Thing #4 Content Area--Thinkfinity

This past week, my school finished administering a reading assessment to every student in grades 3-5.  My fellow coaches and I are responsible for our next round of professional development and at a meeting with a few members of the staff to survey where we wanted to go now--fluency was the hot topic.  So, with that in mind, I went lesson plan shopping on Thinkfinity.  It didn't take long to find two lessons that really intrigued me.  I am a huge believer in activities that incorporate music and movement-- and poetry is also a lifelong love of mine, so when I found these plans, and they were for the grade levels I service, I was very pleased.  Lessons that address multiple intelligences and accomplish the intended outcome in a fun and seemingly effortless manner, are hard to come by and both of these fit that bill.

The first,  Poetry: A Feast To Form Fluent Readers, is a five lesson plan which consists of having the students view a video of a performer reading Casey At The Bat.  A whole group critique and analysis follows to determine what made the performance a fluent one.  Next, students research online and locate a poem that they would like to practice and perform in front of the class.  Finally, there is an opportunity to critique each other and themselves and to reflect on what must be mastered to be a fluent reader.

The second lesson, The Connection Between Poetry And Music, is my favorite of the two.  Children develop rhythmic intelligence through listening to music, which then helps them notice rhythm in language, both of which are important skills in developing fluency as readers. In this lesson, students listen to poems read aloud, and they discuss the rhythm and sound of poetry. Students then perform poems using musical instruments to emphasize cadence. Using online tools, they learn about line breaks and the way these affect the rhythm of a poem. Finally, students write poems they believe will be enhanced by music and perform them for the class.  I want to do this one myself!  Word by word readers have a slowly beating drum playing endlessly in their heads as they read--what a fun way to change the rhythm!

I believe that Thinkfinity will be a great addition to my "bag of tricks".  A lot of times I have gone looking for lesson plans online and when I was lucky enough to find something in the general theme I was looking for, the lessons themselves wouldn't be very good.  These were very well written and showed the theory behind the activities in addition to the plans themselves.  In my new job as a coach, I am often called on to assist teachers in finding good lessons to teach a particular skill defecit--Thinkfinity offers a good place to look for what I need.  Thanks for including this as a "thing"...so far you're batting a thousand--everything I've looked at so far has been awesome.