Descriptive Writing, Math and a Gift to the Veterans on Valentine's Day!

What a way to incorporate ELA, Math and Kindness during this Valentine Season! Lee Silverman and Rayna Ciano integrated descriptive writing and math concepts as they had their third graders create a short story for the Veteran's  at the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol.

In Rayna's words:

"I created the story and asked the class to help me include descriptive language so I left blank spaces where I asked for adjectives, similes and metaphors, onomatopoeia, and  vivid verbs.   Then I  asked when and where we needed commas.  I also asked for when and where we should create new paragraphs.  The math concepts we included in this document are those that we have covered in class, and concepts reviewed during our RICAS released items practice.  I am delivering  to Veteran's Home on Valentine's Day."  

Take a look at the complete story below. It encompasses all of the elements of descriptive, engaging writing and seamlessly connects the math concepts of area and perimeter! Well done 3rd graders!!!

Book Tasting The Dystopian Way

Students in Robin Bishop's 8th grade, literacy classes were exposed to Dystopian Novels through a highly engaging, "Book Tasting" Presentation. As this was the next unit of study (as indicated by the 8th grade curriculum), Robin wanted the students to be able to have some choice in selecting one of the 4 novels offered by offering them time to investigate which one would best spark their interest.

The objective:
You will read excerpts from a variety of texts and decide which text to read for silent sustained reading by participating in a book tasting.

The Big Idea: 
How can we sustain a culture for reading in the classroom?

Students had to complete the Book Tasting Pamphlet below for each book, and then rate their top 2-3 choices. 

I can tell you firsthand that students truly enjoyed this experience as many were eager to dive into their selections!

Thank you Mrs. Bishop for making learning engaging!

My Favorite Winter Activity

Second graders in Kerri Yekelchik and Dina Needham's classroom write about their favorite winter activity after spending an entire lesson orally discussing their options.

Students spent time discussing with a partner the following winter activities: Building a snowman, making a snow angel, having a snow ball fight and sledding. The advantages of each were charted. It was at this point that students had to decide which activity was their favorite, with at least 3 solid reasons to support their choice. 

Before completing the graphic organizer, students also practiced orally discussing their thoughts, with an opening stating their claim, 3 solid reasons to support their opinion and an ending to sum it all up. It was the orally discussions that helped to cement students ideas and organization.

Notice the transition words that make sentence fluency seamless. 

Students are truly understanding the structure of an opinion piece. 

Thanks Dinah and Kerri for sharing these wonderful writing pieces!!!

Integrating Math and Writing Standards While Helping out the Community!

3rd graders in Lee Silverman and Rayna Ciano's class creatively help out the community while creating their own math problems AND incorporating informative writing standards. From the words of Rayna Ciano:

"Our Gingerbread man story problems are dedicated and written with love and thankfulness to our Veteran friends living in Rhode Island Veteran’s Home in Bristol. The story problems are included in a booklet. Other gifts for the veterans are hats, gloves, and ornaments."  

Writing Standards

CCSS W3.2a  Introduce a topic and group related information together; include illustrations when useful to aiding comprehension.

W3.4 With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose

"We encouraged students to use higher tiered vocabulary words, demonstrated the correct use of pronouns, and used peer editing with our wheels." 

Math Standards

CCSS . 3.OA

Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division

Understand properties of multiplication and the relationship between multiplication and division

"The students were encouraged to try two step problems, and many tried to model RICAS released items that they have been exposed to."

"Our Story Problems: These problems are hand written in each booklet. Twenty-four veterans will receive them."

Included below are some of the problems students created.

It is Christmas Eve. The baker is frantically making gingerbread men. He has baked 8 and each needs 4 gummy buttons.The baker has 30 yummy gummy buttons, does he have enough for the gingerbread men?  Explain your answer. By Sophia

The tasty brown gingerbread men each had 2 buttons.  How many buttons would a baker need to make 10 gingerbread men?  If the baker has 22 candy buttons, it is enough? Explain your thinking. By Charlotte

Once upon a time there were 130 gingerbread men just baked from Mrs. Claus’s kitchen for 40 hard working elves. Each elf gets three gingerbread.  Mrs. Claus wants to have some cookies, too. She wants 8 gingerbread men. How many gingerbread men will be left? Will there be enough for Mrs. Claus to have 8? By Mark

Mrs. Claus has hired bakers to make 30 gingerbread men.  Each gingerbread man needs 7 buttons, 4 bracelets, 1 bowtie, 2 shoes, 2 eyes, and 1 mouth.  How many accessories does the baker need to use? Show your work! By Gabrielle

Once upon a time Mrs. Claus baked 5 pans with 6 gingerbread men in each pan.  One gingerbread had magic and he counted each of his gingerbread friends, 5 x 6, how many friends does he have?  After getting the product, add 17 more gingerbread men. What is your total now? By Breonna

Thank you Rayna for sharing such a creative and heartwarming lesson!!

Adding Rigor to Writing at an Early Age!

Students in Jess Heaton's 1st grade classroom are becoming published authors. As discussed at an Examining Student Work meeting at Barnes, if younger students explore all of the writing genres and move beyond constructing a sentence to developing a full writing piece (with a beginning, middle and ending) they will have a solid foundation as the CCSS become more difficult in future years.

Thanks to Nicole Barboza, I found a terrific resource to engage students in the writing process.Below is an example of one of the writing tasks. Students were asked to write a personal narrative about "My Special Day." This was the first developed piece students wrote.

In the next piece, Jess had her students create an opinion piece about their favorite fruit. The secret to success is having students spend considerable time orally discussing their thoughts before cementing their ideas on paper.

As you can see, the graphic organizers are extremely supportive, with sentence stems and sentence starters provided, making the writing seamless.

 

Thanks Jess for sharing your students' work! The writing process for these students is becoming a fluid transition from developing one well crafted sentence! 

Self Made Recording Studio and More

First graders in Pam Alviti's class are fortunate enough to have their own "recording studio." Pam uses the online site SeeSaw to have students record themselves across the content areas. Her students love the opportunity to read aloud their sight words, discuss their favorite part of a story and converse about science topics such as the life cycle of a pumpkin.

Here is an example of one student reading his sight words in the "Recording Studio." Click here to hear him in action.

                               

Here are additional samples of the activities she has created on SeeSaw.

 

Another great corner of the room allows students to practice tying their shoes.

Terrific use of table legs! What better way is there to practice shoe tying??

Thanks for sharing your unique ieas Pam!

Monthly Writing Stations

Monthly writing stations are uplifting and engaging in Nicole Carroll and Tess Arico's kindergarten classroom! Each month students are introduced to a new theme with activities that include:
Word Lists, Labeling, Letter Writing and Recipes. Each unit has colored word cards with the name of each object below its picture.  See below.

Students complete their November Word List below.

These are samples of students labeling their Thanksgiving Feast with words from the November Center

Students who can, are asked to write a sentence on the back of the paper.

Students are able to work at their level based on their writing ability. Great unit for differentiating!

Thanks for sharing Nicole and Tess!