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5 Fun Ways to Get Students Talking

5 Fun Ways to Get Students Talking

Help your students find their voice and express themselves with simple technology. The Easi-Speak is a kid-friendly microphone-shaped recorder that lets students capture their own voice, then play it back through the built-in speaker. Check out these the fun projects that take just 10 to 15 minutes each.how teachers can help kids interact in class  

Name That Letter (Grades K-1)

  • Arrange a variety of tactile letters, such as foam, sandpaper, and magnetic letters, on a table. The student will record his or her name and responses with Easi-Speak.
  • Ask the student to point to a letter, trace it with his or her finger, and say the letter's name. Then have the student practice making sounds, or phonemes, for letters. For example, tell the student to trace the letter s with his or her finger as he or she makes the /s/ sound.
  • Finally, ask the student to name words that begin with the letter's phoneme and use the words in sentences.

Count Many Ways (Grades K-1)

  • Give Easi-Speak to a small group of students. Have them take turns counting up from 1 to 30 and back from 30 to 1 while recording. Make sure each child records his or her name before starting to count.
  • Have each student count from 1 to 100, or as high as they can. Use the recording as documentation and assessment for a student's portfolio.
  • As the year goes on, challenge students to count by 2s, 5s and 10s.

Mini Meteorologists (Grades 1-2)

  • Use your school's outdoor thermometer, or mount your own outside your classroom. As part of your morning routine, have a student act as the Weather Reporter, and say into the recorder, “Today is [day and date]. The temperature is ____.”
  • Then go around the room and have students make additional observations, such as it's windy today, or it’s cloudy, or it snowed. Encourage them to expand on their observations and say things like, “We could go sledding.”
  • At the end of each week, play back the recordings and have students create a bar graph to organize the data they collected on temperatures.

Punctuation and Inflections (Grades 1-3)

  • Provide each student with a grade-level book that contains dialogue and a variety of sentence types.
  • Have the student identify and mark two or more examples of a question, an exclamation, and a statement and tell you what types of punctuation are used in each sentence. Then have the student read and record these sentences.
  • Have the student listen to his or her recording and point out the punctuation that affects his or her phrasing, tone, and expression. The student self-assesses the reading and repeats the activity.

Reporting on Favorites (Grades 2-3)

  • Have students work in pairs to collect data from classmates. Suggest questions they can use, such as “What is your favorite ice cream: vanilla, chocolate, or other?”
  • Include three categories for data collection. Each pair then interviews and records 5 other students using the Easi-Speak. After the data is collected, have each pair listen to the recording and tally the results on a sheet of paper divided into 3 columns.
  • Students can then create a bar graph with the data. In time, you can ask each pair to brainstorm their own questions, and make predictions on the expected poll results.
Consider these first 5 projects as Easi-Speak ice-breakers! Once you and your students get the hang of using the recorders, you’ll be able to do dozens of activities that support oral language, fluency, phonics, speech therapy, intervention, math facts, podcasts and more.
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5 Fun Ways to Get Students Talking
5 Fun Ways to Get Students Talking
Help your students find their voice and express themselves with simple technology. The Easi-Speak is a kid-friendly microphone-shaped recorder that lets students capture their own voice, then play it back through the built-in speaker. Check out these the fun projects that take just 10 to 15 minutes each.how teachers can help kids interact in class  

Name That Letter (Grades K-1)

  • Arrange a variety of tactile letters, such as foam, sandpaper, and magnetic letters, on a table. The student will record his or her name and responses with Easi-Speak.
  • Ask the student to point to a letter, trace it with his or her finger, and say the letter's name. Then have the student practice making sounds, or phonemes, for letters. For example, tell the student to trace the letter s with his or her finger as he or she makes the /s/ sound.
  • Finally, ask the student to name words that begin with the letter's phoneme and use the words in sentences.

Count Many Ways (Grades K-1)

  • Give Easi-Speak to a small group of students. Have them take turns counting up from 1 to 30 and back from 30 to 1 while recording. Make sure each child records his or her name before starting to count.
  • Have each student count from 1 to 100, or as high as they can. Use the recording as documentation and assessment for a student's portfolio.
  • As the year goes on, challenge students to count by 2s, 5s and 10s.

Mini Meteorologists (Grades 1-2)

  • Use your school's outdoor thermometer, or mount your own outside your classroom. As part of your morning routine, have a student act as the Weather Reporter, and say into the recorder, “Today is [day and date]. The temperature is ____.”
  • Then go around the room and have students make additional observations, such as it's windy today, or it’s cloudy, or it snowed. Encourage them to expand on their observations and say things like, “We could go sledding.”
  • At the end of each week, play back the recordings and have students create a bar graph to organize the data they collected on temperatures.

Punctuation and Inflections (Grades 1-3)

  • Provide each student with a grade-level book that contains dialogue and a variety of sentence types.
  • Have the student identify and mark two or more examples of a question, an exclamation, and a statement and tell you what types of punctuation are used in each sentence. Then have the student read and record these sentences.
  • Have the student listen to his or her recording and point out the punctuation that affects his or her phrasing, tone, and expression. The student self-assesses the reading and repeats the activity.

Reporting on Favorites (Grades 2-3)

  • Have students work in pairs to collect data from classmates. Suggest questions they can use, such as “What is your favorite ice cream: vanilla, chocolate, or other?”
  • Include three categories for data collection. Each pair then interviews and records 5 other students using the Easi-Speak. After the data is collected, have each pair listen to the recording and tally the results on a sheet of paper divided into 3 columns.
  • Students can then create a bar graph with the data. In time, you can ask each pair to brainstorm their own questions, and make predictions on the expected poll results.
Consider these first 5 projects as Easi-Speak ice-breakers! Once you and your students get the hang of using the recorders, you’ll be able to do dozens of activities that support oral language, fluency, phonics, speech therapy, intervention, math facts, podcasts and more.
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