Pattern puzzle presentations

I was looking for a strategy to use to get the kids into some higher order thinking skills. Spanish I has been reading the first chapter of Berto y sus buenas ideas. This is their first reading experience and they have been feeling much confidence and success with it. YEAH! First we read a paragraph or two and then they created picture notes for each new character introduced. Below is what we did after the picture notes to transform the information into something new, ie novel and compelling.

The first chapter of the book introduces Berto and his teachers, friends, and family, along with many descriptions of each person. I chose some of the characteristics and some of the people and put them on strips of paper.

With students in groups of 2, they organized the strips of paper. This is where it got interesting! Their learning styles really came out. Some of them immediately starting organizing their papers before directions were given. Some just scattered them so that they could see all of them at once. Some grouped them into different categories.

They were instructed to use either the people and identify characteristics or to use the characteristics and identify which people fit that characteristic. Either way, they had to understand what the paper was saying, evaluate which characteristics fit which person, and organize their information accordingly.

 

 

You can see in the pictures that some students have their text out (book) and some have their picture notes to help them remember or refer to when determining how to group the information. Some noted that some information was missing so I encouraged them to write in anything they wanted to in order to make their papers complete. I love that they came up with the idea that there was missing information.

When they finished grouping their papers, they were given tape to secure the papers where they wanted them on a fresh piece of paper. With their papers secured, the next step was to choose one character and prepare a short presentation in the target language using at least 5 descriptions. This meant that some had to add additional information. They then presented to the class. To hold the listeners accountable, they had to determine if what was being presented was accurate or not. Fortunately we didn't hear any errors so there was lots of learning happening!

Once the presentation was complete, they hung them on the wall to be displayed and refer to in the future.