely love it, too.