Contraction Surgery

You may have seen this week on my Instagram that we did Contraction Surgery! This has always been one of my favorite lessons to participate in! A few people have asked me for my lesson plan and how exactly I went about this: so here it is!

First things first: buy yourself some scrubs. I fully believe in transforming ANY lesson into an experience, so to make it REAL and believable, you've got to be all in. I bought my scrubs from Walmart for about 11-12$ for both the top and pants.

Next: buy cheap hairnets, face masks in bulk. I remember buying mine on Amazon last year and I still have enough hairnets to last YEARS and I have enough face masks for one more year. (That's 3 years total!!) and Yes, I let my kids take their "surgical supplies" home! Someone asked me if I bought gloves, and my answer is no. Mostly because with this particular lesson, my kids are using scissors and glue to take apart words and it would be too hard for them and would most likely be a distraction. You could also ask you nurse or lunch ladies for gloves, band aids, and even disposable aprons! The possibilities are endless!

As for the actual lesson, your kids will have to "apply and create" their knowledge on contractions, so this ultimately needs to be a review lesson! I always start with a song for my kids who need it (there's plenty to choose from on YouTube!) Their tables are covered in white paper to symbolize the paper you sit on at the doctor's office. Yikes.

I then tell them that today THEY will be the doctors and take "symptom words" and take out what they don't need and create the contraction with a band-aid as the apostrophe. They each get a Prescription Pad and 5 words. (One word/contraction per page) After they complete each page they call me over and I sign it if it's right. This gives you the chance to see who is struggling and who knows this stuff like the back of their hand!

Once everyone is done, they each get a band-aid to write an "exit-ticket" on to show what they know and attach to our Anchor Chart. All I did for these was I went to Microsoft Word and googled a picture of a Band-aid and printed it on cream colored paper! See picture for details!