Word Lesson

My Word Lesson was based on a book called Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What is an Adverb? by Brian P. Cleary and Illustrated by Brian Gable. Overall, my lesson went well. Once the students understood what to do, they were ok. The concept of adverbs was new to them. The teacher had not covered this yet. They knew what verbs were, but not adverbs. So they understood them somewhat.

Here's what I did:

I read the book to them
I gave them each one index card with one adverb on it
I had them write a sentence using that word
Then they were to draw a picture based on that sentence

A few things I liked:

The book and topic I covered: I feel that the book I used was a great way to teach the topic to the students. It was fun and functional!! The topic was a good choice because it is so closely related to verbs, I felt it was important to distinguish between the two. In elem. school, I struggled with that very concept, so I wanted to address it with my students.

The outcome: I asked the students to use an adverb in a sentence and then draw a picture based on the sentence. Their sentences were all wonderful. Based on those, I feel that they grasped the concept fairly well.

Some things I could improve on:

Time: I feel that I may have given them too much time to draw and not enough time to write.

Materials: The index cards that I printed the adverbs on. I should have printed them in all lowercase. I capitalized the first letter of the words. This gave the students the impression that they had to use the word at the beginning of the sentence.

Directions: I could have explained the assignment more clearly. They asked me several times what they were supposed to do.

Overall, I was pleased with the lesson. I am glad that I now know how to improve the lesson. I would like to use this activity in my classroom in the future.