Fairy Tale Writing

Who doesn't love a good fairy tale unit? Well to start some of my 2nd grade boys moan and complain every time they hear our unit is starting. However, by the end of the unit they are in love!! I explain over and over again that fairy tales can be packed with adventure, gross things and magical creatures that would make Voldemort cringe.  This is especially true when it comes to writing our own fairy tales.   The key is to get the child to dig deep into the story structure and elaborate on everything.  That's a lot easier said than done, right?  Not really, in order to make these fairy tales happen I take it slow with my students.  The first day we read a fairy tale and only look at character analysis.  Then the students create their main character.  That's not too daunting.  The second day we read another fairy tale and make our setting analysis.  On the third day we take a look at our story's lesson and plot.  After all of the hard work is done bit by bit, we finally dive into a writing plan and detail everything.  It's so important to teach students how to plan and that with the plan writing is much more organized and fun.  After the plan is done we just take the story paragraph by paragraph until we have a well elaborated B,M,M,E and just like that 10 days have passed.  The sense of pride that students have when they are done is awe inspiring.  Below you will see the anchor charts that I use with my students.

If you are interested in my detailed plans and outlines, I have them listed for free.  Just click on the picture below.  

and we lived happily ever after, THE END!

Determining Importance - ELA Lesson Plans #2

The previous week's lessons in reading focused on procedures, routines and teaching students the importance of asking and answering questions about key details in a text.  You can find ELA Lesson Plans #1 here.  By the end of the week students should be able to ask questions before, during and after reading so that they understand what the text is all about and why.  This week students will continue to ask and answer important questions in order to gain knowledge of details and be able to retell key details in their own words. It's important to gradually grow these reading skills and strategies so that students can start to summarize this information next week and eventually synthesize the information. Regardless of the student's reading level, they should be able to master all skills and strategies when given differentiated text.

During independent time students will build their stamina in independent reading and gain confidence in using skills and strategies in shared reading independently with self selected text.  The other portion of the independent block should be used to teach procedures and routines for independent work such as workstations.  When choosing workstations I use the five core components of reading:  comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, phonics and phonemes.  Each component will be represented in the work stations.  Students can also learn dictionary skills during independent time so that they can work independently to grow their vocabulary, check spelling and grow in grammar knowledge.

The following lesson plan templates are from A Modern Teacher .

Differentiated Print and Go Dog Reading Passages

Dictionary Skills

Phonics Print and Go Games

During the previous week students learning focused on the hows and whys of writing.  They were able to complete a narrative piece so that teachers could assess where each child has the most potential to grow their writing.  Now teachers can model the basic conventions of writing starting with capital letters, punctuation and using nouns properly so that students can look at their writing and make corrections.  As students gain more knowledge of the process and procedures, the writing block will increase in time.

Writing Office With Word Walls