The day before a holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas
Break, Easter Break, even a pseudo-holiday like Halloween, is usually just this
side of insane. Students don’t want to work. There’s candy everywhere. Gifts are
being given. Focus is lost. Just keeping the lid on seems overwhelming. Unless you
have an educationally sound, kid-approved lesson that keeps them interested,
occupied and engaged. Decades ago I created such a lesson. Kids loved it. I
loved it. It‘s easy, academic and fun! The bonus of this lesson, it helped with
student retention in foreign language classes.
Here are the steps to follow:
1. Completely erase the entire white board. You will
want the space.
2. Number the entire board from 1 to 35. Place holiday
appropriate symbols, like pumpkins or bunnies, around each number.
3. Put a large assortment of dry erase pens at the
front of the room. The more color variety the better.
4. After school, the day before a holiday, have each
student in your most advanced class go to the board and draw a culturally
appropriate picture next to a number. If your class is smaller than 35, they
will need to draw more than one. Be sure to explain to the class the night
before they need to come up with three or four ideas for their drawings. Most
students are eager, although the shy need some encouragement. After this has
become a tradition in your classes, you will overhear students commenting they
look forward to being in the class that gets to draw the pictures. Never let an
underclassman participate in putting the pictures on the board.
5. Check each picture as they finish drawing. A few may
need a little help so their drawings are clear, and some can be too obscure.
You may need to edit, as students can be a bit gross at time. One Thanksgiving
students drew a very vivid picture of a turkey being beheaded. I erased that
one. Remember, all day students are going to see these pictures. You want to
understand them, so you can give hints if necessary. My favorite was The
Twilight Zone Marathon. It became a tradition in my program which was passed
down each year from class to class.
6. Before the first class arrives the next morning,
place a stack of German (French, Spanish, Chinese)/English dictionaries on the
first desk of each row. I always had enough dictionaries that students could
work in groups of two. Three does not work. Working alone is tough.
7. Students should look up what they see on the board,
and write the German (French, etc.) on their own papers. Don’t let them put two
student names on one paper. This never works. Trust me on this.
8. They must write the definite article and the noun.
If there is an adjective, like in a drawing of black cat, they must include the
adjective, with the correct ending. This allows you to preview grammar not yet
taught. Students are very receptive to this, and ask for help. It’s a contest.
They want to win.
9. Buy a small
bag of individually wrapped candy and give a piece to each member of the first
team finished. Be sure to check the work. Sometimes they make errors, of
course. Don’t be too picky. Perfection is not the goal.
10. After the
first group finishes, and as each group finishes, they will help their
classmates. You’ll find they don’t give them the answers, but give them hints
instead, especially in grammar.
11. Collect work as it’s finished and the rest at the
end of the period. Grading is subjective. First year classes typically have a
few students who finish by the end of the class period. Most, however, finish
about half of the pictures. Second year will complete more. The majority
complete about two-thirds of the pictures. Most third year students finish them
all, as do AP/IB/fourth year students.
12. There are several goals in this lesson. Students
learn the correct way to use the dictionary. They learn the symbols and
abbreviations. It removes the mind-numbing boredom a dictionary lesson will
create, and replaces it with fun. Students learn vocabulary that’s both
meaningful, and is usually more advanced than where they are in the curriculum.
This they do without complaint. You are able to foreshadow grammar, so when it
arrives later in the school year, you’re able to point back to what they
discovered at Halloween or Thanksgiving.
Finally, it keeps students focused,
doing an academic lesson without arguing at a time where students are going
nuts in other classes. I had four decades of happy “day before’s” while
colleagues were losing their minds.
If you don’t teach a foreign language class, adapt this
lesson to your curriculum. Remember to keep it fun and entertaining, but
academic.
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