Writing Archives - Ideas by Jivey

Sharing Sunday: Snow Themed Activities {1st-3rd}

November 29, 2015

Here comes December! Oh my goodness, how is the year almost over?? The authors of The Primary Peach are back again this month to make your life easier and help you plan for these crazy few weeks before Winter Break! I am sharing some fabulous activities with a snow globe theme- great for grades 1-3. The best part: almost all of them are freebies or ideas from blog posts! Click on any of the images below to download the PDF. Once you are on the PDF, click around on all of the images to visit the resources!

Head over to The Primary Peach for more Sharing Sunday posts!

3-5, Mastering Mentor Sentences, Mentor Texts

Tying It All Together With Mentor Texts {with freebies!}

October 10, 2015

Mentor texts are perfect for students of all ages! If you don’t believe me, read here. 🙂 One of the best parts of using a mentor text is that it gives you more time to TEACH! Once you’ve read the book one time, you only need to re-read or refer to parts of it for your mini-lessons.

In this post, I am going to explain how I used the book, When Lightning Comes in a Jar by Patricia Polacco to review vivid verbs in writing (and help them implement in their own writing), review parts of speech and similes in grammar through mentor sentence lessons, and do a close reading lesson where they use text evidence to support their thinking during reading.

You can find all of the activities I will be discussing in these two freebies in my store:

The students were already familiar with vivid verbs, so I wanted them to “read like a writer” and listen for vivid verbs as I read the story to them for the first time. Patricia really has a beautiful way with words, and all of her books have great vivid verbs- this one was no exception!

Students wrote all of the vivid verbs they heard as I read, then they shared what they heard with a partner. This recording sheet becomes part of their writing resource folder, so they can use it during writing time to help them revise if they need ideas. Later in the week, I had them pull out their writing piece and work on revising their verbs.

Over the course of the week, we also used one sentence from the story as our mentor sentence:

The focus was still on vivid verbs to tie in with our writing lessons, but look at all the other great things we got to talk about with this sentence! Compound subject, simile, prepositions, proper noun, plurals… the list goes on! That’s what I love about mentor sentences- the students get so much out of it each week and it really becomes a spiral review if you consistently use them. They are also looking at why the sentence is written WELL instead of a bad sentence full of errors (trying to figure out what might be wrong with it).

One thing students always need more practice with is close reading and finding evidence… but you don’t have to only do this with a nonfiction article! As a teacher, you can legally photocopy an excerpt of a book for the students to use in an educational setting. I copied the two pages where the aunts and Gramma were telling crazy tall tales. Students read this quietly and annotated their thoughts as they read, then we discussed their thoughts. They agreed that Aunt Ivah was exaggerating her story because no one would pick up a rattlesnake with an umbrella, much less get close to one!

We did the first two jars together, then they tried it on their own with the last two jars.

There is also an activity included in the freebie where students find text evidence to support the theme of the book, if you’re interested.

So I know reading about how to do all this and actually SEEING it are two different things… so I’ve made a new video!! I have several videos on YouTube but wanted to show how I tie everything together with one mentor text. Now, I’ll warn you… this one is longer than the others with multiple lessons happening… go ahead and grab your popcorn! 🙂

Thanks so much for reading! For more mentor text resources, head over to my store or click the specific products below!

Mentor texts resources with Ideas by Jivey

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Bright Ideas: Writing Seed Ideas

July 18, 2015

Here it comes… those B-T-S words… I won’t say them, but you know what they are.

And when that S word starts back, one of the things I always like to do in writing is collect seed ideas. One of the lessons I like to do will be my Bright Idea in this month’s link up:

One thing most kids know all about is the street they live on. I like to have my kiddos draw a map of their street and label what they can. Then, I give them sticky notes to tell about something that happened in a specific location on their map.

Check out this fun activity to help students generate seed ideas for when they get stuck during writing... no more "I don't know what to write!"

And if for some reason they have a hard time remembering things on their street, they can always improvise…

The point of the activity is to give them ideas they can turn into stories later, so whether they are real or fictional seeds, they will have something they can use for a story!

If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on Facebook, Instagram, or my TPT Store for more great ideas.

For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Rainbow Editing and Revising {FREEBIE!}

January 30, 2015

Hi friends! I hope you’ve had a fabulous week this week!

We have been working hard in my classroom on our Snow Globe Stories. I don’t know about your kids, but I imagine they are a lot like mine… when it comes time to edit and revise, they read it and SAY they’ve edited and revised, but I don’t ever see any real proof that they have done it.

I decided to create an activity for the students to follow that would guide them in editing and revising their writing.

Freebie Rainbow Editing and Revising Activity with Ideas by Jivey.

And you’re in luck!! You can grab this activity for free!

This has been the best way that I’ve found to make the kids actually PAY ATTENTION to what they are reading. I talk to them about paying attention to how much writing they have between those red and orange circles (in other words, do you have a giant run-on sentence?), and if all of the yellow and green words are the same they need to change it up, and of course if they only have one or two blue lines, they should consider adding some more.

Freebie Rainbow Editing and Revising with Ideas by Jivey.

This has been an absolute game changer in my classroom, and I hope that it will help you in yours, too!

As you can see above, the students see when they need “more color” and they work to correct it. :o)

What do you do in your classroom to make sure the students are actually making changes to their stories? I’d love to hear your ideas!

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Five for Fr-aturday and Sparking Student Motivation!

November 1, 2014

I’m linking up with Doodle Bugs just a little late this weekend to share some things we did this week!

Honestly, the work week was difficult to start because I was returning from a long weekend in Orlando! I got to see my BBB, Joanne, and went to Hollywood Studios, Universal, and Sea World. It was a jam-packed, awesome weekend!

So even though I would have loved to have stayed with Joanne and the minions and the dolphins, I put on my big-girl britches and had some fun with my kiddos! We are building up to writing about/describing a planet next week (we are currently studying the solar system) using precise language, so this week, we practiced describing food, amusement parks, and monsters! First, I displayed five pictures of hamburgers on the board and told them, “Last night, I ate the most delicious burger! It was so yummy I ate it all… do you know which burger I ate?” Of course, they all looked at me like I was crazy. So then, I showed them which one I ate:

…and they had to help me write about it so that someone would know what burger I had eaten. We just finished working with sensory details last week, too, so they immediately started using that language. It was perfect! I told them I didn’t want a list of things on my burger. We needed to describe it so well that someone would want to eat it when we were done! They came up with sentences like, “As I sank my teeth into the humongous juicy grilled burger, some of the sesame seeds from the bun got stuck in my teeth. It was a good thing I had a napkin because there was so much ketchup, it dripped onto my chin. The lettuce added the perfect amount of crunch.” I was seriously impressed!

I wanted them to write on their own, too, so the next day, I set up “stations” around the room with sets of pictures. I divided the class into four groups, set my timer, and they rotated every five minutes to each of the sets. They would choose one of the pictures to write about in detail, and do the same type of writing we did with the hamburger. You have never heard a class so quiet!! They absolutely loved this activity! There were pictures of sandwiches…

…pictures of amusement parks…

…pictures of ice cream sundaes…

…and pictures of cakes!

Stay tuned next week to see the final product of this writing activity!

We spent the week doing some fun activities with the book, I Need My Monster, by Amanda Noll. I love using this book the week of Halloween! You may remember the monster writing activity we did last year– well it fit perfectly with using precise language, so we had to do it again! :o)

I am linking this activity to Head Over Heels for Teaching (Joanne!) for her Sparking Student Motivation linky, because my kids seriously loved this! The students had to write about the monster they created well enough that someone else could draw their monster without seeing it. It took us two days to do the activity in its entirety. The first day, they drew a monster and began writing about it. We have recess right after writing, so when it was time to go, I told them to wrap up the sentence they were writing and we would finish tomorrow. Usually, that is met with an immediate slam of the notebook closed and everyone jumping up to get in line… well not that day! No one stopped writing! I had to tell them to stop! I guess writing about monsters is better than recess?? 😛

The second day, they finished their paragraph and revised to make sure it was descriptive enough. Then, they got with a partner and read their paragraph while the partner drew- never showing their monster to their partner. Here are just two of the many successes from this year’s class!

We finished up using the paired texts for epidemics and germs this week (a freebie!). I explained a couple of weeks ago about how and why I have students annotate during close reading… I updated the post to also include this activity that I have my students do after annotating:

Freebie paired texts for epidemics and germs with Ideas by Jivey

I have the students turn knee to knee and share their thoughts, what was important, and their questions with each other. This often prompts new thinking for the students when they hear each others’ thoughts. It is a great way to promote conversation in the classroom!

We have Book Character Dress-Up Day for Halloween at my school. My grade level team dressed up as Magic School Bus characters- I was Ralphie! :o)

So much fun!!

Everyone have a great weekend! Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour tonight! WOOT!

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Five For Friday ROLLER COASTER! {and a Columbus FREEBIE!}

October 10, 2014

Friends, I have been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad blogger! 🙁 For this, I am so sorry. I am going to try my very best to blog more because I absolutely love doing it! My life has just been totally, upside down crazy the last few weeks!! I have absolutely felt like I was on a roller coaster, so I decided to make my lesson plans align with my feelings. :o)

I looooove using the book, Roller Coaster to teach how to write about a small moment.

This ENTIRE book is the story of riding a roller coaster, from the minute they walk up to get in line, to the minute they get off. NOT when they woke up, then went to the park, then walked around, then ate lunch, then rode the roller coaster, then went home. (Sound familiar to anyone??) Ha!

To get them thinking about JUST the small moment they are going to write about, I have them draw a “snapshot.” They must show only what would be in a photograph- so they can only be doing one thing in that picture. Then, they label it and write details about that moment using their five senses.

Write about a moment with Ideas by Jivey

Here is how I set it up- you can also see I had them think of how they would introduce and end the story on the sides.

I began writing my small moment story on chart paper to give them an idea of how to get started. My small moment happened, unfortunately, just this week on Monday!

I pointed out how much I had already written, but I had only just BEGUN the “small moment!” I showed them how I had to set the scene for my reader. :o)

Of course, since I was using Roller Coaster for writing, I also used the mentor sentence from my fourth pack and we worked on prepositions from my fourth interactive language arts notebook, too!

We are still chugging along learning about our explorers using my Explorers Pack.

Learning about explorers using Explorer Pack with Ideas by Jivey

We actually did this one last week, but with Columbus Day coming up, I thought I’d offer it to you… for free! You can download it here from my TPT store. I appreciate your feedback if you download the freebie! :o)

We also made brochures to advertise for a CRUISE with the explorer! :o) This one is from one of my super high gifted kids… *they don’t all look this amazing…*

Lastly, we are learning to write good, in depth responses to what we read! I am using an amazing pack from Jennifer Findley this year to help my students write better responses. Here is the one we wrote together this week to “try it out.” Next week, they’ll write their own!

In depth responses using Jennifer Findley's amazing pack with Ideas by Jivey

So you see, even though my blogging has been a bit lacking, we’ve still been doing tons of fun things!! I hope you can borrow some ideas from this post for your own classroom! :o) Have a great weekend!

Looking for ready-made, detailed, explicit mentor text lessons for the week?

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