Tried It Tuesday - Writing Prompts

I am linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday! 

Today I tried a writing technique a fellow teacher had shared with us last year, but I had never gotten around to using it.  This year I decided I needed to give it a try, because my kiddos HATE writing!  It is almost like pulling teeth to even get them to write a paragraph.  So... I decided to give it a try.  

The idea is to provide the students with a picture prompt.  They then have 10 minutes to write as much as they can with the goal to increase the amount they write each time.

Here is the picture prompt I used today:

I have this one and a ton of other great picture prompts on my Writing Prompts Pinterest Board.  I will be adding to this as I find more.  You can also follow all of my Pinterest Boards here.

After I showed the students the prompt, we brainstormed out loud.  Ignore my messy handwriting (and the room as well - it always seems like a tornado goes through it during the day!).

I can't emphasize enough about how important I believe the verbal brainstorming before writing is.  

Then the students got to work.

Some wrote at their tables.

Others chose to stay on the floor.

When they finished writing a few of them shared what they wrote.

The amazing thing was that some of them started adding to their writing spontaneously as they heard what others had written.

They even collaborated with each other.

Here are a few of the finished pieces.  I chose to only give compliments rather than editing critiques so that they could really learn to love this time.  I told them they could continue their stories during Work on Writing during Daily 5 or abandon them.  That is an author's choice.

(I love her surprise ending!)

Some of them started to add dialogue which they hadn't previously done.  I loved the results and I loved how engaged the students were!  This is definitely something that I am glad that I tried!

Have you tried anything different in your classroom lately?

Fictional Narrative Writing - Do Over!

Our district has common assessments that our students take approximately every 6 weeks.  Normally they take them during computers, but because last week Monday was a holiday (our usual computer day) we had to take them the old fashioned pencil and paper way.  I figured it would be an easy thing to plug into my sub plans while I took the GRE.  Tests are often my go to for sub days - keeps the kiddos somewhat quiet for the sub.

Anyway, when I got back the next day, along with a 2 page note from the sub (they had a rough day, I'm not going to lie), was a stack of assessments with written responses that looked like this:

and this:

So, I had two choices, 

1.  I could cry about the sub note

2. I could re-teach them how to write a fictional narrative

I chose the second option.  Because this was completely impromptu and unplanned ignore my messy rushed handwriting!

We talked about the steps for writing when answering a written response.  

1. Read the prompt - What is it asking you?  (The prompt was - "Describe the day you woke up as a fish.") So, we decided this was asking us to write a fictional narrative.  

2. Brainstorm and organize your thoughts.

I asked the students, what do fictional stories have? Story elements!  We created quick graphic organizers listing the text elements: characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle, end, feelings, action, dialogue.  We brainstormed what could go under each.  I sent the students back to work on their own brainstorm.

3. Write.  Once everyone was close to being finished with their brainstorming, I showed them how I might begin my own story.

They went back to work, and here are some of their revisions with some before and after as well.  I was so proud I *ALMOST* forgot about the sub note!

Before

After page 1

                                            After page 2 WoW!

I also have a student who needs a bit more support and normally doesn't take the tests with the class, but I had her draw a picture to help her brainstorm.  Here is her writing sample:

Have you ever done a do-over?  

The Day The Crayons Quit Writing Prompt

A few weeks ago we read the most adorable book, The Day The Crayons Quit! The students (and I) LOVED it! It is about a pack of crayons who quit coloring, and they write letters to their owners explaining why they are on strike.

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We have been working on writing narratives (Common Core Standard W.4.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.), so I thought it would be perfect for them to write a letter to themselves from their crayon's point of view.  They came out so good!  Here are a few of the letters:

My Little Guy's Birthday and A Great Writing Idea

Today was my youngest son's 7th birthday! We were lucky enough to be able to celebrate together with his class and mine.  His class is our reading buddy class, so he wanted to share cupcakes with my class. We went to their room and enoyed some yummy Steelers (his team) cupcakes.  My class made him this giant birthday card.

While we were in his room I learned a great writing idea from his first grade teacher.  At the beginning of the year she gave each student a circle map to write about themselves and the things that they liked.  Luke's circle graph had: dolphins, nachos, Chinese food, and action figures.  On the student's birthday, she has all of the students write them a letter picking one of these items as their topic to focus on.  Many letters said things about dolphins and nachos, but it was a great way to teach the kiddos to stay on topic.

Here are a few of the letters:

Luke even wrote a letter to himself!

I think I will be stealing this idea for next year, although with my 3rd graders I might have them write a paragraph for each item.

Do you have any ideas for teaching the idea of staying on topic while writing?

Martin Luther King Timeline and Writing Activity

Like many classes across the US we have been learning about Martin Luther King Jr. this week. Yesterday we read Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport.  Then I gave the students copies of the important dates and asked them to choose the four that they thought were most important in describing why we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. I thought it might give them a little practice in picking out main ideas as we seem to still struggle a bit with this skill.

The students colored in pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and pasted them to the beginning of their paper.  They drew a timeline across and used speech bubbles to write down the events they chose.  Here is what the final product looked like:

Today we worked on our essays comparing our dreams to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dreams. We started with a graphic organizer that looked like this:

Then I asked the students to brainstorm the dreams that they had for their school, their community, and the World.  This is what they came up with:

You can tell that some of their dreams are related to recent news events :(

We used the brainstorms to write a paragraph about each of these dreams.  After the students wrote about their own dreams, we went to the computer lab to research Martin Luther King Jr.'s dreams.  They wrote a paragraph about what they found.  We put the two together for a cute craftivity.

Parts of Speech Brainstorm and Fabulous Giveaway!

On Monday we started our weekly essay with this brainstorm idea I saw somewhere (I can't find the blog or the Pinterest link anywhere, so if it was you let me know so I can give you credit). Anyhow, the idea was to write their names in bubble letters, then they would write down nouns, adjectives, and verbs to describe what they did over their winter vacation.


Overall it was a great way to not only brainstorm, but also to review parts of speech. It gave me a good idea of who still needs a bit more review, and who really got it.
The only bad part was when my principal came in and asked one of my students what we were doing and he said, "making bubble letters." LOL! Well, I guess it makes learning better when they don't even realize how hard they are really working!


In other news, have you heard about the amazing giveaway from Rockin' Teacher Materials? They are giving away flashdrives loaded with tons of goodies from many different blogs and TPT sellers.  They have one giveaway for each different grade - I contributed to the 3rd grade giveaway, but you can enter whichever giveaway applies to  your grade, just click on the link when you get there for your grade. 

My Holiday Break Writing Prompt and Freebie

I don't know about you, but I am spending my "vacation" planning for the next few weeks. Ah,,, the glorious life of a teacher! LOL! I know you are all planning too, so I figured I would share this great little find from Fun in K/1.

I have a few kiddos in my class who are still having a difficult time mastering writing the elusive paragraph.  This graphic organizer will be perfect for a small group lesson for that group. I know that they will be excited to tell me all about their vacation when we get back, so they should have plenty of inspiration to write about!

I am going to have them fill out the graphic organizer.  I will then give them an opening topic sentence to help scaffold the process.  Maybe something thrillling like, "You won't believe the incredible holiday break I had!" We will then turn the phrases in the graphic organizers into supporting detail sentences. Hopefully they can restate the topic sentence in their own words to close it out.  I will keep you posted with how it goes when we get back to school.

What fun lesson ideas have you been inspired by from other blogs? Do you have any inspiration to share? Leave the link and I will stop by and check it out!