Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Irregular Verbs

Recently, my middle schoolers began a segment on irregular verbs. These can be challenging for anyone, even me, so I decided to make things fun. First, students cut out an extensive list of irregular verbs that featured the infinitive form, past and present tense, and past and present participles of multiple verbs. These lists were pasted into their journals, along with a few notes. Next, I had students pick out two verbs, one they felt confident with, and another they weren't too sure of. We used these two verbs to help make our foldables.




Each student's foldable ended up looking something like this.


There are multiple versions floating around on Pinterest, but I took the format and made it to fit my needs. It was easy to create the table and merge the cells, so if you aren't looking to buy one, make your own! After working with these for a day or two, I let my students play "I Have. Who Has?" using irregular verbs. This game is on sale in my TN shop for $2.00. If features all the verb forms that are listed on the foldable above. 



Keep in mind, I completed these activities with middle schoolers. Certain verb tenses are too advanced for younger students, but there are lots of fun ways to teach irregular verbs. Check out Pinterest or even Google images for ideas!

Happy teaching!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

New Job!

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, but let me tell ya, I have been crazy busy. Three days before the school year started I was asked to leave my job as a special education teacher and take on the role of a general education teacher. I have been wanting to get back into the classroom for some time, so this was a no brainer for me. However, I was (am) a bit unprepared for the job as a 6th, 7th, & 8th grade Language Arts teacher. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE the written word. I wish I had the gift some of my favorite authors possess. I want my students to enjoy reading as much as I do, but middle school is intimidating. Now, a month into the school year, I am feeling my way around. I am relearning participles, prepositions, infinitives, and gerunds. I am exhausted at the end of the day, but it is so completely worth it. We are doing a lot of fun things in the classroom, some of which I am slowly documenting. One of my favorite activities has been story mapping. It's pretty detailed, so I will get into that at a later date; however, today's activity wasn't quite so bad either.

I like for my students to do more than just take notes, so when I found a pin on irregular verb tenses, I was all over it. Sadly, the pin was nothing more than a picture...no instructions or templates. I went off the image and created my own "flappy thing" (I know, I know, I should really find the proper name, but my kids know what I am talking about when I say it, so....). It turned out to be a quick review for some students, and an introduction for others.

(To see more on the above activity, read the "Irregular Verbs" post. It has updated information, and instructions. The book I use to teach grammar is the one pictured below. It is fabulous!)