Tie together weeks

Most of your tie together weeks are going to be the same, or at least similar.
You can build separate concept walls, or just keep building on the same one
Fridays where there is no lesson planned, you can always have kids “spend time with the
word wall” where they make new connections.
You can always pull a bunch of cards off, blame another teacher and ask students to fix
them, especially words they might be struggling with.

Over the course of a week, you are going to:

- Identify all the vocabulary for the cycles you focused on
- Define all the vocabulary
- Identify how the concepts link together
- Create or add to a concept wall
- Physically link the ideas on your concept wall together
Here is the basic template, with pictures.
At the end of two or three cycles, kids need time to connect all their learning.
Earlier this year, I completed three cycles on algebra, integers and triangles, then tied them
together.
- I started the tie-together week with the question, “how are algebra, integers and triangles
connected?” I had them write it out on their books, on their own.
o It was not great, but it got them thinking.
- Next, I randomly grouped them and asked each group for
o definitions of integers, algebra and triangles,
o a list of all the words that go under each heading


- Here are some examples of what groups came up with
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- Next, we put three chart papers on the board, the class had to collectively decide on a
definition for each, and fill the chart paper with words that related.

o As kids were doing this, I handed out index cards. In their random groups, kids
would select a word and create a definition card for it. Each card contained the
word, the definition and a visual representation for the word. This was tough for
some kids, but that’s why they worked in groups.
  The goal was for each group to make as many index cards as possible.
There were many redundancies (every group made cards for the same
word)
 I also invited kids to put the visual representations on the chart papers

- The next step is to start building the word wall. I asked three kids (prior to this lesson), to
create large versions of the index cards for the words, “integer” “triangle” and “algebra”
o These three became the anchors of our word walls.

- I put one of the words on the left side of the bulletin board with a push pin. I left push
pins, string (black and green) and scissors in front of the board and told the random
groups to send one person at a time to place their index cards (related definitions) around
the word and connect them with string (green was strong connection, black was a lesser
connection) if they felt it should be connected.
-
o I was surprised how verbal kids made this, and I would encourage it if didn’t
happen for another group. I heard a lot of,
 I’m going to connect thermometer to numberline, because they’re the
same thing.
- I’ll connect mystery to algebra because they’re number mysteries.
- We repeated this process for each anchor word, which took a long time (more than one
day).