Today I introduced the concept of similes to my class of second-graders, and I thought it went really so I wanted to share it!
The first thing I did was create a sheet for students to use as a pre-assessment, for them to work on during the lesson, and then as a post-assessment. I then asked students to answer the following question on it: "Do you know what a simile is?" I had students do a round of Daily 5 (LOVE Daily 5!) as I checked over their responses. To no surprise, not a single student knew what a simile is. After the Daily 5 round, students came back and I showed them the Word Girl video about similes (below). The video is exciting enough to keep the kids engaged and tells students what similes are though context clues, which is perfect since we just learned about using context clues! I then asked students to go back to their seats and work on part 2- the during lesson portion. Their job was to write down what they thought a simile is, based on the video. I had them do another Daily 5 round as I went around and took a peek at their responses. About a third of the class got what a simile is based off the video, which was perfect since I had an anchor chart planned as well.
After the Daily 5 round (did I mention that I LOVE Daily 5?) I had students come together once more. Together, we made an anchor chart defining similes. I gave them the definition and a few examples, which I wrote down.
I then asked students to work by themselves or with a partner to see if they could come up with their own simile, which to my surprise went really well! After sharing a couple, I had students go back to their post-assessment and write down what they learned on the day about similes and write one more of their own. After all was said and done, I was able to tell that what students knew before, during, and after my lesson, and can modify my upcoming lessons accordingly. Success!
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