It's easy for YOU!

As my students prepare for ISTEP (Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress), we have been working on skills to help them on the testing. Last week and this week we have been reviewing what it means to draw inferences (specifically from a text, as they will see on the tests). Today we played a game that solicited some great responses from the kids. I had a stack of index cards with emotions on them (i.e. worried, afraid, excited, guilty) and one student would come to the front and sit in a chair. Another student would hold the card above the first student's head and the classmates would call out things to help the student guess what the word was. For instance, guilty: "I feel so bad about what I did." "The judge might say this to you in court." You get the point.

So one student has the word joyful above his head. I admit, this is a tough one, but they asked for a hard one. We gave him hints such as "synonyms for this word include: cheerful, happy, excited." He was struggling so I started to hum "Joy to the World" and several students joined me. He was still clueless. Finally one of the students said, "It's so easy. She sang the song to you!" He replied, "Sure, it's easy for you. You're LOOKING at the word!"

I probably got the best participation I've ever had from my class playing this game. And they had me laughing pretty hard at times.