| Plan your summer training during the chill of winter! | | |
Consider planning a Summer Writing Institute for your district.
Call 303-221-5301 to find out more about this opportunity
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Visit our Web Site for more information
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On our web site you can find:
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Instructional resources
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A sample strategy from The Write Tools 101 training
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Success stories from our customers
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Webinar downloads
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Information about upcoming webinars and workshops
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| Greetings!
This is the time of year when students are focused on the upcoming holidays, and teachers are trying to make productive use of the time to continue meaningful instruction. We have a few suggested activities that will enable kids to improve their writing skills during the merry-making month of December. |
Read aloud Activity 
A great read aloud book for all ages is You Can Do It, Sam by Amy Hest. This is a sweet story about a little bear who makes tasty cakes for all of his friends. He and his mother package the cakes in festive red bags, and deliver them, through the snow, as a special surprise. The book has a seasonal theme (gift giving) with no specific mention of the holidays.
If you have a Kohl's store in your area, this book is currently available there for $5.00. While sharing the book you can use it for a Free Response activity, and after reading it, use it to practice summary writing.
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Paper Chain Writing
Another activity is to have students plan a paragraph or essay using the topic, "Gifts I Could Give to Others." For Big Ideas, they could list family members or friends, and for Tell Me Mores, list specific ideas for gifts those people might like to receive. As you model this plan for students, consider gifts that do not require money--things like spending time together playing games, or helping out with chores. Refer to Sam (the bear) and the baking he did for his friends. Once the plan is made, students can do their writing on colored strips--green for the topic sentence and conclusion, yellow for the Big Ideas, and red (or pink) for the Tell Me Mores. After writing the paper--one sentence per strip--turn the strips into links for a paper chain. Students can take their chain home for a decoration, or you might have a small branch or tree in your classroom that they can hang their chains on--a "giving" tree.
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Letter Writing
 Review the structure for a friendly letter by having students write a letter to Santa. On small slips of paper list identities, some for boys and some for girls. Each identity should also have an age on it, i.e. a 5-year-old girl, a 16 year old boy, a 30-year-old woman, a 50-year-old man. Have students select a slip of paper and then write a letter to Santa pretending to be that person. The students can ask Santa for the gifts that they think a person that age might be interested in. Be sure to include essential components of a friendly letter. These are great fun to share out loud.
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Whatever you do between now and your Winter Break, we hope that you will enjoy this special time of year with your students and look forward to the rest and relaxation with your loved ones that is just around the corner!
Sincerely,
The Write Tools, LLC |
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