Wordkeepers

I spotted this craft activity on FB this morning. I think it could help us with our young language learners to practise they skills of listening , reading aloud, reading comprehension and practising memory/retention skills.The activity is about creating simple corner book marks that I am going to call "wordkeepers".

Take a look at the demonstration of the craft activity here. Bookmarks

This could very easily be used to create our "wordkeepers". 

• First find your text that fits in with the current learning focus- so for us at the moment in Summer 2 it could be a picnic song , an ice cream recipe or weather report, a seaside story or poem or a leavers' assembly poem.
• Share a selected piece of text with the children. This could be a poem , a rhyme . a  song , a short story , a cartoon , a recipe etcetra.Ask the children to listen to the text.
• Give each child a paper copy of the text.Ask the children to listen a second time and read along silently in their heads with you.
• Ask the children to investigate the text on their own, reading out loud "silently" in their heads. Can they spot and identify interesting words that they would like to "keep" and try to use again in their own speaking and writing.This could  be a noun search / an adjective search etcetra or just allowing children to identify all types of words they may like to use again.
• Ask the children to glue the text into their work books or if the children don''t have books then on to firm piece of card ,which can then be stored in their locker or folders.
• Share with the children the video clip about how to make a book mark.
• The children are going to convert this in to their own "wordkeepers" and must think of a face or a character or an object that they will draw or make on the front of their own "wordkeepers"- this should be linked to the theme or story of the text they have investigated. So for instance the video book mark examples are silly faces, a fox's face and an ice cream to match the theme of the texts in the clip.
• Ask the children to write out a list of their "new words" and to check the meaning if they aren't sure in a bilingual dictionary.
• Now ask them to create their own word keepers to fit a corner of the page on to which they have glued the text.
• On the inside back  of the word keeper ask the children to write their new words to keep them safe .They can decide if it suits their memories best to write next to the words the English meaning or to draw a prompt symbol for each target language word they are keeping.
• You could challenge learners to use their prompts to help them recite the poem/rhyme / song or with more mature learners asking them to try to use their word keepers to retell the story in brief.