TLAPping in the Library?

Many years ago I read about about making writing assignments about personal things for students.  I can not remember the book or author.  I don't have a lot a leeway to do this, but I do assign a homework assignment about "The Distinctions".  These are characteristics of what makes a good, well-rounded person.  Normally I give the assignment with only synonyms of all the words, but this year I used Blendspace (formerly Edcanvas) to explain the meaning of each word better than the synonyms.  My favorites are the safety, kindness and courage videos.  Check out my canvas.  You can use Blendspace as an app in Edmodo.  I did this so my students could watch the canvas right from there.  You can get the assignment on my Freebies page.  I had them choose two that they felt they were good at and one that they could work on. Instead of talking about my expectations, I have this assignment lead to a class discussion about what we can all do to make a great experience for everyone.

I was ecstatic when my Word Root Tree lesson lead to an Aha moment!  Towards the end of making the trees, we took a break to have a game of saying the correct meaning of the word and winning a sticker.  One student and then the entire class started to put together the meaning of the roots and then the suffixes.  They realized that "ist" makes a person's job and the root explained which job.

derm = skin 

dermatologist = skin doctor 

dent = teeth 

dentist = teeth doctor

These trees are going to look great all round the room and a great way to reinforce our roots all year.  You can buy the lesson at my TPT store.

Our final part of our week was a first visit to the library.  The librarian did an amazing job in using TLAP style for our visit.  She showcased all the free things that their public library card can do beyond our middle school library.  Students were showed that they can learn to speak Pirate on Mango Languages.  Students had such fun trying to speak pirate into the mic and hearing it played back.

Anyone with a library card in our state can use it for free.  Besides learning a foreign language, we pointed out to our ELL students that their parents can learn English using the site.  Check out your library to see if you have free access.

The best part of our visit was the YouTube video The Dewey Decimal rap.  We were cracking up and singing along by the end.

Enjoy the start of your week with big smiles and laughs from this video!