VA Games

I've found that the boys develop a much better understanding of our VA words if I make sure to weave the words into everything we do during that week. I've also gotten some great ideas from other teachers who teach VA. Liz Parks shared a game called "If _____ is the answer, what is the question?" from Harvard. We used this in class the other day-- I had the boys work in groups, and they generated questions for several VA words and wrote them on index cards. We placed the cards around the room, and everyone tried to match up the words with their corresponding questions. They realized that the best questions used specific examples, and I will definitely use this routine again. I have attached several boys' reflections on this routine.

Untitled from Courtney Humphreys on Vimeo.