Make hand motions to go with the song/poem. It is extremely effective if students can generate their own motions that are meaningful to them (besides, they have more ownership of the word if they do it themselves.) One way to do this is to give each table group a science word. They have a few minutes to come up with an appropriate (in older grades this is important to mention) motion that demonstrates the meaning of the word. Then the group teaches the class and the class mimics the motion while saying the word. This is the same motion used for the word all year.
Fluency Practice (Auditory)
Repeated practice reading/performing aloud in different voices in different emotions. Students work on expression and fluid reading (not speed.) Poems and songs are an authentic purpose for practicing fluency. "Fluency is not just about rate. Faster is not always better....Purpose is important in all fluency. Work to create contexts for practice with authentic purposes for fluency." ~ Dr. Timothy Rasinski
Word Work (Verbal/Linguistic)
Look for rhyming words or word families in the poems and songs. Have students list other words in the word family or collect words during the week that follow certain patterns or rules (-ation words, compound words, contractions, certain word families, etc.) Also, keep an eye out for words with common prefixes and root words to do a mini-lesson on context clues within the word. Poems with context clues are excellent to play "Guess the Covered Word." Use sticky notes or index cards to cover a few words for which there are obvious clues as to what those words could be. Have students make guesses and justify their guesses with clues from the text.
Comprehension/Meaning
Main Idea - Poems and songs are written in stanzas and verses, respectively, that typically have one main purpose or main idea.
Visualizations - Poems and songs have content. While students listen, have them close their eyes and see pictures in their head (Movie-in-your-mind) or you can have them sketch what is happening. This can be used as a sequencing activity if poems are about processes such as life cycles.
Any other ideas? Please post a comment below!
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