Hey guys! Here is a lesson I used last semester that seemed to be pretty engaging and really successful! I admit ChatGPT came up with the concept. I taught the lesson on a day I got a surprise observation, and the students did such an amazing job with it. While this was created for a high school ESOL classroom to review how to identify a main idea as well as causes and effects, you could tailor it for any secondary classroom and really use any terms.
Here's how it works: The cause and effect bags each had a few objects. Students worked in teams and at each station discussed, then wrote on sticky notes what they interpreted a possible cause might be and might be be an effect. This was in preparation for ACCESS testing. For example, a bag with candy erasers and a sick face might be that somebody ate too much candy and sugar (cause), so they felt sick (effect). Or that they felt sick from not eating (cause) so they ate candy they found (effect) (they could get creative with these).
The main idea bags all had objects tied by a topic, and students had to figure out what they all had in common and might all be used for.
I had a total of 12-25 bags (I forget how many), and students worked in groups of 2s or 3s. I may have set a timer for the whole activity, but I think I let them go bag to bag at their own pace.
Another activity we did prior to this was practicing using very vivid, descriptive vocabulary. In larger teams, they had to feel a mystery object inside of paper bag full of related objects (I think we used the same main idea bags). They each closed their eyes, felt an object and described it using sensory language. After everyone described something in the bag, they had to come up with what the topic of the bag might be by guessing what the objects were and how they were related. I think I gave them about 8 minutes to write their answer on a whiteboard and complete this activity.
I hope you find this handy! Thank you for visiting!
-Lauryn
