Story Flow: Grab and Keep Your Reader!

The boys and girls really enjoy working on their Young Author's Day books!  We work on them a little each day and every time we go over the schedule and they see "YAD" there's cheering J The kids are strong in their understanding of narrative/expository writing and it's a treat for me to help them mesh that with their creative ideas and the process of writing a book.

So far we’ve covered the planning stage where each child developed their ideas and drew out a “story map” that included characters, setting, a problem, and lose ideas about what happens in the beginning, middle, and end (ask your kiddo where they may end up if they go on a road trip without a map…) J

Next we dove into how to begin a story and what the beginning should do.  We’ve read and discussed several books as a part of this process including “What Really Happened to Humpty?” and “A Book For Bramble”.

We have also discussed what happens in the middle of stories, and what good authors do to keep a reader’s attention.  Part of the analogy we’re using is “it’s not very useful to catch a fish if you lose it while trying to reel it in”.  You can “lose a fish” by adding too many details, changing too many things, or just the opposite. 

We’re currently in the middle of our Young Author’s Day rough drafts and I can’t tell you how proud I am of how far your 3^rd grader has come with their writing.  They are really stepping up to the challenge and I can’t wait for the finished products!

 

Critical Prompt Words

At this point in the year, I can tell that the students have truly grown in their ability to identify what it is they're being asked in a question and respond appropriately. I am thinking particularly of the growth I've seen in 4-pt Quick Check questions.  Now is therefore the perfect time to begin the discussion around addressing specific writing prompts.

Prompt reading is a skill that is honed over time and with experience. Grammar, vocabulary, and personal ability are irrelevant if a writer doesn't know what they're supposed to be writing. Thankfully, there are certain key words that tend to get repeated throughout elementary curriculum. Today we created a list of words that we consistently see in prompts and then we dissected a response to the following prompt: Describe your favorite part of the day and explain why it is your favorite.

The first thing we did was pull out the critical words from the prompt: describe, explain, and favorite. Next we talked about how it's ALWAYS a good idea to begin a prompt response by repeating the prompt. Also included in our discussion was how good responses do more than respond- they elaborate and give details! They also include language relevant to the prompt (since the prompt was about a favorite time of day- we boxed words that we felt were related to "favorite"). Similarly we talked about using fun words (if we can use them correctly) J  Lastly, we talked about ending a response by relating it back to the prompt.

Phew! We worked hard on this, but the kids had a blast and were able to tell me at the end of the day the elements to a good prompt response.

They say writing a great paper that doesn't address the prompt is like riding a one-way cruise liner to the middle of the ocean: it's fun, but going nowhere. As emergent writers, I want the kids to feel successful and confident and hope building a strong foundation that directly teaches how to address a prompt will help get all their cruise liners headed toward somewhere more like Hawaii J

 

 

Applied Learning

In true March Madness fashion we said so-long to the Madness with a bang!  We reviewed how 64 teams were divided and divided all the way down to 4, and how the number of teams per region after each round was multiplied by 4 to get the total number of remaining teams.

To go along with our earned Game Day and “Air Bud” movie the students also earned Madness Goody Bags- but there was a catch.  In order to get their baggy and drink for the movie we did a rapid-fire times table and each kiddo had to answer a multiplication question J 

After the movie and recess, students used their tickets to get into our “Big Dance”!  This is where they used their whiteboards to compete for the “Wooden Trophy”!  They responded to the multiplication and division questions on the PowerPoint you were sent earlier.  The winner of each then got 3 chances to shoot a basket.  The boys and girls were so into it and very supportive- cheering and yelling for everyone to get a hoop!  The student with the most points at the end won the Wooden Trophy (a stuffed basketball) J  There were also some buzzer-beater questions to help get rid of left over candy! 

Our principal and some other building staff came in at the end to join in the last of the Madness, and to help us pick the championship game and champions…. We’ll have to see if Wichita State plays Michigan, and if Wichita State makes it all the way!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An April Fools' Prank Gone Wonderfully Awry!

What started out yesterday as a well-planned April Fools’ prank turned out to be something much more J  Our principal and I orchestrated a plan for him to come to the classroom at the end of the day during Madness Math, which he did.  He told the boys and girls that his boss, the Superintendent, had come in and seen all of our UW vs. WSU rivalry stuff and demanded it stop and we all get along- aka be on the same team.  To see if we were going to have to be Cougs or Dawgs for the rest of the year, he was formally observing me and how well I taught/how well the kids learned would determine if we could stay Huskies or would have to become Cougars!

The kiddos couldn't believe it but when they realized we were "serious", they got serious.  Our prank was going well and the kids were very engaged in the lesson J  They were working on their white boards to address questions like:  if 4 games were played over the weekend- how many total teams played? And, if there were 16 teams left on Friday and 2 teams play per game- how many games were played over the weekend? 

Then the announcement was made that we were “taking too long to solve the problems which reflected poorly on my teaching” and that “we clearly needed a Coug in charge and would have to take down all of our Dawg gear and anything purple/yellow”.  The kids thought he was kidding, but I played along and went around taking down all things Husky. 

I was still under the impression we were going to shout APRIL FOOLS’! at some point… until the principal said that if the students could solve one last problem in 2 minutes or less, he’d reconsider.  The problem was: can you determine how many teams are left in the whole tournament?  Yes or no, show your work.  They worked in partners and I’m not sure I can say the kids have ever worked harder!  They were discussing, collaborating, thinking and rethinking and then not so shockingly… they started to hold up their boards with work that clearly and correctly showed that yes, they could determine how many teams were left in the whole tournament!!

It was such a treat getting to see the kids apply newly learned skills to a real life situation.  So much so that ultimately we couldn’t tell them they’d actually done it all for a joke.  We wanted them to think they’d used their newly learned math skills to save our Husky pride, because they DID!  So, what began as a prank took an unexpected turn for the better J