Phases of the Moon

In science our class is learning all about the moon. We have been reading books about what the moon looks like, how it orbits the Earth and how it goes through phases. Here is an activity that we did in class using just 3 oreo cookies and one spoon per child.

Narrative Writing

This week in writers workshop we are beginning our study on narrative writing. Our first few sessions will be about developing a character. The following lessons will be about creating a setting by using describing words and eventually creating the text to show sequence.


I always begin my narrative writing unit by creating a class story. Together we develop the main character of the story. As you can see below, we used a bubble map to describe our main character Goofy.




Once we had a good feel for the character we wrote our first draft of the story. Since this was our first true narratice piece I was in control of the pen, but the children gave me all the ideas to put on the paper. The story is pretty basic, but it will be the base for all the other lessons this next two weeks related to narrative writing.





You can read our class story below:


Throughout the next few days we are going to take our story, cut it into pieces and put it back in the correct sequence, which is essential in teaching students that stories must follow a sequence for the readers to understand. After we have a general sequence again, the students will help fill in the gaps by using more describing and action words. Our last step before publication will be to edit for puncuation, capitalization, and spacing. Once the story is complete, we will divide the story into segments and each pair of children will illustrate a page.