Hangman fun

I mentioned early that the students at my school seem to be suffering from a little something that I like to call the Spring Break blues. It's a pain that I have felt all too well, particularly in college. You get spoiled by the opportunity to sleep-in, play all day in the beautiful sunshine, and stay up late watching t.v. or reading books. 

We read the Umbrella before the break and this week I have introduced my older students to another Jan Brett book. 

You can read all about the book at Brett's awesome website.

This is an awesome book that I found for .50 cents at a Goodwill store in a neighboring town. It's particularly great if your students get to participate in "chicken hatching" as I call it. Our second graders get to take care of eggs as part of their life cycle unit. They loved connecting this story to their experience with the baby chicks. 

Every session with my older students has started out with a review of wh- question words before reading the story. I find that they have a tendency to forget quickly. My story retell rope made its disappearance this week so I could see just how much they remember independently. Some groups still need the visuals so I modified hangman to incorporate a drawing of each meaning. The rules are simple: I win a point if they can't tell me the word before the picture is complete. You better believe that I had tons of motivated kids. They LOVE to beat the teacher. 

This is the best one of my pitiful attempts. Thankfully my students are used to my crappy upside down drawing skills.

I also used hangman with wh- questions as we read the story. They didn't let me score a single point!