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Figurative Language with Music

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This will be a quick post because I have a pounding headache and my bed is calling my name 🙂

But we’ve been having some fun in 4th grade this week and I wanted to link up and share what we’ve been up to!

One of my favorite things to teach is figurative language. I LOVE watching the students catch on and find figurative language in all sorts of activities, and then use it in their creative writing.

If you walk by my classroom during the weeks we’re working on it, you might be astonished by the noise level and think we’re holding a middle school dance. But don’t worry, it’s just my students learning!

I’ve found the BEST way to get my kiddos to understand fig lang is to use music. They can all relate to it and ENJOY finding fig lang in songs they know and love.

I was SO excited when I came across Erin’s Interactive Notebooks this year because she also uses songs to teach this concept. Combining her and my activities made for a ROCKIN’ few weeks!

I introduced each type of figurative language with a little part of a song and examples. We talked about:
-Simile
-Metaphor
-Alliteration
-Hyperbole
-Onomatopoeia
-Idiom
-Personification
-Allusion

Then, found figurative language in poetry and in the books we were reading.

We completed this foldable from Erin’s notebook to recap what we’d learned:
{We color code all fig. lang to make it easy to color code when we find it in texts.}
Today was our rockin’ music day! We jammed out to a few fun songs such as “Fireflies” by Owl City, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, “Replay” by Sean Kingston, and “Firework” by Katy Perry.
I was SO proud of my kiddos and all of the figurative language they found in the songs!

{This activity can be found in my figurative language freebies!}
Tonight for homework I gave them 24 cards with different figurative language. They have to sort them and label them to review for their test tomorrow!
How do you teach figurative language? I’d love to hear what you do! 
I’m linking up with the wonderful Erin Cobb for her Thursday Throw Down linky party and the amazing Jivey for Workshop Wednesday! 🙂

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Comments

  1. I love how you get them to color code the foldable and then the lyrics too – that is a great idea. I love the idea of using music but have not done it yet – thanks for the song suggestions.

    Reply

  3. I love to use music when teaching figurative language! They never believe me when I tell them how much of this stuff is in their everyday lives until we do our poetry unit and listen to so much music. I love it!

    Reply

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