Let's Write a Paragraph & A Freebie

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love teaching kids to write. 

This past week I taught my kids the term main topic, which I was having trouble with because I'm used to main idea. The Common Core uses topic instead of idea. I'm getting used to it.

Because they're second graders, I needed to get their attention. And so I did. . . with gift bags. There were only six and I think the kids were confused by who would be getting one. Little did they know there weren't gifts in the bags. Unless you consider knowledge a gift. In that case, they all received the gift of knowledge.

The bags do say Main Idea, but have since been fixed. 

Inside each bag were some picture. We'll call these details. The pictures all had something in common and it was up to the kids to figure this out. We called this the main topic.

Many of the main topics were the same, but some of the kids thought outside of the box and came up with more creative main topics. It was all good to me.

After the group activity, each student was given a worksheet with a graphic organizer on it. From this day forward, they will be seeing this almost daily in my classroom. I find this web to be so useful for so many different subjects.

Much like the gift bag activity, the kids looked at some pictures and had to identify the main topic of the picture. This particular worksheet had the beach as its topic.

Here is the movie theater.

The kids were getting the hang of this whole concept so we used the graphic organizer to begin writing paragraphs. We wrote the first two together then they were given ten extra minutes to add more details to their paragraphs to make them more interesting. They had such a great time and felt so proud of their writing.

Now most of them are writing paragraphs on their own. They are so excited to share. Each time they see me pull out a Main Topic Worksheet, I hear the "Yes!"es throughout the classroom. Once again, mission accomplished!

 

Holidays Around the Blog & A Gingerbread Freebie

I'm linking up with Learning Lessons with Mrs. Labrasciano for a holiday linky party.

This is my favorite time of year. When I think of cold weather, I think of a little brown cookie we call the gingerbread man. I pull out every version of the gingerbread man book I own and try really hard not to read them all at once. There's something about these stories that make my school year complete.

After hearing so many stories, the students become pretty familiar with the structure of this story.

The kids identify the characters, setting, plot, and refrain of the stories. 

After these activities, the kiddos are ready to write their own stories. The repetition of the stories and the refrains make story writing easy and predictable for young writers. The words will just flow, which makes them feel successful.

To encourage writing, I put up the Gingerbread Man Word Wall. Can't spell a word? No problem! Check out the Word Wall :)

You can get the fun here!

The Gingerbread fun would not be complete without some cookies and gingerbread house making!

Click here for the Freebie!


Thanks for stopping by!

Freebie Friday for October 17th

Happy Friday!

This is an addition to my Interactive Grammar Notebook for the Primary Grades and it's FREE! If you like it, check out the full product at my TpT store. If you haven't tried interactive notebooks, you're missing out! Kids absolutely love them and. . . shhh. . . don't tell. . . they don't know they're learning.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a restful weekend :)

 

Freebie Friday

Thanks for stopping by! 

Teaching young learners to work in cooperative groups and to share responsibilities can be a JOB! These cooperative group cards enable kids to take responsibility and to be a contributing member of the group. 

I start off teaching one job at a time, usually the group leader. I allow the students  to become familiar with the  responsibilities of the leader then I introduce another job.

Here you go! Hope you like it!

How Sweet It Is!

 

This week's Monday Made It was inspired by two blog posts from last week.

 

I loved the "Caught bee-having" bucket idea from Miss Nelson. I had to work my creative magic so the bucket could fit in my room. This is what I came up with!

 

I took it a step further . . .I have a glass jar filled with Smarties in my classroom. About once a day I ask the kids a "smarty question," which is a question that is higher order and requires some thinking. If a student gets the smarty question correct, she gets a Smartie. So I made this new bucket for Smarties. I've made it available at my TpT store for free if you're interested.

 

The next idea I found at  Foreman Teaches. She made a bucket for mentor text, which students can read after she reads to the class. I loved the idea because my students also love to read my books after I have read them. With this idea, the books are in one basket and the students can read them independently when they are finished with their work.

 

 

Next I made a behavior clip chart to match the sweetness theme that I have going on in my classroom.

This is also found for free in my TpT store :)

And it doesn't end there! I also printed and laminated my grammar anchor charts. I color code them so students know when they're looking at red, that means nouns (blue=verbs, purple=pronouns and yellow=adjectives). I clipped them to coordinating ribbon, but plan on using Velcro to attach them.

 

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

It's All in the Details

Since my students do tons of writing in class, I needed to make sure they understood the word details. I like to use my cake analogy because it's something students can relate to. I ask the students to imagine their birthday cakes. I ask. . .

Do you want it to look like this?

Or do you want it to look like this?

 

Or this?

Of course they all want colorful cakes with decorations all over it. . .or DETAILS! So I have the kids decorate their cakes with details and use the word details to tell us about the details they added to their detailed cakes. Then we look at a rubric to determine how detailed our cakes are.

The students are able to add more details to score a 4 candle cake.











Next we apply our knowledge of details by identifying important details from the perfect book. . .

 As I read the story, we stop and discuss the important events and write them on our cakes.

 Then we add "decorations" to the cake which are actually the details the kids have written.

From there we move on to other activities to develop a deeper understanding of details and how WE can add details to our writing to make it better. Click on A Dollop of Details below to get a hold of these activities and more.