Weekly Content Update | Before & After, Pronouns, & Learning to Trace
This week at Gemiini we've added content for teaching the prepositions of time before and after, skits teaching conversational pronoun usage, and an introduction to tracing lines, shapes and objects.
Before & After
Our new Before & After clips teach meaning and usage for the prepositions before and after. To model how these words refer to points in time relative to specific events, these clips show a side-by-side comparison of the same object before and after something occurs to change its state. In one clip, we see a child's hands before and after she uses finger paints to create a picture. In another, we see a banana before and after it has been peeled. A third clip shows an ice cube tray full of water before and after it is frozen in the freezer.
Understanding prepositions of time allows students to speak accurately about things that have happened in the past or that will happen in the future. Our Before & After clips also provide a basic model of cause and effect. These clips can help any students develop a greater understanding of concepts of time. Before & After clips can be found in Spoken Language → Descriptive Words (Adjectives & Adverbs) → Comparisons.
Pronouns
It can be a challenge to teach different pronouns and the rules that govern their usage. Fortunately, the Gemiini library is stocked with a breadth of content targeting expressive and receptive pronoun comprehension. Our most recent pronouns additions provide a conversational model of usage for personal, possessive, and reflexive pronouns. In these skits, the actors use exaggerated gestures to indicate who is being referred to each time a pronoun is used.
Which personal pronoun to use often depends on the speaker's point of view. To help students choose the appropriate pronoun for the context of a conversation, we have included a handful of clips in our new batch of pronouns content modelling individuals responding to a prompt to change their pronoun choice after choosing incorrectly. This model will help students correct their own pronoun usage.
Expanding pronoun comprehension helps students develop skills needed to talk about themselves and the people in their lives. Clips teaching pronouns exist in many different categories of the Gemiini library. The most recent batch of pronouns clips is located in Reading, Writing & Academic → Grammar.
Learning to Trace
Our new Learning to Trace clips provide a useful model for students who are practicing eye-hand coordination. Eye-hand coordination impacts a huge variety of activities - coloring, handwriting, eating with silverware, getting dressed, cutting with scissors, using the bathroom, and handling technology are just a few common examples. Tracing improves eye-hand coordination by developing communication between the part of the brain responsible for processing what we see and the part of the brain that processes hand and body movements.
Tracing can be practiced by students at every level of the language pyramid, even those who are not ready to hold a writing utensil. These learners can begin tracing by using their finger to follow lines drawn in sand or shaving cream spread over a smooth surface. Most students start with straight lines and circles, and are ready to trace other shapes once they have mastered tracing these structures.
Our tracing clips model tracing straight lines (vertical, horizontal, and diagonal), shapes (circle, square, rectangle, and triangle), simple pictures (house, flower, and star), as well as some letters and numbers. You can find our Learning to Trace clips in Reading, Writing & Academic → First School Years → Drawing.
Feel free to schedule a call with one of our product specialists for help using our new clips or other Gemiini content in your student's assignments. If you'd like to learn the basics of customizing assignments or uploading your own clips, check out the articles in our Knowledge Base. If you're looking for clips that don't exist on the site, please send a content request to videos@gemiini.org.