What We’ve Been Up to in Writing…

Over the past several weeks, we have been focused on building our writing fluency and working our way through the writer’s process! Some of our writing has been in our journals/reader’s response notebooks, so I won’t be able to show you everything, but here are some of the writings that the kiddos have enjoyed the most!

Super Secret Heroes

We spent a week discussing the use of descriptive language in our writing and how we can really expand our sentences so that our writings will appeal to our reader’s senses. During this time, the kiddos wrote riddles to describe some of their favorite things. We then attached a silhouette to help our classmates solve the riddles!

  

   

I have to say…the cowlick and bow are too stinkin’ cute!

After our riddles, we continued practicing descriptive language through poetry using a mentor text as our guide.  We read this book:

Then, we wrote poems about where we are from and what reminds us of our short pasts! Their poems were super sweet and really helped us build an even stronger classroom community by learning more about one another!

   

Along with their writings, the students created individual timelines to highlight some of the events that make up their life!

 

After both assignments were complete, we shared with our classmates! BUT…not in the typical author’s chair kind of way! Third graders can’t handle 19 individual presentations! Plus, I didn’t want to take three writing periods to present!  So instead, we tried a little gallery walk! The students used sticky notes to leave comments and feedback about the timelines and writings! Their comments had to be specific and focus on the positive!  They loved this! {Note: I think that presenting in front of a group to build speaking skills is EXTREMELY important! Trust me…we get plenty of practice! I just prefer to allow students to practice this skill through a “teach the class” kind of way by using and applying content knowledge!}

  

This was a great way to expose the students to their classmates’ writing! Plus, they loved seeing all of their sticky note compliments!

  

 

This week, we spent time working on a persuasive writing piece titled “Bring Back the Pigs.” They are writing an essay to explain why I should bring the guinea pigs back to our classroom! I can’t wait to share their final writings.

Both of the activities above are part of my two {brand spankin’ new} units! These will be out this week…so stay tuned!

Have a happy Sunday!