Super Informational Writing!

My kiddos finished up some truly SUPER informational writing pieces during this spring. I wanted to finish translating the template and getting the pack ready to share with you all before I posted them...and now that I have a little more free time with school out...it is finally ready to go!

In creating their pieces my kids worked hard to select a topic of interest to them, research the topic in a variety of ways, and go through the writing process from beginning to end to publish a piece of informational writing in English. I am seriously honored to share some of their work with you today. I am so proud!

After immersing ourselves in a variety of informational texts and learning the why's and how's of how authors select their topics, each of my students chose a topic they either knew a great deal about and/or were dying to learn about!

Here are just a few they came up with:

My students were each required to create at least four chapters for their pieces as well as an introduction and conclusion. Here are some examples of the chapters written from the pieces above:

As you can see some students chose to print images from home to add...and others created their own illustrations! I left it up to them :)!

The voice of this student in this piece on volleyball just shines through. I love it! Check out the second page..."You should not wear any type of jewelry or braces".  Too funny! You can see this one used a marker to bolden "jersey" and "braces" as well as they were part of her glossary of course!

Each of the students were also required to add at least one "extra" in the publishing process. They could do this through including a Glossary, Index, Table of Contents, etc. 

Here are some completed examples that go with a book titled "How to Take Care of a Puppy":

I love her dedication page...just perfect for her topic!

I seriously wish I could share all of their work with you all! They were so excited to share them with one another!

If you are interested in creating informational pieces with your students, my newest pack includes all of the pages shown here and more for your students use! Of course, they all come in English and Spanish as well! Click on the image to take you to my TpT store!

Writers' Workshop Posters/Anchors

Thought I'd share some of our most useful writing anchor charts with you all tonight gracing the walls of our classroom, as well as a new pack I just got up on TpT which includes the posters I use to guide my students through the writing process!

So first off, here is the chart I have hanging on my cabinets (must utilize all space!) which my students use to highlight their current step in the Writers' Workshop process. We have been working as a class to select ideas for our non-fiction writing unit...so as you can see they are all currently working in this step!

This is a anchor chart we have located in our writing area (next to the step posters) which corresponds with each one. My students use this poster as a resource and reminder of what is expected of them at each point in the process. We completed it together at the beginning of the year in both English and Spanish. (The English was in pink...which unfortunately is fading! It may need a facelift.)

This anchor helps the students to remember the key parts of an organized piece of writing. (Yes, it is the ole' familiar hamburger...but it works!)

These anchors share with students some of the "extras" they can add during the publishing stage. For instance, an "about the author", "dedication", "story summary", or "book critiques" may be options for them. Below on the second anchor, we have a list of questions students need to think about in selecting a topic. 

They are:

1. What idea has a lot of importance to me?

2. On what idea can I elaborate more?

3. What idea is going to be the most interesting for my readers?

We use this anchor when sharing our pieces. It includes key phrases students can use in discussing peers' work. There are key phrases to use for "works in progress" as well as "published work".

This punctuation poster is one students utilize a lot during the editing stage. It also serves as a great reminder for them that there is more than one type of sentence they can use in their writing! (PS. This one is modeled after an adorable one I found at First Grade Glitter and Giggles.)

Finally, the kiddos use this one as a tool for adding transition words into their pieces to better organize their writing.

I must say that there are so many more anchors we use that go up and down throughout the year! (Don't we all wish we had more space?) But these are definitely our staples! What are some anchors that are writing "staples" in your classroom?!

If you would like to grab a copy of our Writers' Workshop process posters for your own classroom, feel free to click on the spread below. The pack includes all posters in English, Spanish, or both languages to meet the needs of a variety of classroom settings!

I'm back...with narratives to share!

Hey all! I know, I know...I have been completely MIA for quite sometime! But it was spring break...and the fam and I headed out on a beautiful, magnificent, relaxing 7 day cruise and my computer was thousands of miles away! Thought I'd share a little bit of the fun with my blog family below :)!

As you can see, Flat Stanley joined in the fun. Our third graders do an activity with him each year, so I brought him along for one of the kiddos to document our adventures!

Needless to say...relaxing is over...and it is back to business here. Thought I'd share a quick lesson with you all tonight that I recently did with my students as a way for them to share their published personal narrative pieces they just finished up! 

So first off, here is an example of one of the finished products. My kiddos had the option to choose an event, place, pasttime, etc. that was important and close to their heart. They created a cover with the title of their piece, illustration, and author name...

then they used the writing paper provided to neatly write their piece! We stapled/glued it all together to create this adorable little masterpiece.

I must admit this piece took quite sometime for the kids to take through the entire writing process, thus, as much as I adore author's chair, I was pretty ready just to knock out the sharing in one day if possible because we have a schedule to stick to!

Thus, I came up with a little "writing museum/post-it activity" that worked just splendidly. Each of my kids received 3 post-its. On two post-its they wrote a "C" in the corner for "cumplido" or compliment. In one they wrote an "M" for mejorar or something that could be improved upon in a piece of writing. 

We discussed how all comments should be helpful not hurtful and constructive as their friends put a lot of time and effort into these pieces and we also brainstormed some ideas for effective comments.

Then I asked the kids to place their writing on their desks and gave them about 15-20 minutes to walk around the room reading their peers' pieces and leaving comments as they thought necessary. I encouraged them to leave post-its on pieces that may not have one yet or that they were really impressed with so that everyone received at least one. They did a really wonderful job with it and made some stellar comments!

Here are some examples:

"compliment - I like how you used a lot of periods."

"improve- I would like you to use more adjectives"

They really got into it...and it gave them an opportunity to share they writing (in a speedy way!) and still receive productive feedback!

Does anyone else have any creative ways for sharing student writing? I'd love to hear them!

Author Inspiration

We have been working tirelessly to collect a variety of ideas and topics that we can use for inspiration as writers! One of the ways we do this is through studying the work of other authors and taking the time to learn about what inspires them to write their stories. We read several of their books including the dedication and "About the Author" and we also visited the websites of the authors to investigate and see if we could find out more about them. After doing this, we created posters with short snippets of information we learned about what inspires each author. Here are the finished posters for the first three authors we have studied:

The students also had a graphic organizer to document the same snippets of information:

They all glued this once we finished inside of their "Writer's Notebooks" in their "idea" section along with all of the other idea envoking activities we have accomplished!

I also give the students the option, if they would like, to reread the stories we have read by these authors in class and/or select new ones to read during their idependent reading time. They always get so excited about the stories, once we begin to dive into learning about these authors and recognizing patterns in their stories! Here is how I work to set out some of the books for easy access for them:

Love my magnetic walls and shelving!

I also love the cheapo frame holders from Walmart- perfect for books!

Finally, if you are interested here are the websites for the authors we studied (seriously...these are such a great tool for learning more about them!):

Patricia Polacco: http://www.patriciapolacco.com/

Marc Brown: marcbrownstudios.com

Kevin Henkes: http://www.kevinhenkes.com/

Multiplication Monsters and Persuasive Paragraphs

This week I was just looking for some activities to do with my class for fun to continue to prep them for multiplication in 3rd grade! They rocked all of our second grade review these past couple weeks- and were so excited to hear that this week we would be focusing on improving our multiplication skills. Since it is the end of the year and our focus is well...nill...I wanted to find something fun to help them practice their facts. I found an adorable activity from Katie @ Third Grade Teacher Files called "Multiplication Monster". 

I translated it for my kiddos and voila:

Click on the image to snag a copy in Spanish. If you would like it in English, click on the link above to go to Katie's blog. So here is the deal: the students roll a die two times to determine their mulitplication problem and then solve it to determine how many eyes, horns, teeth, and so on their monster will have. Then, they roll it one time to determine what their body will look like. Finally, they draw! Here are some examples from my littles:

So much fun!

We also finished up our persuasive writing pieces today. At the end of the year we always finish up with a piece in which the students have to "persuade" me that they are ready to go to third grade! They were quite convincing. I think they are ready ;)!

Here are a few of our finished products:

In English...

...and Spanish

We wrote in both languages- depending on the student's home language. As tomorrow we have our annual "Second Grade Super Graduation" in my classroom and the students read their writing to their parents! Thus, I like to have them do it in their home language so all parents can understand :)

For some reason, I forgot to save the writing paper we used for this activity on my jump drive. I must have saved it at school. If you'd like a copy, let me know and I would be happy to send it to ya!

Stay tuned for some photos from our super "hurrah" tomorrow! It is one of the highlights of my year!

Poetry Cafe

To conclude our Poetry unit and celebrate our publications we hosted a Poetry Cafe today in our classroom! 

Of course to get an authentic feel we had to have some "coffee".

I borrowed an amp and microphone from our music teacher so that we could be sure to hear every word!

And away we went...

We had so much fun! 

Here are a few of my students published pieces in English and Spanish :)

I love the diversity in their writing. They created such a variety of types of poems and used such a great variety of tools! So proud of my poets!

Spring Narrative Kites

So each spring break I send a "Spring Break Journal" home with my students and ask them to write in it each day at the end of the day, relaying some of the days important events. This is an easy way to keep them writing over spring break.

Then when we return from break, the students use their journals as a tool for creating a narrative writing piece. I ask them to select one event (could be their favorite, one they thought was special, etc.) from their spring break that they had shared about in their journal. They then will use that event as their topic and elaborate on it to create a detailed narrative paragraph.

These are always so fun for me, because it gives me a glimpse into the kids daily home lives as well as is always interesting to see what they choose for their "one" event to base their story on. I had kids chose events ranging from Bull's games, to a play date with friends, to a trip to the laundromat, believe it or not- and they all did exactly as I asked- they told a story about an event in their lives!

To make them more spring timey and pretty to hang- we mounted our final copies onto scrapbook paper to make a spring kite and used yarn and colored tissue paper to create the kite string and matching bows! Have a look!

Anywho...here is what the rest of my night entails....

Anyone else having an egg-citing evening!?

Writer's Workshop

One of my (and I think my student's too) favorite parts of the each day is Writer's Workshop. This is a time in which the kids truly take charge of their own learning and can express their creativity. Each day for Writer's Workshop we follow the same general routine. I have a very limited time (as I am sure you all understand) to squeeze it all in- but here is a general idea of how it looks in my class room:

(10 minutes) Mini-Lesson
(20 minutes) Writing and one-on-one or small group conferencing
(5 minutes)  Author's Chair
= 35 minutes in all

I told you it was short, sweet and to the point! However, I know if they had the time my student's could spend hours completely focused and engaged in what they are creating every day!

Here are the posters I use in my classroom for the students to relay which stage of the writing process they are currently at (superkid themed of course). The kids begin with their clip on the first poster and continue moving it down as they move through the process.

Up Close :)

You will notice that all of the signs are bilingual. This is because my students often write in both languages!

The first step my students begin with is their first copy. They then move on to revise/edit. There is a specific guide sheet to help them through this process that I have attached below for you as well. After they revise their paper, they meet with a peer who has also just finished revisions/editing to have a peer conference. Once finished with this, my students must sign up for a conference with me. You will note (sorry you cannot see it so well- this was a quick cell camera pic) that on this poster the student must sign up on the English column or Spanish column relaying to me in what language they have written their story. This helps me out, particularly on days when I have small group conferences. Final step- publish! My students can chose how they would like to publish their story. I have had kids make everything from a simple paper attached to a drawing to theatrical plays with puppets! I try my best to give them the tools they need to utilize their imaginations! Sometime soon I hope to dive into digital storytelling with them as a possible venue for publishing as well!

Writing Supplies :)

Here are a few of the documents we use each day to guide us through this process:

1. Revise and Edit Checklist my students use that they staple to their first copy.
2. Writing Conference log that my students keep in their data binders. I fill this out each time they have a conference with me sharing something positive about their writing and something I would like them to work on.
3. Our Author's Chair sign up. I have this laminated on construction paper and hung on my board. Students sign up once they have finished publishing their piece.

Click here to download the checklist. (It is in Spanish too if you scroll down!)

Click here for the conference log in English and Spanish.

Click here for the Author's Chair Poster.

What types of handouts, organizers, etc. do you use for Writer's Workshop? I am always looking for new ideas!

Transition Words

So this week we focused on how to use transition words effectively to organize our writing. To start off the week, we looked at a piece of writing, and I asked the students to share any words in the piece that they thought helped to organize it and put it in order.

On Tuesday we created this transition words pencils. The purple is in Spanish and the green in English. They each have two sides- one (pictured on the Spanish pencil) provides the students with different words they can use at the beginning, middle or end of their stories. The other (pictured on English pencil) are other examples of transition words that students may find useful. The students keep these pencils in their Writer's Workshop folders and can pull them out whenever they need!

Throughout the week I utilized pieces of student writing as examples and we worked together (using our nifty pencils) to add transition words to enhance the piece.

On Friday, we read the story "Si le das un pastelito a un gato" by Laura Numeroff. All of her books work great for transition words- she uses so many examples! I gave each student a post-it note and asked them to listen for transition words that the author uses in her writing and jot them down as I read. Afterword we shared the examples we had found as well as discussed how using these words helped the author to better organize her writing. 

Here is an example of some of their post-its. (Sorry the dark purple wasn't real conducive to a photo.)

Look forward to a post soon about how I do Writer's Workshop in my classroom. (As soon as I can get a grasp on this whole embedding Google Docs business.)

Have a great Monday!