Writing Resource Folders

During writing, I have taught my students to use various resources in the classroom to help them write.  They have an orange folder they can grab that has letters, pictures, words, etc. on it.  They also each have their writing folder where they keep their stories.  

Here is a student using the orange resource folder. 

Here is a page that I have placed in their writing folder using a page protector.  Each student has a three prong folder where I can add page protectors.  Then, I slip in pages that go along with our writing unit.  This unit we learned how to write true stories.  This page reminded the students to use all of these pieces in their story. 

I also place this revising and editing page in the back to help remind them what goes in their writing. They can use a dry erase marker to mark off each time they check for a piece in their writing. 

My kids love these resources and they are so much more independent when they write.  I also love how they don't have a huge binder filled with pages, and students can grab what they need to help their writing. 

How to Writing with Applesauce

When we learn about apples, I have to squeeze in making applesauce!  It is one of my favorite things to do.  The kids also love eating it. :] 

 

First, I gather all of the materials.  I use a crockpot, about 8 apples, 1/4 cup of water, and some cinnamon.  I cut the apples up and place them in the crockpot.  I let my kids pour in the water and sprinkle the cinnamon on top.  This is a great way to introduce measuring cups and what they mean. 

The kids LOVE pouring in the ingredients.  I was also smart this year because I used a crockpot liner so when we were done I just had to throw the bag away. It made clean up SO much easier. :] 

Once we finish, I use this opportunity to do a how to writing activity.  My kids write how to make applesauce in their little booklet.  

Since this was our first time writing like this, I made the steps very simple and easy to follow.  I didn't want to overwhelm them with a lot of writing. 

You can see how they wrote and matched the words to the pictures. 

One of my kiddos messed up the order of his booklet, so we did a little problem solving by crossing out the numbers and rearranging the pages. :] No need for stress and tears! 

When we were all done - it took the applesauce about 4 hours on high to cook - we enjoyed our treat! When I poured them into the bowls, I let them sit for a little bit so my kiddos didn't burn their tongues. :] 

If you want to grab this booklet we used - you can click on the image below.  It is FREE. :]

Snowman Day!

We decided to celebrate winter by having a snowman day!  We started the day by reading Snowmen at Night and practiced retelling the story. We then focused on finding the main idea of the story by looking at everything we retold.  We used the information to find what the story was mostly about.  The kids did an awesome job retelling it!  I mean sometimes their memories amaze me because they remember things I don't at times.

Once we finished the story and wrote the main idea, we made our own snowmen at night.  I LOVED this project.  It has been all over Pinterest, and they turned out so much cuter than I thought they would. 

It started like this. I drew the circle with a white crayon to give them an outline to follow. 

Then they worked hard to fill in the circle with white pieces of paper.  They added snowflakes with white crayons and added the eyes, nose, and mouth with construction paper. 

They turned out adorable like this!

Here is my hallway display. :]

During writing, we wrote how to make a snowman.  Students completed their own snowman book with words and drawings.  We focused on using transition words. You can grab your own copy here!

During handwriting we practiced writing our names correctly using only capital letters at the beginning of our name.  We wrote them on snowmen!

Then, we took our snowmen and practiced graphing them to see who had the most letters in their name and who had the least letters.  You can see us lining them up on the floor and tallying them.  We completed a sheet that shared the most, least, and the difference between the two.

Here is our hallway display of our snowmen names.  I think they are really cute!

I hope you've enjoyed learning about Snowman Day!  Please share below if you do anything fun with  snowmen in your classroom.  I'd love to hear it!

Shared Reading and Writing

It's a brand new year, and I'm ready to get back into my blogging!  I have missed it so much - I'm sorry for my absence.  I've been so overwhelmed at work, and unfortunately, I had family illnesses.  So, I am determined to make 2016 my best blogging year yet!

I hope your new year is off to a great start.  I thought I would share with you part of my morning routine.  Every day my class participates in shared reading and writing.  You may be wondering, what is shared reading and writing?  Well, this is when you and your class read stories or poems together as  a class and then create writing pieces together as a class.  I like to use this shared reading and writing time to do things a little bit different.  
I always end morning meeting with our shared reading and writing.  Every week we have a new poem.  This is our shared reading portion.  I introduce the poem on Monday and the students listen/repeat to learn the new poem.  Then, we make the puppet to match it!

On Tuesday, we read the poem again as a class (a student always points while we read).  Then, we color the poem and place it in our poetry folder.  We use this folder during our independent reading time.  Students are given time to read their look books or their poetry folders.  They also use their puppets at this time to read their poems. They love it!

Here is the schedule for shared reading the rest of the week: Wednesday: Read the poem, student points, find words that start with the letter of the poem If the poem is focusing on the letter K, then we look for all the words that start with K or have a K in them. 
Thursday: Read the poem, student points, find sight words We often use wiki sticks or dry erase markers to find the sight words.  I write the poems on chart paper and laminate them for durability. 
Friday: Read the poem, student points, practice fluency by reading the poem using different voices We might use a robot voice, a cowboy voice, a whisper voice, a deep voice, a squeaky voice, etc. 
The students learn all 26 poems of the alphabet and at the end of the year we have a poetry palooza and share them with our families!
 Here is the book I use to get my poems:

Our shared writing of the week consists of us learning 3 new vocabulary words each week.  Then, we practice learning these words by placing them in sentences for our shared writing.

I always pick a picture that will go along with the vocabulary words.  Then, we write sentences to match the picture and use the vocabulary words in our sentences.  Finally, we read the writing together as a class.  This is our shared writing time each day. 

Once we learn the vocabulary words, I place them on our door where we continue to review them during line up time.  We have learned so many words!  You can find the words that we have learned so far by clicking here.  

I hope you have learned something today.  If you have shared reading and writing, please leave a comment below explaining what you do each day - I'd love to learn more!

Researching Book Awards - Opinion Writing

Once we had researched the different book awards, (you can find that blog post here) the students were given different books to read in a small group that was a winner of one of the awards. I wanted the students to read books that had won the awards so they could get a better idea of their style of writing and why he/she won!

The students were able to focus on the pictures of the books and the words to better understand why that book earned the award.

I was hoping this would model for the students how to make their writing better and more detailed. 

When they finished listening to their books, we gathered on the rug and came up with examples that supported why that book may have won the award.  Then, we talked about how we could use these styles of writing in our own writing to make it better.  We also highlighted on different skills that we could focus on when trying to convince our reader to vote for out book.  

Book Awards - Opinion Writing

While writing our opinion pieces about our favorite books, we had to learn more about different book awards.  The students researched these various types of book awards and shared their findings with the class. 

In order to keep it organized, I made a QR code for each student that would pull up the book award they were researching.  The first day I tried this activity, I had students just get on the computer or tablet and google the award.  WOAH - that was a HOT mess.  We got nothing accomplished and the kids were feeling frustrated.  So, I stopped the lesson and thought we could go back to it tomorrow.

That's when I came up with the idea of using QR codes and it would take the students to the website that would explain to them what the award meant.  It was kid friendly and the students were then able to regurgitate what they learned.  I felt brilliant! (haha not really, but it was much easier!)

You can see the kids working together using the QR codes and then recording what they learned in their writing journals.  The kids were feeling much more productive and were learning something today!

Once they finished, we gathered on the rug and the students shared the information they learned about the book awards.  I placed it on this fun chart so we could reference it as we went.  

Then, we came up with our own award categories for our opinion pieces.  The students chose three categories: funniest, most entertaining, and mysterious.  Then, the students were split into the three categories so I had 3 students writing opinion pieces about each topic.  When we completed our unit, the students read their papers to the class and the class voted on which writer persuaded them the most to read the book.  Then, that was the winner!

Opinion Writing

Opinion writing can be one of the most difficult pieces for students.  They know they like something, but they really struggle with explaining why and trying to persuade someone to feel the same way they do.

I started this unit by having my students write an opinion/persuasive paper about a restaurant or place they enjoy.  They learned how to write opinion pieces in first grade and focused on their favorite place.  So, I thought this would be a great pre-writing assessment.

I used this template/rubric to grade the students' work.  I placed their pre-assessment scores in one color, then went back at the end and wrote their post-assessment scores in another color.

Once they complete their pre-writing assessment, I started off the unit discussing what is an opinion and what it means to persuade someone.  The students helped me answer these questions through discussion.  We decided that an opinion is what you think and when you persuade someone you are trying to convince them to feel the same way you do.  The writing unit is based off of Lucy Calkin's Writing units.

For our opinion writing unit, we started by writing a letter to a classmate sharing our opinion about a book we love.  When writing a letter, it is important to know who is reading the letter.  This is also important when writing any paper.  The writer must think of the audience.  This allows the writer to write to the reader to ensure that they will enjoy it.  When trying to persuade someone to do something, you must think of their interests in order to convince them.

Students also learned when to use linking words in their letter.  These are helpful linking words that can be used when trying to persuade someone to agree with your opinion.  These words definitely help develop their writing and make it more full.

The students wrote their letters and provided details from the book to convince the reader that he/she would enjoy it.  Then, they gave their letter to a friend in class to persuade them to read the book.

My kids loved writing letters to their classmates.  They thought it was fun to see who everyone wrote a letter too.  Fortunately, my students all received letters.  That made it easy when they chose a person to write a letter to.

How do you teach persuasive writing?