Christmas Quiz

To test student knowledge of Christmas Carols, a little vocabulary, and their frustration level,  I will give students the following Chrismas Carol Quiz sometime in the days leading up to the Christmas Holiday break.

The following are common Christmas Carols, decipher the titles.

1. Happiness granted upon the celestial sphere of life

2. Superior being grant comfort upon all of these happy refined males

3. Season of dormancy of awestruck terra firma.

4. Nocturnal quiet

5. Inverted cups emitting sound.

6. First person singular witnessed the maternal parent smooching Kris Kringle.

7. Within a barn so far

8. Cold personification made of crystallized aqua pura.

9. Trifold frigates I have seen

10. Ringing cups of precious element

11. Yonder approaches the saint of yuletide

12. Season of hibernation devoid of color

13. Approach all thee who believe

14. Ah miniscule village within the holy land

15. A dozen 24 hour periods of yuletide

 Answers
1. Joy to the World
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
3. Winter Wonderland
4. Silent Night
5. Jingle Bells
6. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
7. Away in a Manger
8. Frosty the Snowman
9. I Saw Three Ships
10. Silver Bells
11. Here Comes Santa Claus
12. White Christmas
13. O Come All Ye Faithful
14. O Little Town of Bethlehem
15. The 12 Days of Christmas 

Quizlet - Great Online Tool

Although I am an advocate of project based learning and utilizing education that serves the multiple intelligences, there are some basic skills, ideas and concepts where learning comes down to rote memorization.

I use a very practical,useful and intutitive site online to provide flashcards to assist students with that material which must simply be learned through memory and rote skills.

Quizlet (http://quizlet.com/) is a wonderful site for educators and students to create and use flash cards to provide learning and study opportunites for vocabulary and definitions, formulas, terms, elements and symbols, etc... etc...

Educators and students alike can create their own databank of flashcards for any content area. Sets of flashcards can be assigned to specific classes or students or they can be made public for anyone registered with Quizlet's use.  For most content and subject areas there are vast amounts of pre-made flashcard sets produced by both students and teachers available for public use.

Quizlet provides opportunities for students to learn, review and practice at their own pace, through a variety of options built in to the Quizlet program.   Students can work through the flashcards one side at a time or both sides simultaneously.  Once students feel comfortable with the material they can check their understanding through a learning tool where they must complete the information from the opposite side of the card that they are being shown.  Students can also test themselves with a Quizlet generated test based upon the information in the flashcard set.

Students can also learn and practice through two games, scatter and space race.  Scatter provides both sides of the flash cards randomly placed on the computer screen.  Students must move the partners together to make them disappear. My students enjoy scatter on the SMART Board where they can compete with each other for the best time to remove all the terms.  The space race game is completed by typing in the correct answers before the clue slides off the screen.

Quizlet, provides great options for both students and teachers to tap into those concepts that must simply  be processed through repetition and rote memory.
  

Communicate Effectively - Vocabulary Builder

One of my favorite vocabulary building exercises is a combination of Password, Taboo, Pictionary and Guesstures.

I  divide my class in to five or six teams of 4 to 5 players each. I pre-prepare 30-36 vocabulary cards.

Each player takes a turn on the Hot Seat, I hold a vocabulary term up behind their head for their teammates to see. The team must get the individual to say the vocabulary word in less than a minute.  Guidelines include, they can not use any form of the word.  They can not mime the word.  They may not use clues that spell the word nor use rhyming.  Students are encouraged  to use terminology from the text, lecture, SMART presentations in order to get the individual to say the word.  Each team completes two rounds using verbal clues.

In round two, students use white boards and dry erase markers to draw clues to get students to say the term.
Students may not use letters or numbers in their clues.  The teams have two minutes for this round.  This provides time for students to decide what to draw and who should do the drawing.

In the third round, students cannot use words or pictures, they must act out or mime the clues to get the student to say the word. The teams have two minutes for this round.  This provides time for students to decide how to act out the term and who will do the acting. 

I find this method of reviewing gets students actively involved in processing their vocabulary. 
The process includes getting students to think about how to communicate clearly and succinctly to accomplish a goal.  I also find that it helps to make students students utilize a variety of communicative methods and forces them to think critically about how best to communicate their ideas.

I have yet to have a class that did not become fully engaged in the game and typically they want to continue even after we have completed all of the terms.  But, I always try to leave them wanting more as it keeps the game fresh and they are more apt to be engaged the next time I use this methodology.

"Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things.

A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. "

                                                                                   -  Heinrich Heine -