When your state wins the Super Bowl, it’s hard not to take some time to run with it the next day! I wanted to use the moment to do a writing lesson with my kids that was outside the box. As often as I can I like to tell my kids that, “Some days our learning it just too big for the classroom!” They know this means we are going to bring out lessons somewhere else in the building. So today we headed to the gym to review our transitional words, burn some energy, and work on a new writing piece.
Due to time constraints, I am doing this lesson with them in two parts. We did part one today and will finish up with the second part tomorrow. To start I gathered up my easel, supplies, and we headed into the gym.
Once we were in the gym I had these guys ran three laps around the gym to prep for writing burn some energy while I set up shop. (That giant Bronco in the background was done by an awesome teacher at our school but not something I created for this lesson. 😉 ) I taped the each of the four footballs on a different wall in the gym.
We went over our prompt and went over our objective which was to review transitional words and use them in our Super Bowl writing. There is also a little chant and song we do to coincide with the word “transition” that I wish I could show you. It’s nothing fancy though. We march in place and say, “Transition, Transition” while moving our fingers to the right and then we move our arms and feet one big step to the right as we finish with, “one sentence to the next!” I’m all about chants and body movements to help teach academic language!!
After this they got to run to each transition word that is taped up around the gym. When they get to the word I clap two times and say “Stop”. One students is called on to read the word, then they all shout the word, and off to the next word we go until we’re back where we started.
Then as a group it was time to sequence a few sentences I had typed up as a sample response. Followed by working together with a buddy to sequence four different sentences together. I had the sentences in envelopes so they were easy to distribute and I also assign the pairs as I hand them out. I make sure to let them know up front that they’re only getting 2-3 minutes TOPS to do this together so they get right down to business.
I run around the gym checking their work and listening to them read the sentences together. Then we come back to the easel. Part two involves them traveling at their own pace from football to football on the walls writing their own response to “How To Win a Super Bowl.” But we’ll be getting to that part tomorrow. You can download the sheets we’ll use for that as well as all the other parts to this lesson by clicking the image below!
I hope this ones helps get you and your crew up and moving!! 🙂
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ FallingIntoFirst
You are the cutest!!! What a fun lesson! So easy but such a huge impact!
What a fun, relevant way to teach how to writing!!Love this integrating pop culture and current events into the classroom in a meaningful way. Great post, Stephanie!!
This is the first year with the Wit and Wisdom reading curriculum. Module 2 is on Creature Features. Our first graders will be writing informative paragraphs. I found the Sea Turtles Download on TeachersPayTeachers. Love it.