My writing classes have been bursting with creativity lately. I hope many of you had a chance to read and comment upon the 2nd and 3rd grade stories that were on display in the gym last week. Many books were taken home last Friday, but the remaining ones have been placed in Friday folders and can be taken home at any time. They were incredibly fun to create, and I know the students are proud of their work. When they saw how many comments were written about their story, their faces lit up. Thank you for reading them and leaving such meaningful compliments. It really means a lot and makes their writing so much more meaningful.
As 2nd and 3rd graders finish story writing, they will continue to embrace their creative ideas as we begin a unit on poetry. Here, everyone will write poems about individual topics of their choice and experiment with different poetic techniques. We have studied alliteration, rhyme, and incorporating shape and art into poems effectively. We will soon discuss how to use descriptive verbs and other ways to improve word choice. At this time, we are enjoying generating a lot of poems. Later, we will select several poems to edit/revise and publish as final copies as we continually become more and more comfortable with the writing process. We also anticipate writing outdoors to let nature inspire our work.
In my 2nd grade classes, we have also begun using the Handwriting Without Tears writing program to continue refining and practicing our letter formation. We will continue to practice in these workbooks for 15-20 minutes about three days a week. Similarly, 3rd graders have begun learning cursive. They are also using the Handwriting Without Tears program. Learning cursive is a special part of 3rd grade, and many students are excited to get started. We will practice cursive for 20-30 minutes, two to three times a week.
Finally, 1st graders are fully immersed in composing All About Me books. A 1st grade tradition, All About Me books are a great place to practice sounding out words and creating complete sentences. There will be seven chapters total, covering topics such as, my home, school, family and so on. 1st graders will draft their work, then complete ‘best effort’ final copies to finalize their books. Writing a draft and then making a final copy for a whole book is a lot of work for 1st graders! It will take a long time, but in the end, they will be proud of their first books. When everyone is finished, the books will go on display in the gym for comments.
All of my writing classes have been exciting, fun and creative! As always, email or catch me before/after school for questions and concerns.