Writing Maniacs!

We have been writing maniacs these past two weeks! As many of you know, writing is not my favorite thing to teach, so I have really been pushing myself and my students to go outside our comfort zone and expand our writing to the next level. Last week, we worked on our informative writing skills, while using a prompt from my Winter Writing Prompts packet.

The prompt asked each student to describe how to make a cup of hot cocoa. Each student "made" a cup of hot cocoa. I brought in the supplies and had different students come up and demonstrate the steps in front of the class. Then, we created a whole class graphic organizer of the steps we needed in order to correctly make the hot cocoa.

 I really pushed them to include specific details in their writing. When they were finished writing, they made a hot cocoa mug with marshmallows to go along with their writing.

Then we displayed their writing with the prompt, Common Core standards and rubric.

They really loved the interactive writing and felt very successful! How's that for kickin' it up a notch? We also worked on writing during our mini polar bear unit. I read the kids the book Knut.

The book has beautiful pictures and is a great introduction to informative literature. Then, we created a fact and opinion chart about polar bears.

We used Stephanie's (Falling Into First) Polar Bear Buddy packet to make these cute little guys.

Each student wrote facts and opinions about polar bears. They also wrote about where they live, what they eat and described what they look like.

How adorable are these little cuties???? That wraps up our writing for last week. This week we are going to be working on our George Washington writings... stay tuned.

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I have donated my new unit Time Will Tell, which has tons of activities for teaching time. Head on over and check out the giveaway!