End of the Year ABC Book

A few weeks ago I was browsing blogs and found an awesome idea on ClassroomTested Resources!  The post was written by Beth from Adventures of a Schoolmarm and describes a collaborative ABC Memory book that she does with her students.  Since I have exactly 26 kids this year, I thought I would give it a try, and I’m super glad I did!

I introduced the project to the kids by telling them that we would be brainstorming ideas of things that we’ve done this year or things that deal with our class or school.  I gave the kids a graphic organizer and ten minutes to brainstorm on their own.  You can get the organizer for free here.

After they brainstormed on their own, we shared ideas.  They came up with SO many ideas!  We filled our whiteboard with their brainstorming.  Then we narrowed it down to one idea per letter that best summed up our year, but didn’t repeat ideas.  

After narrowing the ideas, it was time to assign letters.  A few things were student specific, so they got those automatically.  For the rest of the kids, I drew numbers and they got to pick a topic.  Then, it was time to write.  

Each student wrote a paragraph about their topic.  Beth’s product (which is available here) has a page for each letter that gives the kids about half a page of lines for writing.  After they wrote, I collected the pages and copied an entire book for each child.

They started illustrating on Friday and they are adorable so far!  This is definitely a project I want to repeat in the future!

If you want to keep reading, The following is a list of our ABC topics:

A – Amazing Race (our states and capitals “competition”)

B – Book Talks (a monthly requirement)

C – Camp SOLE (read about it here)

D – Miss Davis

E – Eating at the middle school (on our orientation visit)

F – Flags (the fifth graders have a competition to design a school flag)

G – Going to Marengo Cave (read about it here)

H – Homework Club (our incentive for turning in homework)

I – ISTEP (yes, they wanted to write about the state test)

J – JA BizTown (read about it here)

K – Kindergarten Buddies

L – Lock Down Drills (they think barricading the door is fun)

M – Making Rockets (we make rockets out of 2-liter bottles and launch them in the Spring)

N – Nicknames (we have a “Duck” and a “Llama” in our room)

O – Otter Trot (our school’s walk-a-thon)

P – Prosthetics (we build prosthetic legs in Science)

Q – Quizzes (Q was kind of a hard one)

R – Recycling (my class is in charge of the school’s recycling program)

S – Stealing Kids (The three fifth grade teachers sometimes borrow kids from the other 5^th grade classes. It’s harmless, but fun for the kids.)

T – Tornado Drill (We had a real tornado warning this year…while we were on a field trip)

U – The Unicorn Song (long story!  But here’s a link)

V – Video Rewards (We watched funny animal videos and the Evolution of Music as rewards)

W – We the People (read about it at the end of this post)

X – eXoskeletons (we had observations with insects in the fall, and X was hard!)

Y – Yummy Treats (I may spoil my kids…especially during state testing)

Z – Zern Zingers (our principal’s daily jokes)

I Wanna Iguana and Persuasive Paragraphs

We have been reviewing different types of writing this week.  We reviewed the important ingredients for good paragraph writing, and have been using organizers to make sure that the paragraphs are strongly written.  We finished up the week with a lesson on persuasive writing and the book I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff. 

I Wanna Iguana is the story of Alex and his desire for a baby iguana.  The story is told through notes that Alex and his mother write back and forth to each other about why he should or shouldn’t have the iguana.  The kids loved the story (even though it’s a pretty simple picture book).

After reading the book, we talked about the reasons Alex gave for wanting the new pet, and connected that to persuasive writing.  Then it was organizer time.  I found an organizer based on the hamburger model which is available here.  I explained what “elaborate” means and how it adds detail to their writing and makes it sound more sophisticated (which required a definition, too).

Then the kids got started planning and writing.  Their topic was “Ask your parents for something extravagant” in a way similar to Alex in the story we read.  I told them it could be as extravagant as they could imagine.  Students are asking for cars, phones, mythological creatures, and fancy vacations.  Their paragraphs aren’t due until Monday, and  I’m excited to see how they turn out!

Comics in the Classroom

Tap Into The World Of Comics

View more presentations from S. Hendy.

This site suggests using comics in the classroom for a variety of purposes. A great graphic (on slide 4) shows that comics can be used to develop several literacy skills including: character development, problem solving, organization, creativity, storytelling, setting, sequencing, decision making, and creativity. If the comic building is done with one of the many online programs or websites available, computer skills are also being developed. After this graphic, links to several comic creators are provided before the best part of the presentation: “21 Ways to Use Comics in the Classroom.”
Several of these suggestions sound like things that kids would love to do. A few of my favorites include:
#1. Instruction Manual: the kids could create their own instruction manuals (which is nonfiction writing with a focus on sequencing!) or the teacher could use the comic as an instruction manual for the student’s task.
#3. Research Assignment: This could definitely tie into nonfiction with both reading and writing. If students need to do research (nonfiction reading) to create a comic, the end product may be worth the less exciting task at hand. (Note: this is not to say that reading nonfiction is not exciting, but many students think that it is, so this could help!)
#5. Convert a Story: There is a large movement in the world of graphic novels right now, and this could be a great opportunity to help students make the connection between novels and comics.
#6. Write a Story: Whether used as the final product or in the planning stages, using comics to write a story could be a fun option for more creative students. It would also be an opportunity to talk about ways that the image can actually tell more of a story than the words.
#14. Using Terminology: The slide show suggests providing students with five words that have to be used in their comics as a way to encourage the students to understand new terminology.