Looking for listening/speaking activities for middle school

Do you have “How to Increase Your Child’s Verbal Intelligence: The Language Wise Method” by McGuinness? It has some good activities for building language, vocabulary, memory, and thinking skills. Amazon has used copies available.

Janis

I’ll look for a copy, thanks! I really need them for this school year (only 4 1/2 weeks left, so not much time to wait for something in the mail)!

Check Borders then. That is where I bought my copy.

Beth

I looked at this book at Borders and, being short of money, :roll: I read the back section with the lesson ideas but didn’t actually buy the book. I can adapt some of the ideas to my class. Thanks for the good suggestion! :D

Okay, this may sound weird, but I enjoy thinking outside the box.
I have done this where the students WRITE directions and I have done it where they tell me orally..

Come up with a project that you will do in front of them. They must give complete and specific directions. They must task analyze the process.

The second time I carved a pumpkin with their directions (took me three class periods before they got it right).

We have made cookies.

Built a bird house.

Put on a coat, or shoes.

Go out of your way to be ‘dumb’. If they are not specific enough, or skip a step don’t assume anything. The kids just loved it. It was as much fun for me!

The first time I did it, I wrapped small gifts for the kids. They had to tell me how to open them in order to get the prize inside. I had wrapped each well, complete with a well tied bow. When they told me to pull the bow, I put the package between my feet and pulled with all my mite, but the bow did not come off (bent the box alittle).

I’ve done that with my kids in the past too and it’s fun. I can’t really do that with the kids I have now because most of them did this similar activity in elementary school and they’re “wise” to what to do now. However, they still need to practice giving and following (mainly FOLLOWING) written directions, so I’m still searching for ideas!

thanks! :D

I remember a book that was *all* “following directions.”

I think one of them was the old standard — which I think shoudl be a standard — that says “read all the directions before you begin,” and the final instruction is to ignore the first 12 steps and put your name on the paper and hand it in (or perhaps it’s the penultimate instruction in case somebody skips to the end).

The rest, though, were easly to comprehend directions that if you follwed correctly would yield a drawing of some kind (A smiley face that said something clever, for instance). Students actually did get a lot better with practice.