Writing to Inform and Veteran’s Day

Now that my boys have made it through the first big sickness of the year, I finally feel like I can catch my breath.  Whew…that was a ROUGH couple of weeks!!  I really worked hard to make up for lost time with my {school} littles this week…and it was definitely a busy one!!! 

Since I missed the 50th day of school so I could stay at home to take care of my little sickie, I decided to treat my kids to some 50th day fun on Friday.  We did a few activities from my 50th day of school packet and finished our day with some DElicious root beer floats.  Can you say 3 servings for the teacher?!  After enjoying our afternoon treats…and surveying the class {ALL 19 of us LOVED the floats!!!}, we talked about writing a how-to.  Before our how-to, we talked about the different reasons authors write…to persuade, to express their feelings, to inform, etc….and referred back to our “Why Writer’s Write” anchor chart.

I told the kids we were going to write to INFORM…and we discussed why…and then we wrote our little root beer float how-to’s as a whole group during our shared reading/writing time…here’s our little anchor chart!

Then the kids got busy making their own….PRESH!

 

I LOVE the 50th day!!!!!!  Even when we celebrate 3 days late :)

We’ll be busy honoring our Veterans on Monday, so we learned all about Veterans Day last week, too.  Deanna Jump has the BEST little Veteran’s Day packet {newly revised, by the way} that I LOVE using this time of year!!!  You might remember these little cuties I did with my class a couple of years ago…

Well, I also saved my anchor chart and pulled that out after we brainstormed some words to describe our veterans.  LOVE that I had it handy to pull out and use as our anchor chart after our little brainstorming session!!! 

Of course, the kids were SO excited to make their own little veterans and even MORE excited to see them hanging in the hall later that afternoon!  TOO cute!!!  It seems like SO many of my kids have family members serving in the military, so they made some amazing connections during this activity.  God bless everyone serving in the military {past & present} and the family members that have to sacrifice during their absence.  I will forever be grateful!!!!!!!!!! 

Now I’m off to get ready for the big race tomorrow!!!  Color Run 2012, baby!!!  I am BEYOND out of shape, but SO excited about getting color crazy with my bestie in the A.M.!!!! 

OH…wait!!!!  If you’re browsing around this weekend and want a new blog to read….or add to your ever-growing list…head over to Kick Starting Kindergarten and visit my friend, Brandy!  She’s a teacher at my school and has some GREAT ideas!!!