Five for Fraturday

I was SO excited to link up for my first ever Five for Friday and then....I had too much fun Friday night at a Lia Sophia jewelry party that I didn't make it home until it had turned into Saturday. Oops. I needed that though. Yesterday marked the end of the 1st quarter and it was time to woooosah!

So I'm joining in with Doodle Bugs Teaching even if it's a day late. 

 

{One}

This week we were learning about plants. We used clay, chenille sticks, and tissue paper to make models of flowers.

{Two}

We also did an activity where we made some observations of different flowers and recorded similarities and differences. We also noted what characteristics would make a pollinator more or less attracted to a particular flower. 

  

{Three}

We used Thinking Maps (a brace and flow map) to work on problem solving in math. The brace map helped us separate our word problem into the important parts. The flow map helped us think about the steps we'd have to go through to solve. 

 

 

{Four}

We used flow maps again, but this time for writing. We wrote paragraphs on how to settle a colony. Kiddos needed to reflect on the experiences of the colonists at Jamestown and Plymouth to decide what steps would be helpful in settling a successful colony. 

{Five}

Guess who had a ridiculous amount of fun at the Lia Sophia party and decided to become a Lia Sophia Advisor? Yep! It was me!! Can't wait to get my starter kit and all the jewelry. So fun.

Here are the pieces I'm most excited to get. I love them!

 

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!

Throwback Thursday- A Turkey's Plea

Back for another week of the Throwback Thursday Linky. 

It all started when someone purchased my persuasive writing lesson on TpT. I had posted this last year after the Thanksgiving holiday was darn near over so I thought now would be a great time to give this little turkey another shout out. Especially good timing for those of us trying to prepare NOW for the fall...which is probably anyone reading this!

I LOVE persuasive writing. We have a blast doing it in class. The parents even commented on how much they loved the writing graphic organizer. Without further ado...last year's post:

We just finished parent-teacher conferences this week...yay! I was able to get lesson plans done all the way up through the end of the month, which feels fantastic. Here is the activity that I'm most excited for next week:

 

I'll start the lesson by reading My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza. It's an adorable story about a pig who outsmarts a fox by giving the fox different reasons why the fox shouldn't eat him. It's the perfect lead in to persuasive writing. 

  

When I teach writing, I use an "I do, then you do" method. This allows me to model writing techniques and talk through my thinking process. I have a blank graphic organizer like the one below and all of my students do too. I fill in a section and then I let them fill in the section. I let students share so that reluctant writers can hear variations and different ideas. Hopefully it spurs an idea within them.
 

 

Here's what mine might look like when I'm finished. Theirs should be similar, but with their own ideas. 

 

 

After this planning stage, we write rough drafts. I also model this for them using the graphic organizer that I completed the first day. It allows me to share my thought processes as I take information from the organizer and turn it into complete sentences. 

After rough drafts we revise our own work and then have peers proofread for us. I  have a checklist that I hand out to each student. 

Then we write our final drafts and share our work. I'm going to have students write their final drafts on the paper below.   

You can find all of these resources, along with the revising checklist and a brief 5 day sample lesson plan here.  

The Write Stuff

To earn CEU's my school has signed us up for an online professional development program. It's a portal of sorts where we can watch TONS of great videos, dialogue with other teachers on various topics, and store our virtual professional portfolio. I just watched my first video and I think it's going to be a great resource for me. I'm excited to share with you what I'm finding. 

Yesterday I started putting finishing touches on the items I want in my writing folders. I love to write (and I'm pretty good at it from what I've been told...if I'm allowed to say that?!), but teaching writing this last year was a challenge for me. I knew I needed to start by getting our writing program organized. 

I used the free chevron backgrounds Dana, from 3rd Grade Gridiron, so graciously shared with us (Thanks Dana!) to create a quick and simple cover for our writing folders. 

You can snag Dana's backgrounds here!


I'll be including a "No Excuses" word list and another list of frequently used words that are based off of a list of the 1,200 most frequently used words. If you click here you can get a copy of the word lists (They are geared for 3rd grade).

 I also have a list of transition words.

I'm also going to include a little chart of proofreading marks, but don't have that put together yet.


What else do you put in your writing folders? Am I missing anything important?


Naturally when I sat down to do some of my PD videos, I had writing in mind. So without further ado...

Why do we use them? Many students:

• have trouble organizing information
• lack confidence
• are unable to make personal connections to the prompt
• don't know how to start
• can't let go of the need to do it "right" the first time

One of the biggest barriers students face when they begin writing is the blank page sitting in front of them. 

The Strategies

• Drawing
• Journal Response
• Visual Imaging
• Research with Graphic Organizers
• Guided Imagery

Drawing
Drawing strategies help students let go of their inhibitions and the need to do a "perfect" rough draft. One drawing strategy is a Draw Your Partner activity.

I've played games like this at baby showers where you put a plate on your head and draw the Mom-to-Be. The results are hilarious. The point, though, is that since you can't see what you're doing, you don't have the choice to worry about how it comes out. You just have to go for it!

To implement this activity, put your students in pairs. They have to draw each other without looking at their paper. You can have their partner hold another piece of paper in front of the one they're drawing on so they can't peek. 

Here's my attempt at drawing my little girl...who is much cuter in real human form! 

Once this activity is finished, and the giggles have subsided, you can easily transition into the point of letting go of the rules and focus on creating a "picture" with their writing. 

Journal Responses
Journal responses help students make personal connections to the writing prompt. Journal responses should require students to answer a few questions in their response. This process should only take about five minutes. Be sure to tailor your questions so that students can make a personal connection to the upcoming writing prompt. 

Visual Imaging
This activity helps stimulate ideas for writing. Start with piles of different images. Old calendars are a great way to collect pictures that are useful for this activity. Try to find a variety of images that would evoke a wide range of emotions and feelings. 

Students get to choose their own image and then they list words of what they see in the picture. It might start off very literal, but with practice, lists will move closer towards what they imagine they see within the picture. Encourage students to pass their image and list to several peers so that peers can add to the list. Seeing what classmates list might spur on more ideas. 

Again, the idea of this strategy is to stimulate ideas. It's a great strategy to use in conjunction with writing poetry.

Research with Graphic Organizers
Using graphic organizers helps student have a visual map of the information they want to include in their writing. When using graphic organizers while writing research papers students can easily see which information they still need to gather. 

Graphic organizers are one of my favorite things to use in a variety of content areas. 

You can get an idea of the variety of organizers by visiting here.

Guided Imagery
This activity might be better suited for middle school and high school grades, but I think you'd have to judge it based on your particular group of students.

Begin this strategy by having students close their eyes and keep everything out of their hands. Walk students through a relaxation exercise. Encourage them to let go of all the things on their mind. Ask students to begin to visualize whatever the writing prompt is. 

For example, if the prompt is about their favorite birthday, the guided imagery may sound something like this:

Go back in time to your favorite birthday. Create a picture in your mind of where the birthday was. What decorations were there? What smells and sounds do you remember? Picture the faces of the people who were there when you celebrated. Recall some of the events that took place during the celebration. Did anything special or unusual happen?

When you finish, ask students to madly free write about everything they just visualized. 

Free Write
A free write is similar to a journal response. You may or may not have a series of questions to answer in a free write. You may ask students to write everything they know about a certain topic. 

The most important thing to convey to students during a free write is that this is an opportunity to let all of their thoughts spill out all over their page. Free writes should be brief and students are encouraged to forget the "rules" and just write!

I remember doing free writes a lot in high school. My english teacher would be adamant that our pencils not stop moving, even if it meant writing the same word over and over until another thought came to mind. 

How might you use one of these strategies in your class? What other pre-writing strategies have you used?