Everybody's doing it? Don't you want to be part of the "in" crowd?

Sure, you've seen this before. But here is what my first-grade crew came up with using the "how to blow a bubble" project that's all the rage on Pinterest. I created my own "first, next, then, finally" writing template. If - and let's face it, when - I do this project again, I'll go the paper plate route instead of using construction paper for the faces. The construction paper was too flimsy - although I do LOVE using the new "flesh" colored construction paper. Seen it? It's awesome.
To get us started, I modeled how precise they needed to be by asking them what I should write. They told me "put the gum in your mouth." I did, without unwrapping it. They told me to blow the gum. I took it out of my mouth and blew on it. It took a bit, and they cracked up at me, but eventually they got the details down.
I gave them a piece of bubble gum and had them write as they did each step. This helped A LOT and went much better, I think, than if I'd have had them chew the gum and then write, trying to recall all the steps.

Snowman name graphing

Kindergarteners are working on graphing and reading graphs, learning consonants and vowels. So we used a marshmallow (let's be honest, you'll need two per kid ... one to paint with and one to eat) as a stamp to stamp a snowman with as many snowballs as we have in our name. I watered down a bit of white Tempra paint and gave each friend a sentence strip. I trimmed the sentence strips later. I modeled how to stack the snowballs. Some of the snowmen got hats, some got scarves just to jazz our graphic up a bit. Cuz that's how we roll in kindergarten.
The next day when this crew came to me for writing specials, the paint was dry and they used a Sharpie (trusting a 5 year old with a Sharpie is not for the faint of heart) to write the letters of their names on their snowman. THEN we graphed them ... names with four letters, five letters, six letters ... you get the drill.
Then each friend got a thought bubble and made observations. Some kids made observations about their name, some did other kids' names, some did general observations about the entire graphic.
Some of our observations included "The kids in our class with nine letters in their name are both girls." "My name begins and ends with a consonant." The little gal Rosa who came up with "my name is an A B pattern (consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel) ... too scared of her.

Expanded detail writing, or Why did the Gingerbread man cross the road?

We're working on expanding details in all grades. This is a project I did with first grade in which we worked on answering who, what, when, where, why, and how. The kids decorated a gingerbread man then wrote a story about why he (I also had a Beyonce gingerbread so, to be fair, she) ran away.
I sometimes get carried away with displays, and since I rotate through all the classes, I like to highlight which class' work I'm showcasing. Here's how I displayed the project:

Yup. It's a cookie sheet. Classy, no?

And here's a closeup of one of the projects the little darlings put together.

You read that right. Poor Kenny the gingerbread man, having outrun a fox, an owl, a bird, a cat, and some chick who wants to hang him on a wall, meets his demise when he's gobbled by a dog. "Yum!" yelled the dog.

The Squiggle

This is a lesson of which I'm particularly proud. I did it with first grade, but it could be done with any elementary grade.
We've been working hard on adding specific details to our stories. I wanted to drive the point home that you can have a GREAT idea for a story, but without your details, your reader doesn't get the full impact of what you're trying to say.
I started my lesson with the kids coming into my classroom finding me at the easel in an artists' smock, acting as if I were painting a masterpiece. When I turned away from my work, they saw I had only painted a "squiggle." I acted like I was super offended that they didn't just looooooooooove my work. Then I asked what was wrong with it. They informed me they had no idea what my squiggle was because I didn't have any details. BAAAAM you little knuckleheads! Gotcha.
Then we read the wonderful book The Squiggle by Carole Lexa Schaefer.

In it, a little girl is on a walk with her classmates when she comes across a piece of ribbon ... a squiggle. She imagines it into all sorts of amazing things but when her peers look, they only see a piece of ribbon. The wonderful illustrations in the book show the ribbon as the girl imagines it.
Then I send the kids to paint ONLY a squiggle on their papers. I model a few ideas - drawing just a circle if they want to draw a car, a line if they want to draw a tree - and send them to do their thing. I tell them to keep secret what their complete project is going to be.
We do this and usually make a text to text connection with the book (or I play the video) Harold and the Purple Crayon. (One of my GENIUS third graders came in the room after I had all the first graders' "squiggles" on the carpet to dry and made that connection. Thanks little dude! I'll work that into a lesson plan!)
The next day (remember, I have one group of first graders for 5 days, 45 minutes a day then send the little cherubs to the next specials teacher in our rotation and I get a whole new crew) when they come in, I'm again in my smock at the easel, this time with crayons, finishing my squiggle. Now I'm adding details and they like my work. Booyah. Now I model how I can make my squiggle into a real picture AND I can make my squiggle, which has become a bird, into a bird in a park with kids playing et al ... A LOT of detail. I remind them that the sign outside the door says "Ms. Green, Writing Specials," and that the next day, they're going to write a story WITH DETAILS to go with their story. They are sent on their way to work their magic.

Now we share our finished work so everyone can see what our "squiggles" have become.
As promised, the third day of fun finds us writing our story to go with our project. Again, I model adding detail to my story. They go write, I conference and assist.
Fast forward to when we get everything matted and put together and THIS is our finished product.

The part you see that's black was done in paint ... that's her "squiggle." The rest were the details she added after.

Here are some more ... yup, that's a first grader's Lightning McQueen. I couldn't draw like that if my life depended on it. The little dude who wrote the volcano story is a prodigy.

Happy 2012!

This week in writing specials, the kindergarten kids did some scientific research on gingerbread men. Specifically, we researched how we ate them! The kids have been talking about graphing, how to read graphs and what graphics represent. They've also been studying directions, left, right, et al.
They were each given a cookie and instructed to only take one bite and put their cookie back on their plate. When they'd all taken a bite, I gave them each a printout of their name and they came up and labeled a gingerbread man I'd cut out ahead of time. They put their name under the appropriate spots - head, stomach, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. When we were finished graphing, we discussed our findings. They had a lot of fun with the project. The gingerbread men didn't stand a chance.

In first grade, we did the Snowman Soup project that is all over Pinterest. We started by reading the book "In the Flaky Frosty Morning" which ends with the snowman turning in to snowman soup!
I added in a writing project by creating a "recipe" template that the kids had to complete before they were allowed to come "shop" for items for their soup. For instance, if they wanted to include mittens, they had to have written a recipe that called for mittens. We've been talking about adding specific details so they had to use specifics and adjectives ... they couldn't just write "scarf." So they wrote things like "red scarf" or "blue mittens" and I made the construction paper available so they could cut out their materials. The message being that they had to have a complete writing piece with specific details.
Rather than gluing our soup ingredients onto a flat circle like the original idea, I had the kids put their pieces in a styrofoam bowl. I wrote their names on the bottom of the bowl and after school, I used a hot glue gun, er um, I mean a, low temp glue gun as hot glue guns are illegal at my school, and glued the bowl and a plastic spoon to their placemat onto which they'd glued their recipe during class.
Here's what the project looks like all put together.

If you'd like a copy of the recipe template we used, I'll gladly share. It's a pdf which I can't upload here :(

Finally, in second grade writing specials this week, the kids did the New Year's Resolution project. I stressed that I was looking for detailed writing. They did the writing Wednesday and made their faces today. I had the kids glue their writing and their faces to a sentence strip. I added nametags to their projects and used the aforementioned glue gun to add the blower thingees (work with me, it's been a long day). Here's what they look like in the hall!

That's it for now. I'm off to Pinterest to steal, I mean research other projects! 

I might need a Pintervention

I've been bitten by the Pinterest bug. I'm so afraid something AWESOME will get posted and I'll miss it, that I'm on that site constantly. I've reorganized my board twice (I've lost count) because I had so much stuff saved on there, I needed more folders to keep it all straight. You get the idea - I'm addicted.
Now, a disclaimer: I am not a blogger. My life is not exciting enough for a blog. And after 20 years in the newspaper industry, the thought of having, on a regular basis, to put together a story about something I've done - well, that doesn't excite me much. But to post a picture on Pinterest, it seems one has to have a blog. So this is it.
Another disclaimer: It IS NOT going to be fancy. If that's what you're looking for, close my blog and go to one of the gazillions of others that are WAY more colorful, with all the bells and whistles. This is really just a spot for me to share some things I've done with anyone who's interested and, as an added perk, gives me somewhere to save my ideas that I've actually carried through in class.
Some of the things I'll post here, if you've been "pinning" much at all, you'll recognize. I've found projects on Pinterest - some are already writing projects and some I've tweaked to make into writing projects. I've tried to put my own spin on the projects. Some I've had to create templates for that the kids use to do their writing. Some projects are things I've come up with for my class.
I teach kindergarten through fifth-grade writing on a rotation - meaning a class from each grade level comes to me for a week, the following week they go to another specials class and come back to me 6 weeks later.
Thanks for visiting! Be blessed!