Author's Share
Children read over their chapters and chose 1 or 2 of the chapters that they were most proud of to share with a small group. They read to each other, listened to their friends read, and learned from each other. It was such a collaborative effort! After sharing with small groups we put their chapter books on display in a class bucket. Now they can read each others "published pieces" whenever they want!
Nonfiction Writing cont....
Now we are ready for our final chapter writing effort! This time around, children are going to be working much more independently and at a quicker rate. At first I was a little worried that it would be hard to get them motivated to increase their writing with another chapter book...I was SO wrong! They are more excited than ever!! The topics came easily...the writing is flowing...they are completely engaged and even more independent than I was giving them credit for! Their excitement is so energizing!
This time around we are relying on all we know, plus a variety of nonfiction authors and books to mentor and inspire us along the way. During our read aloud time we are pouring over nonfiction texts and noticing what kinds of things the authors do to teach us all about their topic. We are noticing fun facts, vocabulary words, diagrams and labels, maps and how to's. We are adding all of these craft moves to an anchor chart that children keep referring to. I know we've only just begun, but I really CAN'T WAIT to share these with you!!
Here are some children hard at work getting their nonfiction writing groove on :))))
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| This child is working on a "how to" page...he's writing all about games and he's teaching us how to play a game called "Pickle." It already sounds fun! |
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| Writing is getting longer and longer. These children are also gaining inspiration from some pictures that were brought in from home! We learned writer's do research! |
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| This WHOLE table is hard at work! |
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| Sketching can help children with planning. This child is going to teach us all about frogs! |
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| Re-reading her work to edit as she goes. Writer's take special care to make sure their work is legible and makes sense for their readers! |
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| Using chapter titles and headings to break a big topic up into subtopics to teach about. We learned that writer's can be creative with their headings! |
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| Sharing fun facts! |
Next week is the official start of conference season...I am looking forward to meeting with you and sharing your child's progress. Just as a reminder progress reports won't come out until the end of March (after conferences). Next week is also Read Across America here at Memorial! Check out this link for more information about daily events.
