There has been a slight change of plans for Writer's Workshop this week. I had originally planned on getting started on revising. However, the unit along with editing takes a few weeks and I didn't want to break it up between now and after winter break. In addition, we will be doing our Holidays Around the World study next week for four days, leaving us limited time for full blocks of Writer's Workshop.

 

That being said, we will be taking this week to review various forms of writing through some fun creative writing activities. Today, we wrote "stocking stories". The children chose to write a short story about a memorable holiday past or about their plans for this year's celebrations. Then, they copied the story on to a stocking pattern. As they finish, the stockings are being hung on their lockers. So, if you are in the building be sure to stop by and check them out! In addition to our stocking stories, we'll also be writing holiday acrostics, creating step by step directions for how to wrap a holiday gift, sending a friendly letter and more! The children are loving the activities so far and are really showing a great deal of creativity in their ideas.

 

Everything else has been BUSY business as usual in room 18. In case you haven't heard, we just wrapped up a big Social Studies project in which the children designed their own candidate for mayor of Stow. They had to work together as a team to decide what the candidate's strong leadership qualities were, what the candidate would do to improve Stow for kids, what he/she would do to keep the kids of Stow safe and personal information like family life and favorite activities. Then, they shared the task of drawing and coloring a kid-sized model of their candidate. We still have a few kids finishing up, but when they do we will have another class vote on the candidates to pick the best person for the job. Eventually, I'd like to add pictures of this project along with a list of some of the children's wonderful ideas to our website. So, check back soon.