Powerful Words

I try to do some kind of project with my kiddos every Friday afternoon. The problem is, this is the 2nd year I've taught most of them; so it's hard to come up with fresh ideas. The combination of the fact that we are reading a chapter book right now that I believe is essentially about words-how they can comfort you, inspire you-the teacher in the story calls them Wondrous Words. Plus the lessons on Martin Luther King, Jr. and his I Have a Dream Speech, I decided we would do a language arts lesson on how powerful words can be. 

At first, I wasn't sure they were going to get it. And this is the first time I walked them through making a triorama rather than just making them myself-I think I got a few new gray hairs! :) However, some of their answers literally gave me goosebumps. 

We made a mobile and I asked them to come up with 4 words that they considered powerful to hang from the triorama. Here's what they came up with:

What's cool about this is--- he is quoting inspirational videos we have watched in class.

                                     worst, meanest, freedom, bold

Extreme Words

I love you, you are a good person

family, lovely, loveful, unique

Goosebumps, right?

Have you heard the analogy for putting in effort-that water boils at 212 degrees, at 211 nothing exciting happens-so you should put in the extra effort. Again a video clip she's applying here.

amazing, powerful

believe, wonderful, confident (love the illustration-we watched our school Spelling Bee that day), truth

This one made me laugh. They are obsessed with the word "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious"! :)

We talked about how words that were mean could be powerful too.

justice

beautiful!