Happy Fall Everyone!
The weather here in Switzerland is turning colder and I am definitely enjoying my favorite season of the year. We have just finished our first five weeks of school and the kids are really starting to settle and get used to all our routines.
If you've read this blog before you might know that I am a huge fan of centers. I have had such great success with them and so naturally we are using them again this year. I try and teach one grammar, one writing and one handwriting mini lesson a week so that I can then let the kids get to work in their centers. This past week I combined the Grammar and Writing lesson into one and it turned out fantastic.
I use the Six Traits for my writing lessons and we started the year by learning about IDEAS. Before I prepared the mini lesson for our writing I taught a quick review of Adjectives for the grammar lesson that week.
We started by working together to come up with examples to fill in on our Anchor Chart. (I got this idea from Pinterest).
We then read the story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I asked the kids to listen for the many ideas that the author had and for adjectives that they hear in the story. After reading it we discussed the pattern that Judith Viorst used when she repeated the same line every couple of pages. The kids discussed with an elbow partner why they thought that helped the story move along.
The kids really enjoyed this lesson and did a great job using their creative ideas and smashing adjectives in their own stories.
Here is an example:
We then read the story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I asked the kids to listen for the many ideas that the author had and for adjectives that they hear in the story. After reading it we discussed the pattern that Judith Viorst used when she repeated the same line every couple of pages. The kids discussed with an elbow partner why they thought that helped the story move along.
Our next step was to do a shared writing in the same style about our own experiences with a bad day. The ideas came from the kids and they had a blast discussing them together.
The kids really enjoyed this lesson and did a great job using their creative ideas and smashing adjectives in their own stories.
Here is an example:
