Students Use Story Cubes as Story Starters

My students love using story cubes to release their creativity. These story starters are really fun to read.

A castle under siege!! Now that is creative.

Look at the indenting, capitalization, and use of punctuation! Nice job.

Creating a definition of one of the cubes.

A shooting star and idea light bulb above someones head showing the idea to build a rocket. Now that is original!

Sometimes simplicity is beautiful!

One sentence that sparks so many questions.

Capitalization Strategy-MINTS

We have been learning the finer points of capitalization. Found on Pinterest we used this acronym to help students remember what we capitalize. This has been an easy exit ticket question for review. My students remember when to capitalize...now how can we transfer that knowledge to actual writing?

Why Do Elephants Have Trunks? Sentence Building

Our sentence building question for this week was: 

Why do elephants have trunks?

Some favorites this week:
If they didn't have trunks they would not look like an elephant.
If they didn't have trunks they couldn't breath.
Elephants have trunks because the crocodile pulled it that way.
Elephants have trunks so they can paint.
Elephants have trunks so they can spray themselves with water.

Lesson objectives:

• Review adjectives-how using describing words create better sentences for the reader
• Review synonyms
• Use the online dictionary to find synonyms
• Create a colorful list of words to add to our vocabulary
• Have fun while learning

I learned that elephants can paint! My students repeatedly said that elephants have trunks so they can paint. I asked them, "Are you sure"? Well, they schooled me this week. Check it out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZxSPSWxwjI

Why Do Pirates Wear Eye Patches? Sentence Building

A very quick sentence practice that we are doing in our class. 

(Question found on Pinterest)

Day 1

Directions:

1. Answer the question with 1 complete sentence. Explain why we do not start a sentence with because.
2. Edit with "Gimme 5"
3. Present your answer to the class before adding it to the board (practicing our public speaking skills!)

Students can "Gimme 5" or tell me the 5 things a sentence needs:

• Capital Letter
• Subject
• Verb
• Makes Sense
• Punctuation

Day 2
The following day we discussed ADJECTIVES. I love describing words! We played a game from the Florida Center for Reading Research, where there was an item in a bag. We needed to use our describing words to see if our partner could guess what it was.
We then filled out describing words for common things like Moon, Dinosaurs, Cats and Dogs.

Day 3 
Directions
1. Review ADJECTIVES
2. Grab your sticky note sentence and highlight the subjects or nouns
3. Add the nouns you choose to the boxes and add 4 describing words
4. Transfer your adjectives to you new sticky note and improved sentence.
5. Present your new and improved sentences

Our new and improved 7th grade sentences!! We are shooting high since we are 4th and 5th graders. What do you think? 

The students loved it..and wanted to create the next few questions. Look forward to: Why do elephants have trunks? and Why do Ninjas have swords?

Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1a Introduce a topic or text clearly
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1b Provide logically ordered reasons that are supported by facts and details.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.4 Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1b Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles.

Quotation Marks

Sometimes a lesson just comes together.  The students loved this activity!

1.  Pair Students
2.  Each pair gets an envelope that contains a whole sentence-words only and individually cut
3.  Students work together to create a sentence that makes sense

When they have their sentences finished....

4.  Ask students to give you five! (Capital, Subject, Verb, Makes Sense, Punctuation)  What is missing?

PUNCTUATION

5.  Give them all sorts of punctuation marks and see what they come up with.
6.  Play Video if they need help with quotation mark placement. Or play it just for fun!!

7. As a follow up lesson or review, play feet punctuation. Students are given a giant words and must build a sentence with correct punctuation using their feet.

And after a fun day using quotation marks... we say goodbye to our class Punctuation Mascot!!

Reading Monday

It's MONDAY!

What are we reading this fine Monday?

We are reading our own works of literature! We created stories about our best day ever and shared them around the campfire with hot chocolate.

The students had great stories to tell and enjoyed reading them out loud. We even had a surprise visitor! Mr. Staheli (principal) and Mrs. McBride (Curriculum Coordinator). We also played telephone around the campfire using our new vocabulary words.

Christmas Writing Workshop

Here is a great book about creativity and hard work. The students loved that Russell, came to the rescue and helped save Christmas.

This week with the help of this wonderful book we learned:

• Building a Character Map: which included the skills of finding details in the book and drawing inferences
• Using our creativity to find solutions for Santa
• Paragraph writing skills- focus on indenting
• Writing that is step by step-sequence of events
• Writing that makes sense to the reader

 Some details about the characters were given right in the story. The others we had to come up with and then prove using details from the story.

 We played a game after everyone filled out their character map. No one knew which character we had picked. We gave our details and everyone tried to guess which character it was. With only 2 main characters..we had a 50/50 chance!!

 The next step was discussing the creative way that Russell helped Santa and what we would have done.

WHAT IS A SANTA TO DO?

What if Santa got stuck in the chimney?? What would you do or how would he solve his own problem?

Some of the student's plans for getting Santa out of the chimney:

• KS: I would pick up something heavy and throw it in the chimney and it would push Santa out.
• AM: I would make a peanut butter and honey  machine and make him slip out.
• CO: I would put metal along side of Santa and he would slip out.
• BM: I would blink my magic eyes and he would magically be out. My family would be proud of me.
• CM: I would take magic from his sleigh and throw it on him and then disappear.
• MS: I would make a fire in the fireplace and it would be so hot he would jump out.
• BB: The reindeer would get him out with their horns.
• AB: Santa fell into the chimney because he was standing up in his sleigh. That is how he fell and got stuck. You shouldn't stand up in a sleigh.
• IN: He would ask the reindeer for help and if that didn't work he would push himself out.
• SS: He would push and push and push himself out. If that didn't work I would jump on him till he was out.
• JC: I would pull and pull him out. If that didn't work I would go in the house and push him out.

Read Santa's Stuck by Rhonda Growler Greene


Linking to our Common Core Standards we:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.