I found this image on Tumblr and I immediately thought of how I could use it in the classroom.

I am constantly doing this. I think it’s part of my creative process. I don’t want to be a boring teacher and just continue to use the same-old techniques and lessons over and over again.

Making a collage is not an unusual thing to see in a primary classroom. It can be a great activity for getting to know your students. Normally, you’d have them cut and paste images from catalogues or magazines to create a personal collage.

Whenever I have assigned this task, I always tell my students that I expect them to have a reason for each image they include. I go around and have discussions with each student during the creative process.

I like this new version a little better. It’s a fresh take on the old interest collage. Now, instead of using pictures, the students need to use words. They could cut up old dictionaries, words from flyers, or magazines, even passages from books.

I love this idea! Not only will it give you a chance to see what interests and hobbies your students have, it is also a word study exercise.

I was thinking that you could give your students some sticky-notes and a regular dictionary. This way they could mark each page that they would like to cut up for the word collage. You could then take the individual dictionaries, photocopy those pages, and then give the students the copies to work with.

You could also differentiate this activity by distributing dictionaries according to the students’ abilities. I have some very basic picture dictionaries in my classroom, but I also have a few different primary dictionaries, and a few more advanced ones as well.

Get your students working with words in creative ways. They could draw their name over top of everything like the Tumblr image and have an interesting word collage that means something.

More Teaching Tips

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