As a teacher myself, I can tell you that teachers aren't told how appreciated they are often enough. Well, Teachers Pay Teachers is making sure you know how appreciated you are. I'm excited to tell you that everything in my TpT store
is 20% off for two days this week, May 5 and 6. Every single thing! The best
part is that if you enter the code "thankyou" when you check out, TpT will
add additional savings to your order for a total of 28% The catch is
that it's on sale for two short days only. So you need to act quickly. You
can click on the picture below to go directly to my store, or use some
of these links to go to my favourite products.
Can I just say, I love the look of the May Currently? It is so elegant and pretty. Now that all the snow has melted and the ick is gone away, a little elegant and pretty is needed around here.
As always, thank you to Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for hosting this great linky.
So, what am I currently up to this Saturday, May 2 morning? Well here you go!
Listening: I am listening to the Global BC Morning News. She should add a "procrastinating from" category to this though, because more accurately I am procrastinating from some marking right now.
Loving: This is not new information. Chai Lattes. I want one. Again, this is not anything new.
Thinking: Of my weekend chores. There are several. They'll get done, they always do. They just seem so daunting Saturday morning. Again, procrastinating.
Wanting: I'm working on my Mexico scrapbook album. I need some new items to finish it off. There just isn't anything around here for me. Going to need to order on line later. (Further procrastination.)
Needing: Some focus. Figure out why yet?
Summer: I'd really like a quiet and laid-back summer. I don't want to work anywhere or go anywhere or do much of anything. We'll see.
My class is buzzing with speech writing! Everyone has picked their own unique topic and we are in a variety of stages of the process. Here's my job for the weekend, providing feedback to my 27 lovelies.
Speech writing is another first in
grade 4. Students haven't had this experience yet in their school
career. It's important that I set them up right. The first thing that I did to get them excited for the huge task, is show them these two videos. They are both Ted Talks, but what's a bit unique, is that kids their age (or close) are giving the talks. I think that this makes the task a little more realistic for them. It also serves as a really good example of what a speech can look and sound like.
After watching the videos, we assess what was good and what wasn't so great about them. We created a huge web of brainstorming. My kids were really impressed that the second boy was able to memorize his whole speech! They also thought both topics were really engaging and liked how they used a bit of humor to interact with the audience. They also said that the second boy was a bit distracting with all his hand gestures.
Now, we're getting somewhere....
We talked about how speeches can have any topic you choose, but it's important to pick something you have some knowledge about. We then ran through several pages of potential topics.
I left it at that for day one. On day two, students began to brainstorm. The brainstorming sheet I use is fairly simple, breaking the speech down into an introduction, paragraph 1, paragraph 2, paragraph 3 and the conclusion. Here's an example from one student:
I noticed a lot of students ended their speech similarly... "So that is my speech. Thanks for listening." (Hence blog post title.) So boring!! We brainstormed lists of excellent words or phrases to use in the intro to hook your listener and then for the conclusion to leave them powerfully.
My students are now at a variety of stages - writing, timing (speeches must be at least 2 and a half minutes in length), revising, putting onto cue cards, memorizing, working on timing or eye contact..... It really is a huge task!
We select two students per intermediate class to present their speech at the school speech contest. Some are then selected to go on to the district speech contest. My entire class will be presenting within the classroom, though.
Everything I'm using is put together into a package on my TpT store. If you need to teach speech writing to your class, this is the package
you need! Everything from topic ideas to information to judging sheets
are included. Use these slides as anchor charts, or project while
teaching.
You will get:♥ What Makes a Good Speech?
♥ Speech Topic Ideas
♥ Links to Examples
♥ Parts of a Speech
♥ Steps to Writing a Speech
♥ Citing Sources
♥ Props or No?
♥ Brainstorming Sheet
♥ Cue Card Planning (2 versions)
♥ Assessment (marks sheet, rubric, and self-assessment)
