Great Lesson Ideas – Monster Match
With Angela Montgomery & Stacey Hoover

Angela: [00:00:08] Hello, my name is Angela Montgomery. I teach third grade at Lee Road Junior High School in Covington, Louisiana. The lesson I’m going to share with you today is Monster Match. [00:00:17]

Stacey: [00:00:22] Hi, my name is Stacey Hoover. I’m the technology teacher facilitation at Lee Road Junior High School. Monster Match is an ELA lesson where we work on descriptive writing. Each student draws a monster and then they write a descriptive paragraph of their monster. [00:00:38]

Angela: [00:00:39] Once they have a paragraph written, we get together with another class, using the video conference. They read their descriptions without showing the picture and hopefully the students on the other end can draw the same picture using the descriptions. [00:00:53]

Stacey: [00:00:55] Our students are going to draw it also so they can get the experience of let’s see how close they can be. [00:01:01]

Child: [00:01:02] My monster has three heads. The first is round with billy goat horns. [00:01:09]

Stacey: [00:01:09] the first is round with billy goat horns. [00:01:11]

[00:01:12] But when somebody has to draw it based on their description, they see the importance of adding those details. [00:01:18]

Child: [00:01:18] The second head looks like a duck’s head with teeth. [00:01:24]

Angela: [00:01:24] The second head looks like a duck’s head with teeth. [00:01:26]

Stacey: [00:01:28] When they realize, oh I should have said this or I could have added that, or this would make my paragraph better, they’re becoming better writers. [00:01:36]

Child: [00:01:37] My monster has nine legs. [00:01:39]

[00:01:44] My monster’s horns have polka dots on it. [00:01:46]

Angela: [00:01:47] This is a good way to learn to use adjectives and descriptors because they’re learning from what they’ve drawn, and they’re trying to describe it to somebody else. Now they’ve learned that it takes more details in than they thought it would take. [00:01:59]

Child: [00:02:00] My monster has a little body. [00:02:02]

Angela: [00:02:03] My monster has a little body. [00:02:05]

Child: [00:02:06] His arms are in the air. [00:02:09]

Angela: [00:02:09] He has little feet and his arms are in the air. [00:02:11]

[00:02:12] The students like to use video conferencing because they get to meet another class. They can teach that other class something, and sometimes the other class can turn around and teach them something too. They learned where they made their mistakes or what they did right for the other class to see their monster. [00:02:30]

Stacey: [00:02:31] I’m going to switch to the document camera to show you all so that you get to see it nice and big, and I’m not trying to zoom in with camera. [00:02:38]

[00:02:43] So quite of you were close, so ya’ll think that he did a good job describing his monster? [00:02:50]

[00:02:55] The students love to video conference because they enjoy getting to meet new people. The enjoy going places that they never would get to go. [00:03:02]

Angela: [00:03:05] Ya’ll did a good job. I have a question. Which one was the easiest to follow the description? [00:03:11]

[00:03:35] Thank you for helping us out today. Bye bye, thank you. [00:03:38]

Child: [00:03:38] Bye. [00:03:39]

Stacey: [00:03:43] Okay guys, after we’ve done this exercise, do you see the importance of adding details in your paragraphs? As they draw them, would more details have made it easier for you? What’s something that you learned today? [00:04:00]

Child: [00:04:00] You always need to add details. [00:04:02]

Stacey: [00:04:03] Always need to add details, how important they are, huh. [00:04:05]

Child: [00:04:06] And I learned that you have to put it in a certain order because it’s harder. [00:04:09]

Angela: [00:04:10] Good job. [00:04:10]

Stacey: [00:04:10] Very good. [00:04:11]

[00:04:11] With this lesson, we will we provide a lesson plan with an outline of the Monster Match lesson, with a sample agenda, and I will also give you a link to my wiki where I have a wealth of resources on finding content providers and collaborative classes for video conferencing. [00:04:27]