Andy Warhol, Letter Writing, the Grinch and Assessment

I love Andy Warhol at Christmas.  Here's a quick and effective art activity.

1.  Provide a variety of Christmas tracers for children to choose from.  They will choose 1 symbol and trace it 4 times.
2.  Students colour each box in a different way.  I encourage children to colour dark (no white spaces) and keep the designs simple.  I also remind them that what they add to one design, they add to all designs.  We use oil pastels to make our art pop.


I love the panoramic option on my iPhone5!

We have been working on writing letters in the classroom.  I loved the Help Wanted persuasive letter writing activity I put into my North Pole Times at TpT.  Being able to choose their writing topic gave the kids opportunity to be specific with their reasons and examples to support their job of choice.

As for assessment, I created some rubric labels for the learning goals and success criteria we focused on.  Here are our I can statements for writing letters with the Curriculum Expectations:
W1.1  I can identify the topic, purpose (opinion) and form (paragraph, letter) for writing.
W1.5, W2.1  I can use graphic organizers to plan and write my ideas with supporting details.
W2.5  I can form an opinion and support it with reasons and personal experience.
W2.4  I can use linking words (first, then) and joining words (because, so).
W2.6, W2.7  I can use feedback from the teacher to improve my writing. 
·  “Can you think of another way you might get the attention of your audience at the beginning?”
·  “Have you provided enough detail to support your main idea?”
·  reorder sentences, remove repetition, add examples, add linking words / phrases (connect ideas)
We read a couple of my favourite books about letters:

  



Then we revisited How to Write a Letter.  Earlier in the week we watched the cartoon version of The Grinch and talked about how characters can change.  We webbed the character traits of the Grinch at the beginning and at the end.  We retold the story from beginning, middle and end.  In the end the children wrote a letter to the Grinch persuading him not to steal the toys from Whoville.  You can find the Grinch letter freebie here.

R1.5 I can infercharacter traits of The Grinch by his words and actions.
R1.9 I can retell the story from the perspective of The Grinch / Cindy Lou Who
R1.4 I can retell the story using details about specific elements of the text such as characters and theme.

North Pole Times: Christmas Persuasive Writing Activities

I can't wait to introduce persuasive writing this Christmas season with my new: North Pole Times.  I love that my kids can choose the job they want to apply to!  You can find it at my TpT store here.

 
  

s-blend word sort and Polar Bears Past Bedtime freebie

This week we worked with s-blends.  We also read Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Mary Pope Osborne (#12 in the Magic Tree House series).  Who knew it was a perfect book for sorting all kinds of s- words!

Here is a word sort freebie for the book.  I may have gone a bit overboard with the amount of words from the book!  But I figure I will add the strips to our word work bin and the kids can continue to sort the words until they are pros.

 

Check out our big class sort.  They even figured out the oddballs (words that looked like s-blends but didn't sound like s-blends: 2 letters = 2 sounds and 3 letters = 3 sounds).

 

On another note, this week's hangman illustrator got creative!

Into the Garden with Alice in Wonderland

I finally posted my Alice in Wonderland unit on my TpT store!  My students loved the book and asked if I would be teaching the book again this year.  Always a good sign!  You can find the unit here. 

 

 

 

Cyber Monday and Making Choices

You can find my TpT products on sale this Monday and Tuesday.  Don't forget to use the code CMT12 for extra savings!

I have finally updated my choice bins for literacy.  You can find my Daily 5 bin labels here. This past week the children explored our Work on Writing and Word Work Games bins.  They were a hit!

I love this choice board!  Research and Word Work Games are certainly the favourites so far.  Here are the kids at work with Word Work Trouble (practicing punctuation skills with You've Been "Punct!) and Research (completing datapillars with these great Lakeshore research cards I've had for years).

You can find my research paper chains here.

I added 5 whole class journals to my Work on Writing literacy bin.  Here's how they turned out:

You can find my 5 whole class journal labels here.

There are some great freebies for Work on Writing online.  Check out: The School Potato and Second Story Window for some great ideas on whole class journals and journal prompts.

A Lot Can Happen In The Woods: A Fairy Tale Companion

I have a child in my class on an IEP with modified curriculum.  She loves participating in our Word Work activities at the beginning of the day.  But by after morning recess she no longer has the attention span to remain in class without a break.  So I created this resource to be used with her EA to address the curriculum expectations that are on her IEP but she would be missing in the classroom.

I was inspired by a TpT resource I purchased: Stephanie Kinley's Goldilocks Literacy and Writing Fun!  It is a great resource and complement to these fairy tale printables.

My resource can be found at my TpT store and is aptly called: A Lot Can Happen In The Woods.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Explore 6 popular fairy tales with graphic organizers, flip books, Venn diagrams, word sorts, highlighting, drawing, writing, cut + pasting:

• retell stories
• sequence stories
• beginning, middle, end
• story vocabulary
• high-frequency words
• write sentences
• compare characters
• compare fairy tales

Hallowe'en + descriptive words

This Hallowe'en I was inspired by Vocabulary on Parade by Amanda Nickerson.  With sticky notes and a marker in hand, the children visited their peers, decided on a descriptive word for their costume / Hallowe'en character, and delivered their note to the child's desk.  It was a quick but effective activity.  They even described Jack!

One of my favourites: miney, crafty.  Can you guess who he was?