Spring is just around the corner, and not a minute too soon for those of you still wearing your snow boots. But that doesn’t mean your classroom needs to stay buried in a snowdrift of doldrums.

Creating a classroom township—complete with neighborhoods, businesses, and budgets—will help you welcome springtime with renewed energy. Your students will come away with a true sense of what is required of them to cohabitate and function emotionally, financially, and socially in the real world. Along the way your students will use everyday skills in reading, writing, math, art, and social studies, which for you, the teacher, makes meeting academic needs across the curriculum almost—dare I say—easy?

The snow is melting, so without further a-dew, let’s get started!

FOUNDERS DAY

After introducing the concept of a classroom township to your students, the first item of business is to name your new municipality. My class made many suggestions, and after a vote Hunterville was the winning name.

p: Images_of_Money via photopin cc

The next order of business is to have a form of currency. My classroom was organized in groups which were identified as neighborhoods. I then gave each neighborhood a template of blank currency (rectangles drawn on white paper). The neighborhoods each designed ones, fives, tens, and twenties. Once again, we took a vote for the most popular of each and then I made photocopies.

To get Hunterville up and running, I provided each student with $200. With that money they were required to pay taxes, rent, and any fines they might incur. Anything left over was theirs to do with as they pleased. I explained that the only way to acquire more money was to earn it by either starting a business or working for someone else.

WAYS TO EARN A LIVING

The highly motivated students were the entrepreneurs. They were required to write a business proposal and submit to me for approval. Once approved, they applied for a business license, for which there was a fee. Each day they were open for business, they were required to have their license properly on display.

There were a variety of new businesses in Hunterville. One in particular was a bookmark making business where the girls designed bookmarks and then sold them to their classmates. The owner of the business had such a high demand that she hired two employees. Of course, she then needed to pay their wages, too.

Business owners who hired employees quickly learned about the relationship of general contractor/subcontractor and the can of worms that opens up. For example, if a job was not done correctly—or not at all, which did happen—the consequences first fell on the general contractor who then needed to take care of the subcontractors. Often that meant they fired their employees and needed to hire new ones in order to maintain a product for sale. Others decided it was not worth the headache and closed up shop and went to work for someone else.

Some students worked independently, such as the artists who sold their pictures to classmates. They learned their profession had an unsteady income, but ultimately decided they could live on less. Others liked the idea of a steady income and chose to work for the township cleaning the classroom, being the classroom librarian, collecting garbage/recycling, or enforcing classroom law. I provided the Tickets for Behavior to the officers who were on duty in the classroom, watching for negative behavior.

And then, as in the real world, others chose to not work at all. Consequences for this choice were dire. They learned that asking for money from their friends was short-lived at best, and they could not participate in any of the perks that required money (more on this below).

BASIC EXPENDITURES

Students were required to pay rent for their “home,” or in our case, their desk and surrounding space. Rent was based on the number of members living in the community and the location of the community within the classroom. For example, three students living together near the window paid a higher rent than five students living near the locked supply cupboard.

Those who did not pay rent received notices to pay or vacate, and if they continued to not pay rent they received an eviction notice. Those students lived on their own with their desk set apart from the rest of the community.

p: 401(K) 2013 via photopin cc

One last requirement was that everyone needed to pay monthly taxes. Once again if they did not pay taxes there were consequences. Taxes were paid to the township’s treasurer (the teacher). That money was then used to pay salaries for those working for the township. It was also used to pay interest to those who had a savings account with the township’s bank. (I was the banker for Hunterville but I did have employees to help collect on debts.)

After about two months of Hunterville in full operation, one student decided to open his own bank, creating a healthy competition. The door was then wide open to discuss business monopolies and why they are not necessarily a good thing for the greater good.

INDIVIDUAL BENEFITS AND CONSEQUENCES

Students who were able to pay their debts and still have some money left over were allowed to make purchases such as Friday Free time, extra recess, and homework passes (certain restrictions applied!), or earn interest on money held in a savings account at the bank. The fact that their money could make money was very interesting and exciting for the students.

Once a month we had a Hunterville Marketplace. The students were allowed to bring items from home to sell to their classmates using Hunterville currency. I sent a letter home with each student that they needed to return granting permission to bring their selected items to school to sell. The students who did not have money could not purchase any of the perks and during Marketplace they were allowed to only window shop.

Of course friends would sometimes loan money to friends but that never lasted for very long. Ultimately, students who were without an income realized the benefit of having a job.

MEETING CURRICULUM REQUIREMENTS

Literacy: During your introduction of the classroom township, model how to write a basic business proposal and have an example posted for the students to refer to at anytime. Then, let your students work independently to write their own plan. They will certainly have a sense of accomplishment and ownership of their new business and will work harder to make sure it is a success. Be sure to check for content as well as correct grammar and punctuation before giving them final approval!

For those not wanting to start their own business, they are required to complete a job application with the same writing requirements. Students will also need to read the various notices that are posted by the township’s Mayor (also the teacher), and fellow citizens and comprehend what they mean. If they don’t, they will be surprised by the consequences that will certainly follow.

Math: Students quickly learn the value of money—how to earn money, how to save and earn interest. They also learn how to budget their money earned so they can pay their debts and still take advantage of the perks. The entrepreneurs especially learn about the concept of cost benefit analysis for services provided and money earned.

Art: With budget cuts and expectations for high-stakes testing, art in the classroom is a subject of the past. But in your classroom township there are many opportunities and teachable moments to take advantage of for you to teach art and for students to experiment with different media.

For example, your township will need a sign. I used butcher paper and paints and let the students use their creative skills to make a sign they would all be proud to display. Signs for the individual businesses are another simple way for students to express their creativity. Designing the currency is another wonderful opportunity for students to collaborate on art designs. All you need to do is provide a few materials—construction paper, crayons, paints, pastels, markers, or whatever else you find in the dusty art cupboard. Art does not need to be fancy but it does need opportunity to explore and then see what happens!

Social Studies: Creating a township is the perfect way to touch on so many aspects of living socially, government, laws, rules, and regulations. Your students will understand what it means to actually commune with one another. And they will see firsthand how everyone has a very important role to play in their community’s success.

It will not take long for the township to operate fully by the students, reducing your role to that of a moderator, more or less. If there are glitches along the way, and there are certainly bound to be some, your students will be more inclined to solve the problems themselves and carry on business as usual.

As you witness their transformation from student to active community leaders and participants in their township, you will cherish everyday even more that you go to work in your new town!

Kathleen A. Hunter, MS is a literacy tutor and aspiring children's book author. You can visit her online at www.KathleenHunterWrites.com.



Putting Books to Work: Rick Walton's I NEED MY OWN COUNTRY!

Oh, the Places They Can Go: Sharing the Journey to Destinations Unknown

It’s no secret that a strong vocabulary helps one be a good reader, a good writer and a more confident person. Having a strong vocabulary also helps one to think well on one’s feet. But, there’s an old myth that vocabulary development is a tiresome chore.

photo: Pete Gray1 via photopin cc

Let that Myth Go to people like Nigel Lythgoe, the man who thinks dance moves matter more than anything, and replace it with a new attitude toward verbal acquisition.

You’ll have students shouting Mamma Mia (Michaels) as they work in teams to produce synonyms for various words. (Mary) Murphy’s Law will not be operative once the teams start to produce their verbal trophies.

Here are tips that would make Adam (Shankman) and Eve proud of their Edenic garden of new vocabulary growth.

Create your list of new vocabulary words you’d like students to learn. Write one word each on the whiteboard or 11 x 14 sheets of paper so every student can easily see them.

Divide the class into at least four teams. Distribute paper and pencil to each team, one sheet for each person.

Explain that some unusual words have very familiar synonyms. Hold up the word “gambol” and provide synonyms—“prance,” “run,” or “jump” playfully. (Ask them to imagine lambs in a field or find a YouTube video of animals gamboling.) Tell the class you will be asking teams to come up with as many synonyms as they can for words you are about to introduce on flash cards.

Show the flash card (or write the word on the board). Have students write #1 and then the word on their papers. (They will do the same for each word.)

Define the word; give examples. Allow time for questions. Tell the teams they will have exactly two minutes to come up with synonyms for the word. Set a timer and set them to work.

After you’ve gone through the list, ask each team to count the synonyms. Have the team with the highest number begin to read their list. Decide if they have provided acceptable synonyms. Ideally, the school librarian can participate. Have him or her act as a judge, with the Oxford English Dictionary in hand, to decide if a given synonym really does qualify.

If a team has included a word that does not meet the standards set forth by lexicographers, they lose two points. When they are finished, ask them to re-count their points.

If no other team has a higher number, the winning team is declared the official winner. Ask the principal to come congratulate them—maybe even lead them in a victory dance!

Related Assignment: Invite a dance teacher to speak briefly to the class and to introduce/illustrate some dance terms such as “arabesque,” “pirouette,” “aplomb,” “avant” (and its many related phrases), “bravura,” “pas,” et alia.

Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D. writes extensively about education topics. Among her books on the subject are 500 CREATIVE CLASSROOM CONCEPTS and THE CRITICAL THINKING TOOL KIT.



Teaching Tips: Juicy Words and the Students Who Devour Them

Teaching Tips: Dancing with the StarTs

Every time I see the letters S-T-E-M, I instantly see neon lights flashing, “Hot Topic!” Everyone is talking about it—even the President of the United States! As we all know, very few of our high school graduates are pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, though many believe careers in STEM are the future of our country.

Science, technology, engineering, and math are important, but literacy skills are the foundation or glue that holds it all together. So when I look at the STEM acronym, I always wonder if there’s a letter missing: the letter L.

In order for our students to be prepared for STEM careers, they must be able to navigate informational text. This involves understanding text features they rarely encounter in fictional stories. Also, our students must build their vocabulary and strengthen their writing skills. “STEML” may not flow off the tongue as easily as STEM, but I believe without the L for literacy skills, there is no STEM.

Making the Most of Text Features

Comprehending informational texts includes understanding unique text features. Diagrams, captions for photos, bold print, and headings are just some of the features children might encounter in such text.

By including quality printed and digital informational texts in the classroom, we are laying the foundation. However, it isn’t enough to just have the materials available. We can’t assume that children will notice or understand the features that make informational text unique. When I was a student, I looked at a graph in a content area text as one less page to read. Well, I doubt I was the exception, and many of our students feel the same way. We have to draw their attention to the unique linguistic features of text in order for them to realize the important role graphs, charts, and other visuals play in conveying and extending information found in texts.

We can show our students how differently information is presented in a timeline of the transportation revolution versus an article on the same topic. Also, children can compare the writing used in an article on plants and the sequential steps in a science experiment explaining how to grow a plant. Student-created texts that contain text features can also be used to reinforce linguistic features. By displaying the text in the classroom, we are not only ensuring a print rich environment, but we are building our students’ confidence as literacy learners and reinforcing their content knowledge.

Strengthening Word Knowledge

Vocabulary is another area which can cause issues for our students. Everyone knows that vocabulary in the content areas is much more technical than that found in fictional stories. Therefore, we have to spend extra time focusing on the vocabulary demands of STEM texts.

There are so many engaging ways to develop vocabulary skills. Do a strategy search with other teachers and try some of the research based vocabulary strategies found. One of my favorite strategies is “Ten Important Words Plus” (Yopp and Yopp, 2007). For this strategy, children work in small groups to find ten words they think are important within a chunk of text. A class graph is then created, showing how often specific words were selected by student groups.

After discussing the graph and the words on it, the class is divided into new groups. The teacher selects one word off the graph and lets each group complete an activity with the word. Group tasks may include acting out a word, drawing a picture to depict the word’s meaning, finding other sources which contain the word, or creating a graphic aid containing synonyms and antonyms for the word. (Be creative and brainstorm some other tasks students might enjoy!)

After groups finish their assigned task and share the results, the teacher selects another word off the chart on which to focus. Group tasks should change after every few words in order to keep the students engaged.

This activity is a win-win in my eyes. Students are motivated because they get to select important words and work in groups, yet the teacher gets to choose the words which are focused on in class. Plus, chances are students will learn a lot more than the ten words they initially selected.

Writing with a Purpose

photo: jimmiehomeschoolmom via photopin cc

While dialogue journals have been popular for many years, their popularity may diminish as teachers look for ways to reinforce writing for various audiences and purposes. Writing to learn is a great time to draw students’ attention back to the linguistic features discussed earlier. Students need to consider the audience, purpose, and information conveyed as they develop visuals such as charts, timelines, headings, and other features in their own student-created texts.

We might have our students create an informational text for younger children in the school. Students can talk to the children, find out their areas of interest or a topic currently studied and create a text on the topic which includes graphs, timelines, or other features. Another idea is for students to interview adults who use math or science in their career. There are many ways to conduct the interviews. Adults might come to the classroom for the interviews, students might conduct the interviews outside of school, or perhaps the interviews can be done via Skype.

Students will not only learn about science, engineering, and math and the importance of those areas to the world around them, but they will also improve their oral communication skills as they ask questions and their written skills as they convey the information gathered to a wider audience.

Yes, I agree that STEM is important. However, I still wonder at times if we shouldn’t call it STEML…

Reference

Yopp, H.K., & Yopp, R.H. (2007). Ten important words: A strategy for building word knowledge. The Reading Teacher, 61(2), 157-160.

Jennifer L. Altieri, Ph.D. is the Literacy Division Coordinator in the School of Education at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, and the author of CONTENT COUNTS! DEVELOPING DISCIPLINARY LITERACY SKILLS, K-6. Jennifer will be speaking more about putting the L in stem as part of the Carolina curriculum leadership series at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in April. Her presentations will focus on helping teachers link literacy with science and math. Contact Jennifer at jenniferaltieri@bellsouth.net.



Building Content Literacy with Math Word Problems