Exploring Writing through Still Life
Description
Students will explore still life art and use it as a tool for creative writing.
Dancing Sentences
Description
Explore sentence structure and punctuation through dance!
A Playful Approach to Literacy
Description
Explore how rhythmic play can help to engage a student's innate sense of curiosity and creativity around language!
Acting Out the Adverb, But What About the Adjective? 2
ACTING OUT ADVERBS . . . BUT WHAT ABOUT ADJECTIVES?
Learning Description
In this lesson, students will compare and contrast adjectives and adverbs. We will explore how acting out an adverb is easier than an adjective. While we can reach for the adjective, they are often difficult to physically demonstrate. As a trick for identifying the difference, we teach students to try to imagine acting them out.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can differentiate between adjectives and adverbs by trying to act them out.
Essential Questions
- How can the arts help to clarify language arts concepts?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 2:
ELACC2L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
- Use adjectives and adverbs and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.
Arts Standards
Grade 2:
TA2.PR.1 Act by communicating and sustaining roles in formal and informal environments.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 2:
2WL.4:
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing and speaking.
4.5 Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.
Arts Standards
Anchor Standard 3: I can act in improvised scenes and written scripts.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
Adjective - A word that modifies a noun. Adjectives often describe color, shape, size, smell, feel, emotion, or other intrinsic or temporary quality.
Adverb - A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or happened.
Arts Vocabulary
Pantomime - pretending to hold, touch or use something you are not really holding, touching or using; in the theatrical tradition, acting without words
Materials
Possibly, a whiteboard for brainstorming ideas
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
- Explain that students will be acting out different things in today’s lesson. Remind them that when acting things out, it is important to stay safe. Have students each make a ‘space ball’ around themselves. Model and have students follow blowing up a bubble to become the space ball. Spread it out to the sides, to the front and back, and up above. Remind them to be careful – not to break or burst the space ball. Explain that this is the student’s acting space, and that they must not crash their bubbles into one another. They have to keep safe in order to participate.
- Give students a series of prompts alternating between nouns modified by adjectives and verbs modified by adverbs, such as:
- become a tall pine tree
- act out running fast
- be a cold ice cream cone
- toss a ball in the air wildly
- be an interesting book
- play an instrument gracefully
- be a lonely dog
- eat ice cream joyfully
- be a dirty baseball
- sway gently in the wind
- be a loud tuba
- read a book excitedly
Ask students to recall which prompts were easier to do and which were more challenging. If necessary, review the list. Ask them to explain what made the actions easier or harder to do. Elicit, and/or guide them to the notion that words that told how to do something might have made it easier to act out the idea.
Work Session
- Define or review adjectives and adverbs. Review the list of prompts to identify adjectives and adverbs. Use them as examples to reinforce the definitions of adjectives and adverbs.
- Define or review pantomime – pretending to hold, touch or use something you are not really holding, touching or using; in the theatrical tradition, acting without words.
- Lead students in simple pantomime activities, such as eating an apple or swinging a baseball bat. Model for them and instruct them in using careful precise movements, slightly exaggerated, and including their faces and eye focus.
- Then adapt those activities by adding adjectives and adverbs. E.g., eat a red (soft, sour) apple and swing a wooden (long, heavy) baseball bat, and then eat an apple quickly (furiously, disgustedly) and swing a baseball bat powerfully (awkwardly, carelessly). Reflect on the ease or difficulty of showing the adjectives and the adverbs. Ask: why is it easier to act out actions that involve adverbs? (Because adverbs often tell us how to do things, while adjectives often only tell us what a thing is like.) Remind students that this reflects the difference between nouns and verbs – nouns are things, but verbs often imply action, and by definition action is easier to act out.
- Have students pair up. Have pairs decide on an action that can be pantomimed, involving an object of some sort. (They can choose actions involving food, sports, school, music, art, the outdoors, chores, etc.). Have them develop a pantomime for their activity. Remind them that pantomime should involve precise and detailed movements, be slightly exaggerated, and engage the face and eyes as well as the body.
- Have each pair show another pair what they developed.
- Have them next add adjectives. Remind them that adjectives modify nouns – describing the person, place or thing they are enacting. If appropriate, brainstorm categories of adjectives (size, shape, color, taste, etc.) or even specific adjectives (gigantic, slow, loud, pink, striped, round, etc.).
- Have them rework their pantomimes trying to reflect the added adjective.
- Have each pair show another pair what their pantomime looks like, and discuss the changes they made.
- Have them next add adverbs. Remind them that adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Instruct them to use an adverb to modify the verb of their pantomime – describing the way the action is to be enacted. Remind them that adverbs usually (but not always) end in ‘-ly.’ If appropriate, brainstorm categories of adverbs (speed, emotion, effort, etc.) or even specific adverbs (sadly, rapidly, angrily, recklessly, carefully, grumpily, etc.)
- Have each pair show another pair what their pantomime looks like, and discuss the changes they made.
- Possibly, have pairs volunteer to share their pantomimes with the class.
Extension: Have students fold a piece of paper in half, and on one side draw a picture of their phrase with an adjective, and on the other a picture of their pantomime phrase with an adverb. Reflect on how, when drawing, the adjective is likelier easier to convey than the adverb.
Classroom Tip: This lesson will have to be carefully delivered so as not to further confuse students. Using adjectives and adverbs can help us to better act out a phrase. But adverbs, because they focus on the action word. are easier to act out than the adjectives. Therefore, ‘actability’ might be one test we use to determine if a word is an adjective or an adverb.
Closing Reflection
Ask students to restate the definitions of adjectives and adverbs.
Ask students which were easier to act out – adjectives or adverbs – and why.
Ask students to reflect on how they used their bodies (hands, arms, legs, full bodies, faces, eyes) through pantomime to act out their chosen phrases.
Assessments
Formative
- Students should be able to correctly differentiate between adjectives and adverbs.
- Students should be able to correctly provide examples of adjectives and adverbs.
- Students should participate in the pantomime exercise while maintaining control of their bodies and personal space.
Summative
Assign various addition problems to the students at the level reflected in the lesson, and gauge their ability to visualize and complete the problems.
DIFFERENTIATION
Acceleration:
- Have pairs develop pantomimes of several adjectives and several adverbs
- Ask students to describe which types of adjectives and adverbs are easier or harder to convey through pantomime (e.g., color and texture might be hard; speed and emotion might be easy).
Remediation:
- Model several sequences together
- Do more brainstorming and record the brainstormed ideas on the whiteboard
- Rather than having students work in pairs, take student ideas but have the class develop the pantomimes all together
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
| Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What is an Adjective?, by Brian P. Cleary
Quirky, Jerky, Extra Perky: More About Adjectives, by Brian P. Cleary Many Luscious Lollipops, A Book About Adjectives, by Ruth Heller If You Were an Adjective, by Michael Dahl Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What Is an Adverb?, by Brian P. Cleary Lazily, Crazily, Just a Bit Nasally: A Book About Adverbs, by Brian P. Cleary Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs, by Ruth Heller Suddenly Alligator: An Adverbial Tale, by Rick Walton |
*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.
Ideas contributed by: Mary Gagliardi and updated by Barry Stewart Mann
Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW
All In A Row, Adding In A Row 1
ALL IN A ROW: ADDITION TABLEAU
Learning Description
Students will represent numbers with their bodies. They will work together to form addition sentence tableaux in order to visualize how 1-, 2-, and 3-digit addition works.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can play a role in an addition tableau.
Essential Questions
- How can the arts help to clarify mathematics concepts?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 1:
MCC1.OA.6 Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).
Arts Standards
Grade 1:
TAES1.3 Acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining roles within a variety of situations and environments.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Grade 1:
1.NSBT.1.c. Read, write and represent numbers to 100 using concrete models, standard form, and equations in expanded form1.NSBT.4 Add through 99 using concrete models, drawings, and strategies based on place value to: a. add a two-digit number and a one-digit number, understanding that sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten (regroup)
Arts Standards
Grade 1:
Anchor Standard 3: I can act in improvised scenes and written scripts.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
Place Value - The value of where the digit is in the number, such as units, tens, hundreds, etc.
Arts Vocabulary
Statue (Statues) - An actor frozen in a pose.
Tableau (Tableaux) - A group of actors frozen to create a picture.
Materials
Plus (+) and equal (=) sign placards that can stand on the floor (one possibility – written with marker on an inverted file folder - or part thereof – and capable of standing like a tent).
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
Letter Statues
Introduce or review what a statue is – an actor in a frozen pose. Explain that the students will make letter statues with their bodies. Call out one letter at a time and have them make the letters. Use a drum, another percussion instrument, or clapping to cue the statues. Encourage students to be creative, using full body, limbs, fingers, etc., and exploring the possibilities of standing, kneeling, sitting, lying down, etc., as appropriate for the classroom space. Use observational language to comment on the different ways in which students use their bodies to create the statues.
Work Session
Number Statues
- Repeat the process with numbers (single digits). After exploring multiple possibilities, inform students that they will focus on making number statues that use their whole bodies, and for which they will remain standing. Practice standing number statues.
- Ask students how they would make a statue of a number up to 100. Elicit from them, or guide them to, the idea of working in pairs or trios.
- Introduce or review what a tableau is – a group of actors frozen in a picture. Explain that tableaux often create pictures with characters and settings, but the tableaux today will be of numbers and number sentences.
- Invite two, and then three, volunteers to model creating a tableaux up to 100. Ask students what each digit in a multiple-digit number represents. Introduce or review the concept of place value. Ensure that students understand that the digit to the left represents a higher place value than the digit to the right, and identify the units: ones, tens, and hundreds places.
- Have students work in pairs to create a 2-digit number tableau (full-body, standing). Have them work together to say the name of the number together out loud. After creating a number, have them switch positions and say the name of the number with the digits switched. Move among the pairs to confirm that they are expressing each number correctly.
- If students have grasped the 2-digit numbers and are ready for 3-digit numbers, have them repeat the process in trios. Each trio can explore all the possibilities with their three digits (if the digits are all different, e.g., 1, 2, and 3, there will be six permutations: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, 321.)
- Introduce the idea of moving from number tableaux to addition sentence tableaux.
- Invite three students to model a simple addition sentence tableau, e.g., 3 + 4 = 7. Have the students assume their positions, and then have them speak the sentence together. (Note: this is an opportunity, if relevant, to introduce or reinforce the Commutative Property of addition by having the addends switch places.)
- Provide plus and equal sign tent cards and have students work in trios to create addition sentence tableaux.
- Use the same process, first modeling and then having the students work in small groups, to move into more complex addition sentences: adding two 1-digit numbers that result in a 2-digit sum (e.g., 5 + 7 = 12), adding a 1- and a 2- digit number together, without and then with sums that require making a new ten (e.g., 31 + 7 = 38, and then 29 + 3 = 32), and then adding two 2-digit numbers, without and then with sums that require carrying to the tens and hundreds places (e.g., 45 + 12 = 57, then 24 + 19 = 43, then 74 + 38 = 112).
Teaching Tips:
- As appropriate to the class, use established addition strategies (counting on, making ten, etc.) to calculate sums, and advance only as far in the sequence of complexity as the class can manage.
- This may be a lesson that is done over time. The first step may best be suited for when single digit addition is taught, then adding 2-digit addition as the concept is taught, and so on.
Closing Reflection
Ask students: How did you use your bodies to create letter and number statues and addition sentence tableaux? Which were more challenging, letter statues or number statues? How do we determine the name and value of a 2- or 3-digit number? How did you determine your place or role in the number sentence?
Assessments
Formative
- Students should be able to calculate answers to the mathematical problems.
- Students should accurately represent the numbers with their bodies.
Summative
Assign various addition problems to the students at the level reflected in the lesson, and gauge their ability to visualize and complete the problems.
Differentiation
Acceleration: Acceleration and remediation are built into the lesson in terms of how far into the sequence of complexity the lesson goes, and how much students are asked to create and calculate the numbers and addition sentences on their own. For acceleration, there should be greater complexity and more independent (unguided, in pairs, trios, quads, and more) work.
Remediation: Acceleration and remediation are built into the lesson in terms of how far into the sequence of complexity the lesson goes, and how much students are asked to create and calculate the numbers and addition sentences on their own. For remediation, there should be less complexity, more modeling, and more full-class, guided work.
*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.
Ideas contributed by: Mary Gagliardi and updated by Barry Stewart Mann
Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW