All About Pumpkins - Mrs. Russell's Room

This week was a whirlwind for sure! 🙂 We did lots of pumpkin activities and completed a pumpkin writing, too! 🙂 It was a blast! 🙂

I love doing pumpkin exploration work with my littles! 🙂 They get so excited. Thematic instruction is one of my favorite parts of teaching in a primary classroom. You can take any topic, grab great literature, align it to the standards and TEACH! So much fun! 🙂

Writing in my classroom is explicit.

I have a six step process.

I start with brainstorming. Brainstorming usually involves a text of some kind and discussion about a particular topic.

I model a TON…especially at the beginning of the year.

I ask the kids to help me with the spelling at the beginning. We fix the spelling over time during different versions of the story.

Next, we start a draft.

The drafting phase includes an illustration, and then a part of the writing. Usually, at this point, I’ll have selected students share theirs with the class.

Next, we do a revision of the writing and we add a bit more to it.

The next part is my favorite! 🙂

Peer editing!

The students pair up together and use their peer editing checklists. The first few times, I assigned partners. Now, I just let them pick partners when they are through with a specific stage.

Once it’s been peer edited, I look over it and give them feedback.

They do a final draft and share it with the class! 🙂

Sometimes, I have a craft extension.

To implement the science, I used a great little pack from First Grade and Flip Flops! 🙂 I got together with another teacher on my team and we did some fun rotations and demos! The students really got excited about working together in groups! 🙂 They were fabulous little scientists!