Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Engaging Second Graders Though Multiple Intelligences


Wow, this weekend has flown by! I hope everyone had a happy Memorial Day. I am assuming that most people were off work, and enjoyed a relaxing day with family and friends. I wanted to do a quick post on multiple intelligences and learning styles, because I think that using a variety of these techniques will draw more students in to the lesson.
This idea was first proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983.There are nine intelligences: logical/mathematical, spacial, linguistic, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic,  and existential. I don't have time to get into all of these intelligences today, but I have really focused a lot on bodily/kinesthetic and musical intelligences. Here are a few strategies that I have used:

Bodily/Kinesthetic

I have started adding movements to our vocabulary words this year. We usually come up with these movements together as a class, so it gives the students some ownership. My students who thrive on bodily/kinesthetic learning are better able to remember the meanings of our vocabulary words through this method. Even if the movement does not go perfectly with the word, it does give them a connection.

I have loved the use of "scoot" activities this year. My class loves movement, so giving them the ability to walk around the room while they are learning does wonders for keeping them focused. There are many scoot activities all over teachers pay teachers. I wanted to do a quotation mark review with my students, and hadn't been able to find a quotation mark scoot activity, so I created one myself. It is available on my teachers pay teachers store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Engaging-Second-Grade.


Musical

I am a huge fan of incorporating music into my classroom. Teachers, even if you have no musical talent, you have students who learn best through music, so it is extremely important to incorporate it into your classroom. I absolutely love using songs from "Skip Count Kid" to teach multiplication. You can either order this cd through the website: http://www.skipcountkid.com/, or it is also available through iTunes. Even my students who struggle with math love multiplication because this method gives them success.


YouTube is also a great resource for finding music. I love using this video/song to help my students remember where to place quotation marks in a sentence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBO6fKfPuRg. I also love this song because most second graders struggle with the spelling of the words there, their, and they're. My students ask me to play this song multiple times a day, and it is definitely helping them with the spelling of those three words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G45RQ5b4W78. Check out these resources, I am sure you will love them!

Hope you have a great four day week! Many of you are probably almost done with the school year.  Keep up the amazing effort that you have been putting in to teaching America's youth. You are appreciated!

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