Glyphs in the Classroom

Lately I have been seeing the word 'glyph' pop up very often in my searches. From preschool to university and across subject areas, there it is " GLYPH! GLYPH! GLYPH!. Of course my first thought was that this had to be a Social Studies or History 'thing', but then I came across glyphs in Science, Reading and Mathematics.This threw my ideas into a tailspin! What is this all about? Well, naturally I decided to do some digging to see what I can come up with, and this is what I found. I hope that today's post is just going to wet your appetite and that you do your own search to see how viable this is as a teaching tool.So let's see what this 'new wave' is all about.

Photo Courtesy http://littleblogfish.blogspot.com

What is a Glyph?
The word 'glyph' is short for hieroglyphics which is an ancient Egyptian system of writing. In that system signs were used by scribes to record information in a pictorial form. In the classroom glyphs are used in the same way. Little details come together graphically to create a bigger picture or idea that relays information. Let's take a look at the glyph activity below:

In this activity students will have to follow the directions below:

This is what Ricardo's glyph looks like. Can you decode it?

And here is Marianne's glyph. Try decoding this one. You can also try this activity yourself and see what your glyph will look like.

Therefore each color used has a particular meaning and each composition is full of information. Of course, this is just one example. At higher levels in elementary school glyphs are used in other varying ways.

You can click on the pictures below for more ideas on the use of glyphs in the classroom.