Workshop Wednesday {Summarizing}

I’m linking up today with the amazing Jivey over at Ideas by Jivey for her Workshop Wednesday.

This week we are working on summarizing.  I don’t know if your kiddos are anything like mine, but when I ask for summary they seem to want to give me everything including the kitchen sink! 

 Now, I realize that having the gifted cluster means that I have some of the most verbal kids in my grade level, and I know that those kiddos just want to keep on talking and sharing.  So, I needed to teach them how to determine the MOST important details and ideas and choose their words carefully.  Enter one of my favorite strategies to challenge them to really think about importance and to choose words carefully!  It’s called 10 finger summaries.  Each word is counted on a finger and the challenge is to summarize what you read in only 10 words. 

 

 

Fingers out and ready to count!

(Weaver and Tailor birds build nests by weaving or sewing.)

It was a huge challenge for some of my especially verbal kiddos, they were begging for an extra word or two, but they finally learned to cut out extra information and choose words that really got the message across.   In the end they loved the challenge.  One of my kiddos was still talking about 10 finger summaries at the end of the day and said he couldn’t wait to do some more tomorrow!

In honor of my favorite strategy, here is a ten finger summary of the day ahead of me. 

 My day’s filled with teaching, meetings and being dance mom.

What is the 10 finger summary of your day?  I’d love to hear it!

Happy Wednesday everyone!