Last week in Chinese class, our 5th grade Chinese class began to learn about Chinese characters. They used a Visible Thinking routine called (Sort Connect Elaborate) to help them to see that many Chinese characters that are made up of specific components and not just a bunch of random lines. Many Chinese words are made up of multiple components, called radicals. The radicals can often give a hint as to either the meaning of a word or what a word sounds like. The class was divided into 4 groups of students. Each group was given a stack of post-it note papers with Chinese characters on them. Each group took turns to put their post-its with characters on a big piece of blank paper. Then the groups took turns to sort the various words in different ways. As you can see in the video, students began to visualize the various components in the characters that are the same and sorted them, and then drew lines between characters to show that characters are related. They had fun and did an awesome job!
One of the best things about this lesson was the fact that the students were learning and making connections on their own! I have a feeling that they will retain what they have learned much better since they are making the connections on their own rather than having me telling them, and they had fun too!
Check out this video I made with Animoto: Visible Thinking 5th Grade Chinese
More about Visible Thinking used in the Meritas Family of Schools