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!
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!
One of my teacher friends calls this page her “must have” for writing. It’s got a space for kids to draw a picture, and lots of blank lines for writing.
Click here for page: Writing page blank- picture frame and lines
Here’s a sign I saw in a lower grade classroom that encourages the students to write sentences with 7 words or more. Just thought it was clever…
Younger grade classes (like the 2nd grade I was recently working with) need to constantly review the basic parts of speech. Here’s one activity the teacher and I drummed up to combine adjectives and winter themes.
Print out these PDFs and make copies for your class: page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4
1. Cut out the snowman and glue it to a large piece of constriction paper (12″ x 18″).
2. Glue on the adjectives graphic organizer
3. Write on the organizer any adjectives that describe the different parts of the snowman
For extended use with this project, write a story starring the snowman and analyse the story elements, write a character description, etc.
Here are 2 paragraph planners for you to whip out when needed. One has a space for transition words/phrases and one doesn’t. Choose the best one for your classroom, or download both just in case. Remember to right click on the page, choose “save image as” so you can save it to your computer for future use. Enjoy!
Squarehead Teachers 