Frayer a Name

 Eduprotocol on Day 1 of 2nd grade

The Introduction:

I showed a blank Frayer model to my 2nd-grade students.

I asked them, "What do you notice?" and "What do you wonder?" about the Frayer Model Template.

Even though it was only the first day, students actively participated in a partner discussion about their observations and questions. Here are some sample student responses:
"I notice there is a circle."
"I wonder what to write."
"I notice there are four boxes."
"I notice there are lines."

I then showed students how to draw a Frayer Model on their whiteboards.
"Please draw a vertical line." I used my arm to guide them in gesturing verticle and said, "We stand vertical." The students mirrored my gesture and repeated my words.

I did the same thing with "horizontal." I made my arm flat, put my other hand over my eyes, and pretended to squint. "The sun sets on the horizon." 

The Set Up:

I draw the vertical line on my whiteboard, and then ask the students to draw a vertical line on their whiteboard. 

You might find that students can't really nail "about halfway," so I draw guiding dots on either side of the whiteboards for students who need extra support.

I do the same for the horizontal line.

Then, I draw an oval in the middle where the lines intersect and erase the line segments that are inside of the circle.

Students follow along, and again, I give guidance to students who need extra support. 

I find it useful to have students create simple templates, T-Charts, Frayer Models, ect, on their own. They seem to understand the elements better when they are the ones that create them.

The Lesson:

"You are going to write your name in the middle space."
I write my name on my whiteboard, and they do the same.

"We are going to sort the letters of our names. We need to write C for the consonant in the first square." (I used Quadrant I first.)

Once I see that all students have the first quadrant properly marked, I then write V in Quadrant II and ask them to do the same. "Since letters are either consonant or..." (I like to trail off as an easy and quick informative assessment, even if there isn't an answer, that's information for me.)

We write a V for vowel in Quadrant II.

In Quadrant III, I drew a picture of a book and told them that since I loved to read, a book is one of my favorite things. "Thing about your favorite things, choose one, and draw it."

I drew a quick self-portrait in Quadrant IV. "I'm going to draw a circle for my face, two more little circles for my eyes..." etc. 

Collaboration:

After I was done with my example, I put the students in Parter A/Parter 1 pairs. 
I asked Partner A to use sentence frames like:
"My name is..."
"My name has x letters."
"My name has y consonants."
"My name has z vowels."
"I drew my favorite... It's one of my favorites because..."
"I used (shape name) to draw my face, eyes, nose, mouth, hair."

Most students stuck to the simple My name is..., it has (this many) vowels, (this many) consonants, and I drew a ... because I like...

Presentation:

We sat in a big circle, and students shared their whiteboards. They were asked to say "My name is, it's spelled..." and then one thing from another quadrant. 

Yes, this was the first day, and yes, they were wiggly, but we persisted. Since I limited everyone's participation to a basic sentence, we whipped through the whole circle pretty quickly.

The Wrap-Up:

I wrapped the lesson up by reminding students that consonants usually only have one sound, unless they are teamed up with a vowel, and that vowels make multiple sounds. I then ask them to look at the words on their snacks, on their shoes, on their clothes, and ask themselves "what does this letter sound like?"

- I have a system using group jobs to collect and pass out materials. So, I ask the students with blue dots to collect the whiteboard markers. Students must push the cap down in front of the blue dot student to make sure that they don't dry out. I then ask another color, (like pink,) to please collect all of the whiteboards.