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Mrs.
Diehl's Second Grade Class |
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Introduction
Our Language Arts activity for this project was based on The Hat by Jan Brett. We have been involved in a unit on “Animals”, so this book was an excellent choice for us! We love the way Jan Brett brings her animal characters to life through her words and illustrations. We definitely related to Hedgie, who felt embarrassed among his friends because of something he did that made him feel foolish. And yet, his friends were jealous of him because he had something that they didn’t! HOW REAL-LIFE! Prior Instruction to Task: 1. Students have been learning about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. 2. Students have been introduced to the Thesaurus as a way of expanding their vocabulary. 3. Students have read examples of cinquain poetry and recognize its format. Task: Each student selected an animal in The Hat. They analyzed events from the story to compose cinquain poems about the animals. Using a Thesaurus as a resource was encouraged. Their poems followed this format......... Line 1: Title (Animal’s name) Line 2: 2 words that describe the title Line 3: 3 words that tell an action (or 3 action words) Line 4: 4 words that tell a feeling (or 4 feeling-words) Line 5: Another word for the title Students read their poems to the class. They especially enjoyed using the “high-level” words they learned from the Thesaurus. This was a great activity for enhancing word-choice and vocabulary development. I think we’ll be writing cinquains again this year! Read and enjoy! |
