There should be a place on Ebay--maybe there is--where you could sell those ideas or projects that, though sound, never quite came off. That baby sweater you started, for example, for the friend whose baby is now heading off to college. The quilt you just got tired of working on. Just for example. Not that I have anything like that hanging around here.
Except maybe this: the prototype for some phonics puzzles I've been working since m. was first starting to sound out words.
What I wanted were puzzles that 1) introduced three-letter words in groups with common endings; 2) helped reinforce the idea that -at, for example, is pronounced "at" regardless of whatever consonant appears before it; and 3) had a picture part that was separate from the letter part. At first, I tried to buy something. Believe me, I looked. I don't believe they exist--at least they didn't way back then. Thus I came to make my own.
Notice that all the -at pieces are interchangeable; likewise the -an pieces and the initial consonants (any "c" piece can be used anywhere a "c" works). Correctly put together, however, they make a key that will fit only one picture piece. Nifty, eh?
Nothing gets done around here in a small way, though. To get this far, M. and a wood-working friend of his cut 1000 sets of these 10-word puzzle sets. You may see only eight words, but two of the puzzles--rat and van--are currently out on loan. At three pieces per puzzle, that means there were at one time 30,000 pieces of cut oak sitting in our basement in various boxes.
After they're cut, each piece has to be routed and sanded on all edges, so they are nice and smooth for young children to handle. Another job for the wonderful Mr. M.
Then, using a heat transfer tool and a laser printout, I transfer the design to the wood, ink in the outlines with windsor-newton inks, wait for them to dry, and afterwards coat them with polyurethane. They are not for any child who might be tempted to chew on them.
Two or three times, I even made a box to contain them. After that I decided that canvas draw-string pouches were easier and certainly much more practical.
So far, there are eight sets of these puzzles in the world: most of them ended up as gifts, a couple ended up at schools and libraries. Which means that there are 992 sets of cutout pieces, or more than 29,000 cutout pieces of wood still sitting around in the basement waiting to be finished. Anyone interested?
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And then there's this project: Born from the peculiar thrill I once got from scanning foreign languages and describing the rules that made them work, it attempted to introduce late-elementary-aged children to grammar by teaching them the idea of discovering patterns and having them come up with their own technical vocabulary for describing those rules.
They were to be Senior Language Scientists on a space expedition to the planet Robotia. The robots spoke in a symbolic language flashed on their front panels. The job of the Senior Language Scientists was to figure out what the symbols meant and how to construct their own correct Robotian sentences.
To start them off, I gave them some Robotian sentences and their translations.
There was, of course, an obligatory worksheet for creating a dictionary.
After figuring out the meaning of each symbol, the Scientists went on to explore the rules that determined the order of the symbols. I gave them both correct and incorrect sentences to examine.
A second sheet introduced the idea of direct and indirect object (maybe I was moving too fast?).
And in the final sheet, the Scientists had to figure out how to place adjectives.
Overall, the exercise worked well, although it was perhaps a bit much to cover in the space of an hour. Also, it would have been VERY useful to have made up some kind of checklist or matrix, like those provided in logic puzzles, to help my students organize their thoughts as they developed their rules. And of course, the whole exercise needs to be extended.
Anyway, it's a well-intended project, in need of a good home. If you're interested, feel free to borrow!
