Write By Candlelight

     It started with our poetry unit, our culminating project being a poetry slam for 2nd and 3rd graders.  It was precious!  The kids wrote their own poems as part of the unit.  We purchased plastic mason jars and battery-operated tea lights.  We made little table groups with the candlelight and had a chair for the featured reader to sit in at the front of the classroom to recite their poem.  The kids LOVED it!

     Then a few days later, my third graders were working on their focused brain-storming session in our recently-started Realistic Fiction unit.  I happened to notice the tea lights and jars were still out, needing to be put away.  I said, "Kiddos, do you want to write by candlelight today?"  "YEEEESSSSS!!!!"  So the ones who wanted a candle/jar got to write by candlelight.  It was absolutely precious!  We turned off the lights and also put on peaceful music.  From now on the kids  always get the option to write by candlelight.  I'm absolutely loving the ambience and the peace it brings them.

     For this particular unit, my co-teacher and I decided to have the kids write a choose-your-own adventure story!  I'd seen a reference to it at a technology workshop, and was SUPER ANTSY to fit it into the curriculum somehow!  This was the perfect opportunity.  The kids are THRILLED about it, even my most challenged writers!  After doing some research about how to write one in general, we've amended it for our grade level.  Here is a fantastic resource that helped us.  

     The students pictured above are working on their "Events In My Story" part of the story planning process.  We already spent a day working on characters and setting.  We talked a little bit about how to organize the story.  Each part of their book will be about a paragraph, no longer than a page.  For some of them, drawing the organizer helped at this stage.  I am interested to see how the others choose to organize their thoughts.  In general, I love what they are coming up with!

     We are using Jen Bengel's Units of Study for our Reading Writing Workshop (RWW).  If you haven't checked her out yet, YOU. SIMPLY. MUST!!!  Beyond rave reviews about how Jen's units of study have changed my teaching approach to RWW.  She's FABULOUS!  See my separate post about how we've implemented her units in RWW and Spelling.

More to come as the kids continue to work on their stories!