First Grade Persuasive Writing

After a couple weeks of work on persuasive writing, the final products were finally ready for display! I made the little man and his bubble says come read our persuasive writing pieces! My student's persuasive writing was wonderful and they came up with the most creative reasons and examples. I taught them the persuasive O.R.E.O (opinion, reason, example, opinion again) and they followed the structure to create a persuasive letter. We also learned the parts of a letter. They filled out a brain storm template that said, "I will write a letter to _______." "I want to persuade this person to _____________."  Next, they received differentiated four squares as organizers. Some four squares had sentence starters and some did not. Some required six reasons while others only required three. It was a lot of work and my students had to do this writing step by step but they were really able to see the writing process unfold.  

Picture Clues

I am so happy to have such a wonderful mentor teacher. She is a fabulous phonics teacher and I have learned a ton from her. She has picture clues for each blend, short vowel sound, and digraph. She has taught the students all of the general "tricks" of reading and these students can tell anyone these tricks. For example, "ou" says "ow" like "cloud." If the students come to a word with "ou" and they are having trouble sounding it out she simply says remember our trick, and they will automatically say, "ou says ow like cloud" and will be able to sound out the word.

Sight Word Practice

Best idea ever from my mentor teacher: to practice sight words my mentor teacher has students read them on flash cards and then read them on these strips. They place their finger on the green dot and read the words to themselves and place their finger back on the green dot when they are finished. Each strip has the words in different order so students read and pass to the right and read again. All students read at the same time but she picks one student and listens to them. It is done in small groups so eventually she listens to each student.  It is one of those things that is hard to explain but once you see it in action you understand!

Guided Reading Made Fun

A group of my students read the book, "Dictionary of Animals." I wanted to teach the students to categorize information so we first practiced categorizing our group. The students came up with some creative categories: boys and girls, people who can only speak one language and people who can speak two, everyone wearing yellow, blue, or white. After reading the book we looked back to see some facts about each animal category then I gave each student two note cards with facts. The students had to look back in the book to see the category that their fact fit.

One of my student's guided reading books was an informational book that taught how to make clay creatures. Instead of just reading the book and answering the guided reading questions we actually took the time to follow the steps of making clay creatures! This book instantly became a favorite of the student's. We were able to complete the activity and read the book in 20 minutes.

Work Stations- Writing, Pocket Charts, Big Books, Library, Buddy Read, Word Work

Writing station- all types of paper provided. Students draw a picture and write about it or write about a class photo.

Library- Students get to relax on pillows and select books of different genres to read.

Pocket charts- Students match contractions and two words.

Big book- Students point and read to each other with fun pointers.

Magnetic letters to practice spelling words!

Puppets for the book "There's a Shark in the Park" Students can act out the book while reading. The puppets were drawn by the teacher and printed on card stock. Use craft sticks to create handle and let the kids color!

Persuasive Poster/ Advertisement

After a two weeks of reading persuasive mentor texts and teaching my students the parts of a persuasive piece (O.R.E.O.-Opinion, Reasons, Examples, Opinion), we decided to make a class advertisement poster. My students voted on the place we would like to advertise and Disney World won. As a class we came up with an opinion (Disney World is the most fun place in the USA), some reasons (they have lots of princesses and characters, fun roller coasters and rides) and examples (see Mickey Mouse, you can talk to NEMO). I designed the poster and allowed the students to trace the words and color in Mickey Mouse! They LOVED this activity!!

11 Literacy Centers

My mentor teacher (who is a WONDERFUL teacher)  has these work stations so organized and the students know how to do everything that is expected of them at each center. Anyone who walked into the room during work stations would be impressed and surprised by how hard working and responsible the 22 first graders are! 

I will try to provide more details on the centers as I take more pictures. 

1. Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R): At this center students work at their desks. In our classroom we use the time for students to complete unfinished work from the morning/ homework they did not complete or to read a book at their desk! 

2. Computers: At the computer station students can work on starfall.com to play learning games. 

3. Pocket Charts: At pocket charts the children separate different words into categories according to the phonics focus for the week. Last week was bossy r words "ar" "or" "er, ir, ur" Students would place the word "car" in the ar column, the word "corn" in the or column, and "soccer" in the er, ir, ur column. 

4. Big Books: At the big book station the students read big books to each other using pointers to follow the words. These books are usually ones that have already been read aloud in class. 

5. Smart Board: My mentor teacher has a variety of activities dealing with phonics that the students do on the smart board. I will try to make a separate posting of these soon!

6. Library: At the library students can get comfy pillows and read all different kinds of books. My mentor teacher usually makes a basket of content area books (fractions, MLK, money, life cycle). There are also informational books, entertaining books, and persuasive books. 

7. Poetry: In the poetry station students read and copy different poems and riddles. 

8. Listen to Reading: In this center students may listen to stories on tape. There are two sets of headphones. 

9. Writing: In the writing station there are several types of paper students may pick to write on. My mentor teacher was very creative and uses class pictures as writing prompts. She prints out photos and places them in a drawer then the students may pick a picture and describe what is happening in their photo. 

10. Word Work: In the word work station students may practice their spelling words using magnetic letters, completing a word search in magazines or books, or rainbow writing (write words in all different colors).

11. Buddy Read: In this last station the students work in pairs and each have a copy of a book. They can point and read to each other. My mentor teacher also puts character cut outs in the station so the students can act out the story! (I will post some of these later also)

How to Make 11 Centers/ Work Stations Functional

1. First teach students what to do in each center and make sure they know what is expected of them. 

2. Place students in groups of 2. 

3. Teach students how to get started and how to clean up each center. Make sure they know how to put EVERYTHING back right where they found it. 

4. Teach students the rotation of centers.

5. We send our students to 3 centers a day. They have a rotation that the students all know. 

6. Set the timer for 15-20 minutes (depending on what can fit) and allow students to stay at centers for this amount of time. When the timer goes off, reset it for one minute. Give students exactly one minute to clean everything at their center and move to the next center. This is the KEY to making the centers work so well!

7. Make a tray where students can turn in their work from the centers. This ensures they are working hard. Every few weeks pick some student work from centers to celebrate! This give students something to look forward to if they do their work the correct way. 

If students are taught to be responsible in these 11 centers and are capable of cleaning the center up on their own then the teacher gets time to work with reading groups! 

Books for Persuasive Reading/ Writing Unit

Mo Willems has wonderful picture books to help children understand persuasion. The pigeon is adorable and tries to persuade people to let him drive a bus, let him get a puppy, and let him stay up late. These books build a great foundation of persuasive language and ways to persuade.
http://www.pigeonpresents.com/books.aspx

"Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type" by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin is a wonderful book to introduce persuasive writing. The Cows write the farmer a letter persuading him to give them blankets because they are cold in the barn.

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"Hey, Little Ant" by Phillip and Hannah Hoose, Illustrated by Debbie Tilley is another wonderful persuasive text. The ant is trying to persuade the little boy to not squish him and the boy is listing reasons why he should squish the ants. It is a wonderful book for students to decide who they would side with if they were a character in the book.