Lady Liberty

Objectives:
To learn about the importance of the symbol of the Statue of Liberty.
To recognize the effort of Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor who designed and built the Statue of Lady Liberty.
To develop the skills in impersonating characters, and in delivering good speeches.

Prior to this activity:
The teacher has read with his/her class a selection/ article about the story of how and why the statue of the Lady Liberty was built.

Students have given their reports of other information gathered from their researches about how and why was the statue built and who was Auguste Bartholdi.

The teacher has worked with the students in putting together a complete story of how and why the statue was built. They should add a good description of the statue.

Main Activity:

The teacher informs the students that the girls will impersonate Lady Liberty and the boys Auguste Bartholdi.
Each girl will partner with a boy.

The boys will construct the girls’costumes complete with their crown, torches, and the tablet that shows the date: July 4,1776 (all made out of construction papers; this is to give the boys the experience of being a Bartholdi, the builder of the statue).

For attire: the girls will put on a long green dress with a green hue or simply a green sheet over their dress, and the boys may wear a shirt with long sleeves (whatever they feel should an artist should wear).

On the day of presentation, the boys may hold some kind of a palette, made of construction paper, and a small brush for special effect -to give the image of an architect.

This activity makes the students understand and appreciate better the work that went into the building of Lady Liberty, and its significance to millions of people who appreciate what freedom means.

This is a good opportunity to develop the children’s skills in public speaking.

When I set this up with my class, I always invite the students’ parents to come and see their children perform.

Parents’ always appreciate their children’s performances and one way to get them really involved in their children school activities.

If it is possible provide the students with a microphone to give more power to their voices especially if they haven’t develop projecting their voices yet to the audience. It is one way of bolstering their confidence. Children love microphones and to perform.
Read more by clicking here...

Responding to a Story Read

Objectives: To appreciate a given story.

To express one’s feelings about the elements of a given story.

Responding to a Story Read:

After the teacher discusses a story with the whole class, divide it into small groups. Most students feel more comfortable sharing in the discussion in this type of groupings.

Appoint a leader who will lead the discussion by reading the following questions:

What part of the story did you like the most?
What part of the story didn’t you like at all?
Who was the character whom you like the best? Why?
What part of the story, would you like to change? How would you change it?

The teacher may appoint a recorder if it will benefit the class’ understanding of the story further.
Read more by clicking here...

Characterization

Objectives: To get to know the characters in the story better.
To give a good description of each of the important characters in the
story.


Getting to know the Characters:

Lead a discussion on this topic by using the following questions:

1. Which character did you like the best?
2. How did the author describe the character?
3. Find a passage that tells you about a character’s personality.
4. How did the characters change during the story?


For better discussion of the characters in the story, have the students fill out this chart prior to this discussion.
Read more by clicking here...

Author's Style

Objectives: To appreciate an author a style of writing.

To evaluate the author’s style of writing his/her story

Background: Read a story of the author to be discussed and evaluated; read any autobiography/biography of the author (usually there is a section before or after the story introducing the author).

Activity: Responding to the Author’s Style of Writing.

Lead a discussion on how your students like the way the author write the story using the following questions:

What special words did the author use to help you hear, see, smell, taste, or feel things in the story you read?

What pictures have the author’s writing left in your mind?

How does the story let you know when and where the story takes place?

What do you like about the author?

Did you like how he described things?

Did you like how he wrote the beginning and the ending of the story?

Which part did he write that made you feel like you were there in the story yourself?

What questions would you like to ask the author?
Read more by clicking here...

Reading Skills

Here are the reading skills to develop. Use the questions to develop these skills:


Details, facts: Who did what? Where? How? Why? What did he/she do?

Fact or Fiction: What could happen in real life? What part is make-believe?

Why?


Main Idea : What happened at the beginning? What is the story mostly

about? What evidence do you have?

Sequence: What happened first? Next? Last?

Classify/compare: What things are alike? Different? What facts are related?

How?

Cause and Effect: What made this happen? Why?

Drawing Conclusions What seems to be happening? What else is

possible? What do you think? Why? How

was the problem resolved?

Inference: What makes you think…? Why? What clues are you

given?

Problem Solving: What trouble did the main character have? How did

he?/she fix it? Is there a better way? What would you do?

Why?

Predict: What will happen now? Next? At the end? What will

he/she say? Feel? Do? Why?

Generalizing: What can be learned from this story? What is the author

trying to say?

Descriptive Language: What colorful words tell about feeling? Mood?

Situation? What words paint a mental picture?

What words help you see? Hear? Smell?
Read more by clicking here...

Curriculum Ideas : Story Starters ( Language Arts )

Objectives:

• To motivate students to write by giving them good story starters.
• To encourage the students’ fantastic imagination to continue and finish a given story.

It is hard for some students to start writing a story if you just ask them to develop simply by discussing or outlining or providing vocabularies that they may use. To start writing is indeed very hard especially to students in the primary grade level. I always find it useful to give my students some story starters. I write these story starters on strips of papers or on index cards.

Examples of these story starters:

"Mary was excited. Her birthday is coming near, and she decided to have a big party. She started to plan for it. She thought of . . . "

“I was walking slowly down the road when suddenly a second shadow appeared next to mine. I turned so fast and there . . .”

“There was snow everywhere when I stepped out of the house. It had been cold for sometime now. I saw just a few feet before me this . . ."

"John had never played a baseball game before. Now, he was asked to bat. He went to get the bat and as he swung at the ball, something unusual . . ."

"Jane never liked to be called to talk in front of her class. She feared it. She tried to slide down in her seat so as not to be noticed by her teacher, but . . ."

“My family and I were out camping. In the middle of the night, I heard this loud growling sound. Nobody in the tent seemed bothered by it. They were all deep in sleep. There I was shivering in fear. Suddenly, the tent’s flap moved and then . . ."

* Do YOU have great story starters? You're welcome to share! Email me with your ideas, I'm looking for at least ten (10) to post in addition to the ones here. You will be properly compensated - email me for details!
Read more by clicking here...