
The point of this particular post is to show you how I take non-standard related topic: GINGERBREAD, and I make it a content driven and fun unit with some great resources from my dear friend Amanda’s store! 🙂 Let’s take a look at a few of them! 🙂
Kids need to know that they are going in the right direction when they are writing. Anything that I can use to help them self-monitor, I am a fan of!
I am so excited that I connected with Amanda this fall at the New York TPT meet up! She’s so wonderful! She has a passion for writing as well, and has a self-monitoring tool that I am so crazy about…there are just not enough words!
At our school, we teach with a basal. I don’t use ALL of what’s in there, all the time, but…for this particular week, I liked the stories and I used them. The finished product for our exploration of the topic was to write a poem with our firsties.
Here’s a few of the steps I went to in crafting my gingerbread unit!
Step 1: Since one of the standards based objectives of the unit was to work on rhyming words, we looked at several folktales that featured rhyming.
Step 2: We read a variety of fiction texts that had to do with gingerbread. We responded to that text in writing using some of the wonderful printables in Amanda’s Gingerbread Printables Pack.
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Check this out HERE. |
Step 3: I used Amanda’s self-monitoring system to help my students progress monitor themselves. Then, I developed a rubric based on the intent of the standard.
Step 4: I tied in the writing component and some other fun activities that were math related for the afternoon!
So…the heart of Amanda’s idea is to have a piece of the gingerbread man…or girl…represent a task that the student must complete for the sake of the writing assignment. Her pack is designed for narrative writing. It’s just such a great blend of making students accountable for their progress and tying that to content! 🙂 Really…I’m kinda giddy about this whole thing!
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Click HERE to watch Ashley. Click HERE to watch Logan. |
But…I digress…Can we have #realtalk? This was my last piece of chart paper. The very. last. one. This is really a checklist. Not a rubric…but I didn’t have any more chart paper, and #aintnobodygottimefor whiting out all the word rubric. So, folks…I just told the kids…it’s a checklist and they were like…’okay’. LOL! Also, we don’t have any more brown construction paper. Not. even. one. sheet. So, there was not a little gingerbread body to spare for the bottom of my rubric checklist. Hence, your clip art. 🙂 Supplies are low folks. #thestruggleisreal Sorry…this blogger is NOT perfect and does NOT even attempt to be. #enoughsaid
So…after tons of mentor texts and a few class poems, we were ready to go it alone! 🙂 The kids did super great! I was really proud. All of them LOVED this idea from our new friend, Mrs. Richardson!
Here’s the rubric that I used for my kids! 🙂
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Want this for your class? Click HERE. |
Here’s how I grade with this. I put a check mark next to everything that the student earned. So, one check is a 60, two would be a 70, three an 80, and 4 a 90…even if they are not sequential. Then I add points based on advanced spelling, vocabulary or sentence complexity. I take away a points based on independence related to the task.
I hope that you enjoyed this post on combining content and cute! 🙂 It brings me such joy to know that I’m still making learning FUN for each of my kids with engaging, standards driven activities that set a great foundation for them going forward!