Sparkling Sentences

We are enjoying a rare (half) snowday in the south. My kids were very hyped up this morning knowing that we were getting out at noon in order to get home before the weather moved in. I decided to pull out some winter activities I had been trying to get to all week to keep them occupied.

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!!