Artifact 2- Word Surgery

Standard(s) Addressed: 1. Knowledge of Subject Matter  2. Knowledge of Human Development & Learning  3. Adapting Instruction for Individual Needs  4. Multiple Instructional Strategies  5. Classroom Motivation & Management Skills  6. Communication Skills                  7. Instructional planning skills                 8. Assessment of Student Learning             9. Professional Commitment & Responsibility  10. Partnerships

Every week I plan a word work activity for small groups of students during our reading center time. I don't want the activities to be repetitive, and I want students to enjoy what they are doing so it feels less like work and more like play! I planned an activity called Word Surgery, based on a lesson I read about on a teacher's blog. I modified it substantially so that it could be used for small groups. My objective was to help students understand contractions of words and how we write them.

For the activity students got to dress up as word surgeons- I brought in kid's size surgical masks and gloves. (They loved this! Students asked all day long if they could wear their masks!) Once they had masks and gloves on they had to go get a word out of the "waiting room". There were eight waiting room bags on the shelf, so students had plenty of words to work with. Next they had to read the word and cut off the part they did not need. For example, if the word was "did not" they would cut off "not". Finally they had to find the correct letters to replace the part they removed (for "did" they would get an "nt" to go on the end). To connect the new ending to the word, they used a colored band aid as the apostrophe. After the new word was made they recorded it on their individual Word Surgery Clipboard, then put the word in their Word Recovery Center ziploc.  By checking student's clipboards I could assess whether my objective had been met. 

Planning this activity required much more time and energy than most of our word work centers to say the least. However I would definitely do it again because of how engaged the students were, many asked me if they would get to do this activity again. I am trying to think of other language arts topics that it could be used for other than contractions.