Workshop Wednesday Linky: Persuasive Writing

 

I'm linking up with Jivey today to talk about persuasive writing. Down here in the great state of Georgia, we have reading/writing frameworks provided by the state. They talked about the OREO method for organizing persuasive writing:

                          O-State your Opinion

                          RE-Give Reasons and Examples to explain your opinion

                          O-Restate your Opinion

This graphic organizer really helped my firsties understand and remember the basic principle of writing persuasively! Here's a link, but I can't take credit for making it. This is from the Georgia DOE.

 

Some great books I like to use to teach persuasive writing are:

The Pigeon Books-They're short and HILARIOUS! The kids love them. We read them throughout our unit introducing persuasive writing and talk about the reasons the pigeon gave why he should get to do each activity.

 

  

    



 

I Wanna Iguana-Another persuasive classic! Alex has to persuade his mom to let him have a pet Iguana. He gives her lots of reasons why he should have the pet. After reading, we write a letter to our parents tell them reasons we should have the pet of our choice. It's a good time to talk about the parts of a letter as well! A cute book to read along with this is the short chapter book Lulu and the Brontosaurus. Very funny! Keeps the theme going of wanting a new pet.

 

  

 



Hey Little Ant-I saw Jivey mentioned this book, too. It's great for persuasive writing because you hear 2 points of view: the ant and the little boy that wants to squish the ant. There are a lot of good readings of this on youtube, BTW. After reading, my kids wrote a persuasive piece arguing to save the ant or squish the ant (complete with an illustrative banner declaring their opinion to save or squish!). They were so cute...I wish I had taken pictures. Here's a rubric I used to assess their ant writing.  

 

 

I hope I've persuaded you of some persuasive writing ideas!  =)



Social Studies Mentor Text Linky

I'm linking up with Amanda and Stacia at Collaboration Cuties for "must read social studies mentor texts." First, let me say I LOVE this linky! I struggled last year to find good books for our social studies standards, but books are SO useful to help kids "get it" (and remember it!). This is definitely true when studying people, which is about 90% of our SS standards. My favorite book that we read is Moses about Harriet Tubman.
 

This book does a great job of going through Harriet's life and helping kids (even my firsties) understand why she did what she did and how she must have felt. As a disclaimer, it's a little religious (you might guess that from the title) but it's a GREAT book! After we read this, we made a Harriet Tubman fact quilt that I talked about on my blog here.

I hope you'll link up and share your favorite social studies books! Click on the picture above to link up!

GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news! I have a new job!!!!!! In case you hadn't heard, my super awesome hubby got a new job (so proud of him) in the big city of Atlanta. I was super excited until this thought crossed my mind: Oh no...now I have to get a new job, too! I've worked at the same school for my entire teaching career, so the thought of moving is a little scary (esp. with so many schools cutting teaching positions). However, GOD IS GOOD (we knew that, but it's cool when He shows off a little) and I got a job after my first interview. Phew! What a relief and praise the Lord! I'm very excited about this new opportunity.

Plus, (drum roll please), I'm moving up to 2nd grade! I've loved being in first grade, but now it's time to move on up. I plan on spending my summer surfing second grade blogs to get ideas from all you fantastic bloggers. Let me know if you know of any super 2nd grade blogs I should visit!

More great news! I made it to the last day of school! We had a great last day yesterday. Two fun and easy ideas to share:
1. Classmate Bingo--I made a 3x3 table in Word. The kids put their name in the middle (free space) and then filled their classmates' names in the other blank spots. The first couple of times we played, I drew a child's name and called it out. Simple. Then I drew a child's name and gave clues about the child. The kids had to guess who I was talking about. Super fun.
2. Just Dance for Kids--This is a great way to get your kids' wiggles out! We usually watch these videos on youtube for 5-10 minutes, and my kids are ALWAYS begging for more. So, for the last day, we had a dance party. We moved all the desks out of the may and danced, danced, danced! My kids favorites: "Gummy Bear" and "Dispicable Me" but there are tooooooooons more! Check it out:

Writing with a Side of Freebies

One more week of school! I can hardly believe it! Unfortunately for my kids, they have a teacher who believes in working until the veeeeeeeeery end, so we are staying busy. Mostly, we've been writing. I feel like this is a great way to provide closure for the year. Today, we reviewed all of the things we've done in 1st grade, and they wrote about their favorite part. I get so tickled when they write things like "I love math when my teacher gives me HARD problems." So. Cute. I have quite the little group of authors this year because they were SILENT for a loooooong time while they wrote.

Yesterday, we reviewed persuasive writing. I made this freebie to help: Persuasive Writing: What's the Best Season? We've been learning about the seasons all year, so this provided a good science review in addition to writing practice. I hope you can use it!

My First Five for Friday (May 3)

One...

 

This just happened! Grown up Hanson. Playing Taylor Swift. This video should not make me as happy as it does, but I've already listened to it about 3 times now!!!!! I LOVED these guys when I was in middle school. Ahhhh!

Two..
.

 

Only 12 more days!

Which leads to three...

 

AUGH! The end-of-the-year paperwork is monumental! We have our checklist of tasks to complete, but sometimes it seems for every task I check off, 3 more pop up. I think I can, I think I can!

 

Four...

 

 

This summer, my husband and I are moving to Atlanta! It's only an hour or so down the road, but I think it will be a big change for us. My hubby got a new job (I'm so proud of him!) and now it's my turn to start the job search. Wish my luck! 

 

Five...

 

 

My husband is a HUGE NPR fan. He really likes their current events game show, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (which is actually pretty funny). Last night, me and the hubs went to see the live cinecast where we watched them record a show. Watching a radio show. What will they think of next? Also, who knew Peter Sagal was bald? Never pictured that.