A side of writing with my interactive reading, please!

Long time, no see. I've been having a blast in first grade, but I've been too busy to blog about it!

This year one of our campus goals is to write more, m o r e, MORE by incorporating writing in all subjects. I have a designated interactive writing & writer's workshop time, plus Daily Five has the Work on Writing component so I routinely get in writing multiple times during my reading/language arts block. On top of that, I've been getting in a little extra writing on Fridays during interactive reading time and a craftivity too :-) For example, a couple of weeks ago, during interactive reading, we focused on finding the problem and solution in all of our stories. We read The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf is Good. On Friday, we wrote about Wolf's problem and solution and then made a Wolf craftivity to accompany our writing.

I'm pretty good at looking at an illustration and sketching out a pretty close likeness, so I draw a template and cut it out. Then, I trace it a few times and cut it out in stacks of 5-10. I think I only cut the wolf three times - my template and then two stacks of ten. Stacks of construction paper can be cut easily with heavy duty scissors. I precut all of the pieces to save time. Otherwise, we would use up an hour of our day cutting out all these pieces. No bueno!

This is what we wrote:
Problem: Wolf does not have any friends.
Solution: He decides to be kind, be useful, and do a noble deed.

In this case we used what we had already discussed and written on our anchor chart, so the kiddos just copied the sentences. But sometimes, I come up with a sentence starter and the students must complete the sentence on their own.

Next, using my document camera and a guided craftivity kinda method, I walk the class through the steps of drawing and glueing the pieces onto to the paper in the correct order. The kids looooove the craftivity, plus we get in a little extra writing too! I always make sure a student has completed the writing component before they start on the craftivity. If a student wastes time then the writing gets done, but not the craftivity. This is an incentive to stay on task.

This week we are working on text to text connections. We are reading several versions of Cinderella. You've got to see my Dinorella craftivity. Soooo cute! I'll take pics after we make them on Friday.

Have a great week,