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Ideas for Creative, Passionate Teaching

Frosty Fun:  Listen, Speak, Read and Write in the Language of Winter

1/9/2017

20 Comments

 
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Frosty Fun: Language Learning Activities Focused on Winter and Fun
By Kia DeCou

The great thing about teaching a language is that language is connected to everything. Why not make winter a little more fun in your classroom by using the weather to inspire engaging activities and projects. Who knows, by the end you might just have your students begging for more winter!

LISTENING

Winter Music Videos

Songs about winter with great videos

  • Fox in the Snow by Belle and Sebastian (lyrics)
  • Winter Song One by Chris Garneau (lyrics)
  • Misty by Kate Bush (lyrics) This song includes a women in bed with a snowman.  Nothing graphic, but watch it to see if it is appropriate for your students




Frosty Fun listening activity.
  • Divide the class into teams
  • Choose vocabulary from each song for students focus on.
  • Have them watch each video without the sound and have them try to divide what vocabulary goes with what video. After each video students should discuss what they saw and why they think certain words would go better with that song.
  • Then let them listen to the songs without the videos. When they hear a word from the vocabulary list, have them highlight it in a color that goes with that song.
  • Give each team envelopes with the lyrics of each song cut apart and have them put them in order to the best of their recollection. Then recheck the vocabulary to see if they can find it in the lyrics.
  • Now have them try to guess which video goes with which lyrics. Play the songs and the videos together this time. Teams get one point for each correct word and 5 points for each correct song/video match.
  • The winning team gets snowflake awards.

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Reading

Nothing beats curling up with a good story when the weather turns bitter. Give your students a choice of stories to read and then assign them to groups according to their preference. You can find a list of possible books here or here
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  • Choose about 4 books of varying length, level, and genre.
  • Make sure the students know how challenging each story is so they can choose something appropriate for their level.
  • Give Students enough time to read the book partly in class and partly at home. Usually a few weeks will do it.
  • Each group must look at how many pages they have to read and how many days they have to do it. They are responsible for doing the math to determine how many pages they must read each day.
  • Give students choices on what role they want to take each day. EXAMPLE ROLE WORKSHEETS
  • Allow students to decide how they would like to read; alone, with a friend or with their whole group.
  • The first part of each class is devoted to discussing each person’s work on their role sheet. Make sure students have enough time to fully examine what each group member has done. Then discuss how they want to read that day’s pages. Whatever they don’t get done in class becomes homework.
  • After the books have been read have each group choose a final project to present to the class. Make sure that you have copies of the books available to students who may become curious to read another book.    
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Writing 

 Create winter haikus, short stories and love letters.


Haikus
For instuctions on how to write a haiku, click here
  • Have students draw 2 words out of a bag of winter words.
  • They must keep one and trade one with the person next to them.
  • Then they must make a haiku using both of those words.


Short stories:
  • have each student choose a setting picture that is winter related.
  • Each student should then pick 2 character names out of a bag and use at least one of them to create a dialogue in their story.
  • Have the students pick a conflict card from another bag. They must create a short story, no more than 1 page that describes the setting, has at least one dialogue and is centered around the chosen conflict.


Love Letters:
  • Give students a list of winter related things and people. Ask them to choose one.
  • Then show them several examples of famous love letters. How do the authors describe their feelings? How do they describe the objects of their affection?
  • Have the students write love letters to the wintery object/person they chose.

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Speaking 


Bundle the class up and take them outside to make a Frosty video.
  • Have teams throw snowballs as far as they can, whoever throws the farthest gets to pick their teams topic.
  • Topics: People’s reaction to cold weather, winter fashion, favorite ways to keep warm, is snow crazy cool or crazy cold?
  • Choose a snowy day and have students interview passersby about their topics. In teams of three, there could be one camera person and two interviewers. Ask interviewees for thier names and permission to air thier interviews.
  • Come back inside, select the best parts of the interviews to create news reports to show in class or better yet, take them to the local news station and ask if they need any fun footage for their nightly news.


Do you have any fun winter activities you enjoy doing with your classes? Please share in the comments box.



For More Teaching Inspiration, Check These Out!
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20 Comments
Karen BakingInATornado link
1/10/2017 03:08:28 am

The best teachers my kids ever had are ones that incorporate multiple mediums and activities into a lesson. There's something for everyone and so much reinforcement. I love everything about what you've put together here.

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Kia DeCou link
1/10/2017 08:19:14 am

I am glad you like the activities Karen! I believe learning should be fun and inspire people to want to do more of it. There are so many amazing things we could be doing to promote learning.

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mamarabia link
1/10/2017 04:50:33 am

These are such great ideas. I could even try them at home with my kids on a snow day.

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Kia DeCou link
1/10/2017 08:20:57 am

I am so glad you liked the activities. I was thinking about how much fun some of them would be with my daughter too. I hope your kids have fun with them!

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Eileen link
1/10/2017 09:07:18 am

There are some great ideas here! As a homeschooling mother, I am always looking for fresh, new ideas.

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Kia link
1/10/2017 04:51:33 pm

Thanks Eileen, I admire homeschoolers. I thought about homeschooling my daughter but I find it easier to teach classrooms of up to 50 students! My daughter just said that she wanted to write the story idea from this though. I hope you and your child(ren) have fun this winter!

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Melissa Robinson
1/10/2017 09:29:51 am

These are fun and engaging ideas! I can see how children/students would benefit from them.

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Kia link
1/10/2017 04:52:38 pm

Thank you Melissa! I was thinking it might be fun to do a few of them myself to practice Spanish or Turkish.

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Spatulas On Parade - Dawn link
1/10/2017 10:25:08 am

Reading your post made me miss teaching all over again. Great ideas.

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Kia link
1/10/2017 08:19:39 pm

Thanks! Teaching is wonderful if sometimes tiring! I always get a rush out of trying something new and seeing where the students take it.

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Angela link
1/10/2017 06:58:02 pm

These are great ideas!

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Kia link
1/10/2017 08:21:00 pm

Thanks Angela! Nike wants to try out the writing a story one with Snoopy as one of the characters.

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Aundrea link
1/10/2017 10:44:37 pm

So before I had kids I was teacher. I love how you are centering the lesson plans around the weather and environment. I believe that kids are more excited about learning and are more attentive when they learn though play or are inspired by what's around them. Great share!!

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Kia link
1/10/2017 11:20:14 pm

Hi Aundrea, I totally agree, learning should be engaging, fun and active. I teach university students (big kids) and they still love to play even though they have been trained not to expect it. After a few months of encouraging them to choose their own activities and enjoy/be proud of their work, they begin to demand it.

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Tonya link
1/11/2017 02:45:09 am

These are great ideas. I'd love to do them with my nephew if he were closer

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Kia link
1/11/2017 11:24:22 am

Thank you Tonya! I am glad you like them. Maybe you could do them together over skype or something.

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Liz Wilcox link
1/11/2017 05:13:00 am

Wow! I'm not saying anything new in these comments, but I just wanted to let you know I also think these are great ideas.

What an excellent resource your site is. The world needs great educators!

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Kia link
1/11/2017 11:27:43 am

Thank you so much Liz! The world does need great educators. Learning should be such a joyous and enriching experience that we can't get enough of it. I fee like if we encouraged educators to be creative and passionate they could inspire those things in their students.

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Özge Fidan
8/14/2017 04:56:13 am

Hi Kia this is Özge ( Anita's friend from TED Malatya )😊 What an awesome blog it is! Thank you for sharing these ideas. I appreciated them a lot 🖒. They are really worth trying. I am looking forward to use these ideas and sharing my feedback with you when the fall semester starts in my country.

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Kia link
8/18/2017 04:48:12 am

Hi Ozge, Thank you! I can't wait to hear how they work for you! I miss Malatya and all of the people at TED and Inonu. I hope your fall semester is wonderful.

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    Hi, I'm Kia.

    Teaching is my passion, I have been teaching for over 20 years in 4 different continents.  One of the things I have learned over the years is that I am never done learning about teaching. Both teaching and learning should be fun and inspiring. 

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