Here’s an easy paragraph planner to use when teaching younger grades about writing paragraphs. Given the topic “Valentine’s Day,” students can use the planner (Planner page) to prepare for their final draft on the heart page. You can color, cut out and display the final drafts if you’d like to make it more interesting. Happy heart day!
Here’s the final draft printable: Final Draft page PDF
Sometimes you just need an easy writing project. Here’s one that helps you celebrate Valentine’s Day, while remembering the most basic components of a good story. Great for a whole class activity or a fast finisher. Click here for the free printable (PDFs):
V-Day Story Starter 1 V-Day Story Starter 1 final draft page
V-Day Story Starter 2 V-Day Story Starter 2 final draft page
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Each year, Groundhog Day is celebrated on February 2. Many people don’t know anything more about the day than what they learned from the 1993 movie with Bill Murray. So here are 2 short activities for your classroom that incorporate parts of speech practice and the history of Groundhog Day. The upper grade version of this activity asks students to color code nouns (common and proper), verbs and adjectives. The lower grade activity (recommended as a whole class activity) only deals with common and proper nouns in the passage. Happy Groundhog Day!
Click here for the free printable PDFs:
Groundhog Day History- lower grades
Groundhog Day History- Upper Grades
Upper grades
It’s nice to have some literacy-related graphic organizers ready (for a crazy day, an emergency sub folder, etc.). Here’s one that asks students to analyze their favorite character in a story. This could lead to a paragraph, picture or some other enrichment activity.
Click here to download the Character analysis graphic organizer.
This page is just what it sounds like: a graphic organizer set up to compare 2 characters. Add this to your collection of go-to’s when you’re not sure just what to do with that reading group… Easy-peasy!
Click here to download the Character analysis venn diagram graphic organizer
As an elementary school teacher, you’re never really done reviewing parts of speech. So how about doing a parts of speech graphic organizer as a literacy block assignment? This graphic organizer is simple enough to work for both lower and upper grades. Enjoy!
Click here to get the PDF of the parts of speech in the story graphic organizer.
It’s nice to have some literacy graphic organizers to use during centers, guided reading, story writing, etc. So here’s another one. It’s great for younger grades, since it doesn’t ask too much. Students can fill in sections for characters, setting, beginning, middle and end of the story.
Click here for the plot summary graphic organizer- easy.
This is one of my absolute favorite teaching tools for writing. Kids love being creative and they love to share their creativity with others. These “scribbles” have been circulating for years, but I’ve added a ton of my own to make a big set of 27 scribbles. Here’s how they work:
1. Students turn the scribble at the top of the page into something (you can limit the amount of time if you need to).
2. Students write about what they turned the scribble into. This is your chance to help reinforce paragraph concepts, grammar, spelling, etc. I used to give my students a specific prompt and writing requirements that addressed something in the state or common core (persuasive, informative, etc.). We also used some of these as editing practice.
3. Have students share their writing (under the document camera, go read it to 2 classmates, whatever…). This part is CRUCIAL. It adds so much enthusiasm and energy to the project. When I didn’t let the kids share, they weren’t as excited the next time I passed one of these out. I had a space on one of my bulletin boards for the “Super Scribble” (the one I felt best completed the writing aspect we were focusing on).
4. I’d recommend not making a single book out of these and giving them to the students all at once. If kids see them ahead of time, it kind of kills the project. Some kids might also be tempted to draw on all of them before your class is supposed to do the scribble.
Like I said, this is one of my favorite writing tools. Let me know how it worked in your classroom!
Click here to get the 54 page PDF: Scribble writing- master set with back page of lines
Here are some (PDF) samples one 2nd grade teacher sent me: Scribble 1 and Scribble 2. Her class had fun doing these and the students wanted to send their work to me! So flattered!
Squarehead Teachers 