flickr photo by buistbunch shared under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license

If you had to choose one word that would define and guide and shape an entire year, what word would you choose? Would it be a noun? A verb? Perhaps an adjective or an adverb? And could your word be considered multiple parts of speech?

Would your word define you at school? At work? At home? Would it guide you as a brother or sister, mother or father? Would it guide you as a friend or teammate?

Would your word change based on time of year, place, or situation?

So, what would your one little word be?

Today was the start of the second semester and, like the previous two years, my teammates and I challenged our fifth graders to select their one little word for 2017 using a variety of blog posts. But they did so much more than that. Using a Google Form, students identified which articles they read and inspired them, indicated what they found interesting about another’s writing, and shared why they chose their word. Next, with access to the survey data, students asked peers various questions about their words.

https://goo.gl/photos/LaMeEUPnsPC7WHon7

To follow up with the one little word activity, students are using Adobe Spark to create avatars for their Edmodo and G-Suite accounts. They are also constructing representations of their words, which will be in display at the end of the week.

Choosing a word, making an avatar, and a physical representation are simply tasks, activities to engage students on the first week back from school. What’s more remarkable are the depths these fifth graders went to in choosing their words. The reasons behind their words.

I chose the word become, because I want to become a leader, become a helpful person, become a part of the KGA 5th family. I want to become my best.

I chose foundation, because its the most important part of making or creating anything. Lets say a building, for example. If there was no foundation, there is no building. And since I am only a kid, a ten year old, I have many things to add to my craft, and it could be many things like building, knowledge, and many other things!

I chose the word cascade, because I think a TON about what I say or think before I say my thoughts. I basically filter my decisions, and end up not writing down ideas. Like if I think, “the science of studying how lettuce grows would be a cool experiment!” But then I think about how it would take a while, and we already have lettuce in my garden, and then how I would most likely become desperate, and eat the lettuce on my lunch. But with the experiment, I could have started a new evolution of farming! So my basic thought is don’t hold back, give it all you’ve got.

Deep, right? And there are so many more phenomenal words with phenomenal reasons by phenomenal fifth graders, 10 year olds! Check out the rest of their words and the reasons behind the words.

So what’s your word? And why did you choose it? I know 112 fifth graders who’d love to know.

Filed under: Educational Musings, slack Tagged: edugood, kag5th, one little word, OWL

Originally published on Wordpress