Fourth Grade, Writing, Set Seven

In this Set, we are reading some good short stories (picture books), then K. is deciding which graphic organizer would have been best for this story and filling it in. Here are a list of our graphic organizers.

• Time Line
• Chain of Events
• Character Web
• Sensory Web
• Expository Structure
• Story Map
• Story Map with Feelings
• Top-to-Bottom Organizer
• Learning Log (for science experiment)

Suggested books

• The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
• Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard 
• The City Mouse and the Country Mouse retold by Graham Percy
• Cows in the Parlor: A Visit to a Dairy Farm by Cynthia McFarland 
• Just Plain Fancy by Patricia Polacco
• Leah's Pony by Elizabeth Friedrich

Persuasive Writing

We are in a unit of persuasive writing. K. was having difficulty, so I started thinking about why and decided I'd never really taught her how to write persuasively. I looked on-line and found some helpful information and print outs at Read Write Think. One lesson plan I read suggested reading the book, Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary to begin the unit. I picked the book up from the library and we read it, but I didn't find it helpful for persuasive writing. 

It is probably the best Beverly Cleary book we've read, and while it talks about Emily's mother writing a letter to the state library asking for a library in their town, it doesn't tell us what she wrote. Everyone in the town was in favor of the library, so she didn't need to persuade any one. So, while I recommend this book for read-aloud, I don't think it shows any examples of using persuasion.

Fourth Grade, Writing, Set Three

Kim is getting better on doing her journal every day. I put stickers on each day's writing, then if she gets a sticker every day, she gets a piece of candy on Friday.

Week One

• The Cat Who Became a Poet (in the book, Nonstop Nonsense by Margaret Mahy)
• Write a Couplet or Triplet.

Week Two

• A Cloak for the Dreamer by Aileen Friedman
• Write a top-to-bottom description. 

Week Three

• The Friendly Four by Eloise Greenfield
• Write a non-rhyming poem.

Week Four

• S is for Sea Glass: A Beach Alphabet by Richard Michelson
• Write a quatrain. K.'s was about the beach.

Week Five

• Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran
• Write a sensory description of a place. K. wrote about a beach scene on our wall.

I found this really good worksheet explaining the difference between couplets, triplets, and quatrain poems.

Fourth Grade, Writing, Set Two

K. is continuing writing in her journal. It is hard to get her to do it everyday.

Week One

• Urban Roosts by Barbara Bash
• Write an expository paragraph. K. wrote about two kinds of birds that live in the city.

Week Two

• Two Days in May by Harriet Peck Taylor
• Explain a process. K. wrote about her trip to the zoo.

Weeks Three and Four

• Secret Place by Eve Bunting
• Write a research report. K. learned and wrote about hyenas.

Week Five

• Through Grandpa's Eyes by Patricia MacLachlan
• Write a sensory description of a place. K. sat in our backyard with her eyes closed, then wrote about what she heard and smelled.

Fourth Grade, Writing, Set One

The first week I started K. on her journal. First, I read some entries from her sister's fifth grade journal. (It really is fun to go back and read it.) The purpose of the journal is to practice cursive handwriting. She doesn't need to write much each day, just a couple sentences, but the difference in the penmanship from the beginning of the year to the end of the year is surprising.

We are enjoying Writer's Workbook. Each week I've been able to get a book from the library that is either the exact story referenced, or a similar story.

• Tuesday - I read the book/story to K.
• Wednesday - we complete two pages in the workbook. These pages give direction and usually some type of chart to fill in to guide in writing her rough draft paragraph.
• Thursday - we go over her paragraph using the questions on the Revising page in the lesson
• Friday - we edit and proofread her paragraph and K. re-writes (publishes) her paragraph

It has been amazing to see the difference between her rough draft and published paragraphs.

Week Two

• Gloria Who Might Be My Best Friend (from The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron)
• Writing an autobiography

Week Three

• The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring
• Writing a response to fiction (wrote a letter to King)

Week Four

• Woodchuck at Blackberry Road
• Writing a summary paragraph

Week Five

• Make Way for Ducklings
• Writing a fiction book review

Third Grade, Writing, Set Seven

We finished learning the capital letters in cursive.

K. started writing her novel. She did not complete it, but what she wrote was really good and she did really well keeping to the plot she wrote in Set Six.

Third Grade, Writing, Set Six

We continued learning the upper case cursive letters.

We started the Young Novelist Workbook. This is the third year we have done this program, and I am getting better at allotting the time needed and in presenting the work. K. is getting better at coming up with ideas and answering the questions.

This year I decided to print out the entire workbook in sections, but have K. write in a spiral notebook so I don't have to print the workbook again.

We started with the "Create Awesome Characters" section. We spent two weeks developing the main character, supporting character, and villain.

The next two weeks we worked on the "Make Up Your Story" and "Outline Your Plot" sections.

When K. was bogged down with the plot, we took a couple days to complete the "How to Write Really Good Dialogue" section.

The last we we worked on the "Map Your Setting" section.

Second Grade, Grammar and Writing, Set Seven

As you can see, I have grouped Grammar and Writing together for this set. We are doing the workbook from National Novel Writing Month during this set. You can download it for free.

 

We just started at the beginning and are working our way through it. Since we did it last year, K. is familiar with the idea of what we are doing, and is more willing to work through the workbook instead of just wanting to write the story.

 

Instead of using the questions in the workbook for developing the main and supporting characters and the villain, I used the What a Personality activity work page from Games for Writing. For her age, this was much better, and since we had played What a Personality a few times this year, it was pretty easy for her to complete. I completed some also, just for the fun of it.

 

We had written the plot, through the climax. It is really neat to have K. come running to the kitchen with a book she is reading for fun and tell me, "Mom, I just got to the climax in this book!"

We completed the workbook during our third week, which left just two weeks for K. to write her novel. This has turned out not to be enough time, so, even though we are technically through with our school year, she is continuing to work on her novel.

Next year we will start the workbook during set 6 so K. has all of set 7 to write her novel.

First Grade, Grammar, Set Seven

We are using games to review the four Parts of Speech we learned this year. I found these ideas on the internet, and then made changes to fit our situation.

• I made paper bags with labels "Verb", "Noun", "Adjective", and "Preposition". On the back side of each label I wrote the definition and glued them on so they could be lifted and the definitions read, if need be. Then I wrote 88 words on pieces of card stock. We took turns sorting the words into their correct bag.

• The next week we took a word from each bag and used them to make a sentence. We each did five sentences.

During this set we are learning about the Writing Process. Since November is National Novel Writing Month, I downloaded the elementary school workbook (it is FREE to download) from the Young Writer's Program and we are working through it.

• We started by putting her inner editor away
• Deciding on some novels she really likes and why she likes them
• Now we are getting to know the characters in her story
• Next we work on the plot of the story.
• The workbook uses the plot roller coaster. K. seemed a bit lost while we were working on the plot, so I drew the roller coaster on a piece of scrap paper and we used it to write out the plot of a book we had just finished reading. Then she seemed to understand the concept and we were able to finish the plot of her story with much better participation and input from her.
• Then she drew a map of where her story takes place.
• After K. wrote her novel, I typed one chapter each day and then we edited it (there were four chapters).
• She only wanted to draw a picture for the cover. I scanned it in and put it on the cover.
• I saved it as a pdf and printed it in the "booklet" format. We will print enough copies for her to give to her aunts for Christmas presents.

I like this novel workbook so much that I am planning on ending each school year using it. It will be fun to see how K.'s novels change from year to year.