Homemade Ornaments to Match Our Winter Poetry!

I love doing this activity with my students. The beauty of this lesson is that you can assess students on use of vivid language but on their appropriate levels! So, this fun and festive assignment is great for a variety of ages!

Should you be hunting a writing activity to go along with the Christmas or "Winter" season, this is a great one!! 

You'll find guidelines, suggestions, a grading rubric, a pre-writing template, and a rough draft handout to help guide the students through the very important writing process!

Pre-writing Handout! 
What I hear, see, etc...

The focus is on writing, obviously, so an ornament is included in activity only to serve as a visual supplement. So, the ornament creations are left entirely up to the students -HOWEVER they choose to make them should be JUST PERFECT. 

Grading Rubric &
 Rough Draft Handout

Eliminating any limitations leaves the doors wide open for creativity and imagination, encouraging students to utilize available materials they have at home. I discourage store bought items in order to cater to student imagination and it helps with those who are unable to go buy materials to make ornaments. The purpose of the added craft is to create a visual supplement that is totally homemade by gathering items lying around the house...the result being a creation representative of the child's Christmas/Winter term assigned! 

Guidelines/Suggestions

A super festive idea is to string some colored lights across the top of the dry erase board, a tree, or just across your classroom wall, hanging the ornaments on the lights (or hang them on fishing line if you are afraid to hang them from light strands... lol). 

Poof! Automatic Christmas/Winter display, student work display, and festive fun all crated by the students...no work on your part! 

In addition to the ornaments on display, you can put their poems up too, under the lights/ornaments or on wall around a tree, depending on which way you'd like to display it all! 

Oh, just a little tidbit...I use the terms "Christmas" and "Winter" because many students in my classes over the years have different beliefs and/or religions and I do not want to single anyone out or offend anyone--so if considering it our "Winter Poetry" writing assignment handles that issue.

---AFTER ALL, the purpose is to write a poem about an assigned word, stay on topic, and dazzle the reader with vivid language in connections with an assigned term. And, the visual display (craft) is supposed to represent the student's term! So, it hardly has to be dedicated solely to Christmas, which allows us all to take part in the fun writing/craft activity! You can find this item in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store or in my Teachers Notebook Shop! (Those links are on the top right of blog--or click images to go straight to the TPT product!)

I ASK YOU...

What do you incorporate as seasonal fun into your lessons? 
Please share some ideas below!! Who knows, if enough ideas are out there, we could keep the kids involved in seasonal fun until we are on Winter Break!

Happy Writing,

Writing Prompt Printable Inspired by "Take Your Dog to Work" Day!

I'm a little late getting this posted....Trust me, I was getting it all ready in time, but, one thing leads to another around here, and I ended up working in the yard all day yesterday and spent day on the lake today--and broken down in the boat!!! Experiences!! Next I know, it's Saturday night! 
Anyway, Friday, June 22, 2012, was designated as "Take Your Dog to Work Day!" How cool is that? I guess not very if you don't have dogs or if you are not an animal person, but I am! That's actually the understatement of the century. I have too many pets! Yes, I could tell dog tales and cat tales all day long. 
How about getting your kiddos to write a cat tale or dog tale? Or, any other animal tale for that matter always makes for a good impromptu writing assignment! The designated day inspired me to create a quick printable that can be used whenever! 
Tells n' Tails n' Tales: "The Time My ______ and I....."  AND Let them do the rest. I included a little section for them to illustrate the main event of the "tale" they are "telling"--- :) Here's a free printable to download if you'd like it!

And, why not go ahead and have a quick "homophone" mini-lesson?

TELL 

TAIL 

TALE

                              What's your favorite writing prompt you've ever assigned????

Add Flavor to Your Class Writing Adventures

Everyone likes to have another stash of writing prompts on hand, right?
After recently uploading Part 2 of my Writing Adventures Task Cards, I thought I would share with you the previews for each, just in case you are not a store follower at TpT or haven't visited lately! Both sets (Part 1 and Part 2) contain 36 prompt cards and Part 2 also contains an additional size of the same prompts, each prompt on its own full sized page to project on your activboard or to print for centers, etc. 

Download the previews straight from Google Docs by clicking the images below!

If you are interested in the full versions, click here for Part 1 and Part 2!

Reasons for Using Ransom Writing Prompts?

They make perfect...

Bellringers

Exit Slips

Writing Centers

Challenge Activities

Fast Finisher Enrichments

and on and on and on...

NOT TO MENTION, they open minds and get imaginations flowing!

I'll email a set for free to the first 3 followers that leave a comment telling me how they can incorporate these prompt cards into their lessons! 


Just be sure to leave an email for me to send them to and if you'd like Part 1 or Part 2.....
I'd also love to hear your unique strategies for incorporating journal writing or other writing activities in your class!


Regards,