Oh Say! Do You Know These Words?

This year I began with teaching my 3rd and 4th graders "The Star-Spangled Banner."  I've been very excited to teach this song because there are SO many ideas of how to approach teaching our national anthem.  One of the ideas I started the unit on was found in the Interactive Now, Volume 2 by Debbie Anderson & Phyllis Thomas.  The lesson titled "The Star-Spangled Banner" Memory Game was a wonderful way to get a handle on some of those tricky terms that even I need to think twice about.  However, I modified things a bit and wanted the students to attempt to look up the terms themselves.  So I had the students partner up to complete the assignment.

 One side of the worksheet had the lyrics of the song and the other side had space for 3 terms and their definitions.  Students were to circle three terms that they didn't know and wanted to learn more about.  Next they were to write those three words on the backside and begin looking up the definitions in the dictionary.  It was a bit challenging for the 3rd graders for they hadn't had that much experience with dictionaries, so I had to take 5 minutes to teach them how to look up words.  But they really impressed with me at the effort they took to try!  Below are some pictures of my lovely students working hard to search these terms.  The next lesson we referred to the Smart Board Lesson by Anderson and Thomas and revealed the definitions in kid-friendly terms.