We have been talking a lot about using adjectives in our writing to describe things. Today I told them they would be writing sentences that sparkled! They were instantly intrigued ;)
On an anchor chart (which I of course didn't take any pictures of) I wrote some "boring" sentences about winter. "I like snow. Look at the snowman. I see a penguin. It is winter" ect.
Then I showed them how I could add some "sparkle" to my sentences and brought in some adjectives. "Snow is cold and it is crunchy under my feet" I wrote the adjectives in blue marker so they really stood out.
Then I told them they were going to write me some sentences about winter and add adjectives to really make their sentences sparkle.
I had them write their adjectives in blue crayon, and then we painted over them with white glue and added some clear glitter and *gasp* sparkling sentences!
It's kind of hard to see the sparkle in the picture, but it's there :)
This was so simple, but they kids absolutely loved it. And now I can tell them for the rest of the year that I want to see some "sparkly sentences" :)
If you want to grab the writing paper you can click here.
At the very end of the day we also had a snowball fight. This was so.much.fun.
I got the original idea from this freebie pack from The Teacher's Clubhouse
I modified the activity slightly to use with my kiddos because they weren't ready for 3 digit numbers, and I made up my own pages. We went over some ground rules, and then set off throwing snowballs and then running back to the white boards to decompose some 2 digit numbers.
After a few rounds of this, I had them use this same expanded form notation to match up with a partner and start adding their 2 numbers together. (This is an old pic - not from today, but it shows the method we use for beginning 2 digit addition)
The kids blew me away with their math talk and cooperative learning, and it was a really fun way to channel their snow excitement!!
I hope all my northern friends stay safe and warm in this weather!!
