Show Don't Tell

In class lately we have been practicing our "Show Don't Tell" techniques. I read to the students the book, "Go Away, Big Green Monster" by Ed Emberley. As I was reading, I made it a point to not show the pictures on the pages so the students could not see. Students had a blank piece of manila construction paper and crayons/markers/colored pencils. As I read a page I instructed the students to draw how they thought, based on the book's description, the monster looked. At the end of the book I showed the monster to the students and they showed me their pictures. We then discussed ways that the author could have been a little more descriptive in his wording to make it easier to visualize. The students really seemed to get a kick out of this and hopefully the technique sticks with them of using elaborative detail in their writing!!

Using our Writer's Eyes!

This six weeks we have really been honing in on our editing skills. Students who have published at least three of their own papers get to become student editors and now get to revise/edit their peer's papers. This has been an exciting experience for the editors because this is an "honor" earned, they get to choose the papers from here on out that they personally get to publish, they get their name on the wall AND get to wear cool editing glasses while they edit the papers. By wearing the glasses it shows others that they are working and are not to be bothered, as well as, the glasses make editing papers just a little bit more fun! :) Check out some of our student editors in action!!!

The Story Window -Uncle Chris

Conclusions - The Dyna-Write Ending -Uncle Chris

Imagination Exploration- Uncle Chris

Vivid Verbs Lesson- Uncle Chris

A visit from Uncle Chris!

This past Thursday and Friday our 4^th grade students recently received a fun visit from “Uncle Chris”. Students attended two hour long workshops each day on Thursday and Friday. These workshops assisted the boys and girls in the brainstorming process, with hooking introductions, writing “dyno-write” conclusions, making their sentences more detailed and so much more. The students loved every minute of each of the workshops and have a new spark when working on their writing. For more information about "Uncle Chris" be sure to visit his website! http://www.thestorywindow.com/ 

Light Bulb Sentences

This current six weeks we have been focusing a bunch on parts of speech identification. We have recently learned about Adverbs, Articles and Prepositions but have been reviewing our knowledge of Nouns, Proper Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, and Conjunctions- Whew! We have been learning a ton! A great way way to wrap it all up and get into the holiday spirit was to make our own Christmas lights!

First the students had to create their very own Christmas sentence. After writing down their sentences on their papers, they then were challenged with labeling each word's part of speech. After their identifications, they then had to ensure their sentences had at least 5 different parts of speech in them. If their sentences lacked, they were taxed with including in a missing link.

Here is the color code we used:
Nouns and Proper Nouns- Red
Verbs- Light Blue
Adjectives- Yellow
Adverbs- Orange
Pronouns- Purple
Articles- Green
Prepositions- Pink
Conjunctions- Dark Blue

Check out the student samples below. They did AWESOME!

Happy Highlighting!

Today we tried something new with our sentence diagramming. We took our past S.E.W. (Stop Everything and Write) papers and decided to decorate them with some color. We first started with nouns. The students were instructed to find all of the nouns they wrote in their story - Proper Nouns, and all types of Common Nouns- Persons, Places, Things and Ideas. Once they finished with nouns, we moved on to Verbs! We broke out the blue and first started with Action Verbs. After finishing that we reviewed Linking and Helping Verbs and colored those blue as well. Finally, we opened up our Yellows and searched for Adjectives. The students seemed to get a kick out of doing it and it was a nice variation to our daily grind. The nice revelation I saw with the students (hopefully it sticks) was that some of them realized their papers were in fact not very colorful....which poses a structural problem. We discussed and agreed that we "knew" Subjects were Nouns and Predicates were Verbs. We then talked about how we "knew" that in order to have complete sentences you had to have a Subject and a Predicate.....thus meaning each sentence needed a Noun and a Verb. So it opened some eyes to some when they did not see a red and blue pattern on their papers. Most of the papers I saw were a sea of red. Our final connection was that if we were truly using Elaborative Detail in our papers then there would have been a lot more yellow- which was the least seen color. All in all I think it was a great way to put things into perspective and remind the students that it is not just about "knowing" the information, you have to apply it all in your writing! Below are two great examples of what I was hoping to see out of today's lesson.

We Are Thankful

Today students practiced their Expository writing skills by jotting down the things they were thankful for. The students came up with three things and then went into detail about why they were thankful for them. We will be sending some of the letters to the Joshua newspaper. Be sure to check it out!

Lip Clips....My Teacher is Crazy!

Has our teacher lost her mind? Well...the jury is out. However, I would wager to believe that my students will remember the lesson....well hopefully AT LEAST some of it. We talked today about hooking introductions. We discussed why you need them, the five types, and examples of each. Students know that from today on they are expected, in each paper they write, to have a hooking introduction. Quiz your students on the five types and challenge them to give you examples of each. Below are the examples from today's prompt....and an explanation why I look the way I do. :)

Students were shown the prompt below and challenged to brainstorm and write a paper over the topic.

While the students were ooooh'ing and aaaah'ing over the photo and daydreaming of the possibility, I quickly placed on my own lip clips. My chosen flavor for the lip clips happened to be...pickles.

See the options below listed (using the prompt and information above) when choosing what introduction to create for your composition.

Type #1: Action -You begin the sentence with an action verb.
Licking my lips for the third time, I still could not believe I could actually taste the flavor of pickles on my tongue.

Type #2: Onomatopoeia -Sound Words
Smack! My lips tasted so good, I could hardly control my excitement.

Type #3: Dialogue -Talking
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love my new lip clips Willy Wonka!"

Type #4: Question
Do you like the flavor and taste of pickles?

Type #5: Feeling
I rushed to the mailbox and peeked inside. My heart leaped out of my chest in excitement when I saw the box addressed to me from Willy Wonka!

*Students for every piece of their writing need to choose ONE of these types to use as their introduction. Hooking your reader is so very important. If you received a boring paper, would you want to read it?

My Teacher Is Missing!!!

Recently I was stricken with a bad bug and wound up in the hospital briefly. Well I have always had this lesson in my emergency sub folder, but never had to use it. The assignment was that your teacher, Mrs. Welch, is missing. Where is she? The students had to individually brainstorm where they thought I was and then write a story about it. The kids did awesome!! :) Some of the stories were really great. Examples below.

Wacky Writing Project One

 

 On September 9, I assigned our first Wacky Writing Project for the year. Students were given an opportunity to choose 5 words and were asked to define each word and figure out it's part of speech. Students then were to complete a rough draft of their story including those 5 words in their writing. Once a game plan is established, they use the manilla paper to present their final draft. Students always love this assignment and I always enjoy reading their fun stories! This project is due on September 30. Students have a total of 3 weeks to get this accomplished. If the student turns in their project prior to the due date, they can potentially earn up to 20 points extra credit. I greatly encourage parents to work on this with your student. This is a great way to help them with school and show them creative ways to write.

Below is a picture of some of the words they had to choose from.