Determining+importance

In each lesson that the students do throughout the school year, there is always some importance to that activity whether it is spelling, physical education, writing an acrostic poem about spring, math word problems, or doing a webquet about magnetism. One of the first discussions I try to start out with is asking the students why it is important to write their spelling words correctly in a "triple-entry -journal" or why are we writing about spring using our spelling words? The students would always have an answer, but if I had not asked them the question, they may have simply done the assignment thinking it was a waste of time and they could have just studied them and wrote down each word individually. It is important to enhance their writing skills through literacy strategies or fun activities that allow the students to use their background knowledge and make connections to get their minds flowing with ideas. Allowing the students to learn how to spell words correctly as well as finding the meaning to the words is increasing their vocabulary at the same. Have the students visualize using their spelling words to describe an event, a person, or a place.

I ask the students, "what did you gain from doing this activity?", after they had done the RAFT in science pertaining to oceans. The students replied with many different answers, but all concrete answers that I was looking for as an oral evaluation that the students learned what I wanted them to learn from doing the activity. The students did a lengthy project about a specific habitat in the ocean. The first discussion we had before beginning the project was about who they were presenting the project to. It wasn't going to be oceanographers or marine biologists so we had to determine who the audience was going to be. Knowing that it was going to be other fifth graders we had to talk about the language that needed to be used in their presentation so that another fifth grader could understand what they were presenting to the class. They also had to determine what information was important in teaching the other students about their habitat. There are many different ways in which learners can determine importance in reading, writing, spelling, math, science, and social studies.