SPELLING, EDITING AND WRITING LESSONS
Spelling and Editing were completed in the same fashion on a given day of the week. Spelling at SRS is considered an "at home" activity in the third grade and editing is rather simple in the beginning of the year. For these reasons I have laid out what a typical week of spelling and editing work would look like.
Note: Many of the filler activities that were created and used at other points during the day were centered around spelling. For examples please click here.
Monday:
Introduce the spelling list for the week and the rule(s) used:
Example methods:
After introducing the rule, have the students create their spelling lists, following a specific procedure:
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Wednesday:
No spelling work in class. For homework students are asked to write sentences for all of their spelling words.
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Thursday: Edit Journals
Using the overhead projector, take a look at a page in the students’ edit journal. Ask the class to find the mistakes in the sentence and correct on the overhead.
When all of the mistakes are found, have the students find a place in the room to work. Then have students re-write the sentences in their edit journals using these corrections.
Finally have them go to the next page of incorrect sentences and make corrections on the sentences, but don’t have them re-write the sentences, for this will be done the following week, thus creating a cycle of re-writing and editing sentences.
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Friday:
Spelling tests administered in small groups by the teacher.
The students sit in a half circle and the teacher reads one word to the students in a round-robin format until all students have received all of their spelling words.
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Writing Lessons
Poetry Lessons
Lesson 1: Poetry Introduction
Ask the class what they know about poetry and what they have written before.
After establishing their prior knowledge, read the students some poetry from the Pennsylvania Young Poets book in order to show them poems written by other students in the state.
End the reading with a set of poems written about colors.
Talk about the format of this poem:
Three things that are brought to mind when you hear the color / The color / How the color makes you feel
After talking about possibilities for these requirements, have the class write a color poem together on the board.
Have the students spend the rest of the time working on their own color poetry.
Sunsets, Fires, Autumn leaves / Orange / Orange is happy!
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Lesson 2: Acrostic Poetry
Talk with the class about the poetry that was produced before. Explain how poetry can take many forms and then introduce acrostic poetry to them.
Ask the class if they know what acrostic poetry is and have them explain. Next, read them some acrostic poems about Halloween (which would be the following week) from the poetry book. After reading the poetry, create an acrostic poem as a class before having the students create their own for the remainder of the time.
In order to fill the rest of the time allotted, the students will be provided with an additional activity. This activity will involve the students creating a Halloween themed picture from a sheet of paper that has two lines and a circle placed on the sheet in random places.
These poems and pictures will later be hung on the wall outside of the classroom for the Halloween parade and party. Below you will find a few examples.
Student Halloween Acrostic Poetry
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Lesson 3: Mad-Libs
The lesson begins with the class meeting on the rug to discuss what they believed a mad-lib to be. After this discussion, the class is asked about various parts of speech. (Note: This activity is perfect for reviewing the parts of speech.)
Begin by asking the students if they know what is meant by “part of speech”. If they provide answers such as “noun” or “adjective” and so on, ask them to give an example of each one. After they are provided with an example of the part of speech, either from their peers or the teacher, work as a class to decipher the rule for that part of speech. For example, a noun is apple, and the rule is that it is a person, place or thing; an adjective is big (i.e. a big apple), and the rule is that it describes a noun.
Before the class can begin to create a mad-lib, they must be aware of the following essential parts of speech – noun, adjective, adverb, verb and pronoun.
When the students are sure of the parts of speech, ask them to provide a word for the requested part of speech, and as they provide words, the teacher fills the blanks in on a pre-created mad-lib. For this lesson, the theme songs from the Flintstones and SpongeBob Squarepants were used.
As they provide responses to the questions “I need a pronoun/noun/adjective/etc” correct any errors in the words provided. For example, if a student says quick for a verb, explain to the student that their word is not correct and have them rethink their response. If they are still not certain, ask the class for help.
After one or two mad-libs are created by and read back to the class, have them go to their desks and create their own mad-libs, reminding them to leave a blank where they want a word to go and to remember to write what part of speech it is underneath the blank.
Below you will find samples of mad-libs written by the students.
Student Mad-Lib Examples
Once upon a time an (animal), Mr. (silly word 1), threatened to (verb) (a planet). However, Prince (silly word 2) attacked the enemy (building). Mr. (silly word 1) sent his army, but the prince struck him (adverb). There was a (type of event) and they lived (emotion) ever after.
Elvis is so (adjective). He’s the best (occupation) ever! I can’t wait to go to his (noun) this Monday night. I’m bringing my best (noun). Elvis is the best (occupation) ever.
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Lesson 4: Haiku
As a class, discuss the color poetry and acrostic poetry that was created before. Next, ask the students if they know what is meant by syllabic poetry. See if the students understand that this type of poetry is based on the number of syllables in each verse. Finally ask if they know any types of syllabic poetry, hoping for the answer “haiku”.
After the discussion talk about haikus and what is needed in order to write one. Using the upcoming Halloween holiday, read the class some Halloween and fall themed haikus. Have them written on the board as well and ask the students to break apart the syllables by underlining them on the board.
When finished, have the class write Halloween haikus to hang up outside as well.
Here are a few haiku's used as examples for the students:
Black cat passes by / Skeletons are white tonight / Horror night is here
On Halloween night / With the full moon shining bright / Ghosts in the graveyard.
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Writing Good Leads
This lesson focuses on how to write a good lead and what a good lead does for a story. The goal is for students to find ways of hooking the reader early in their writing piece by spending time thinking about their first sentence.
The class is brought to the rug to discuss what a lead is. First they are asked if they know the terminology “lead” and a discussion will ensue about what it means and why it is used. Discussion questions such as what it is, where it is found in a story, and what it does for the story will be asked. The goal of the discussion is to talk about how the lead hooks the reader to help bring them into the story, usually evoking some kind of deeper thinking, questioning or curiosity.
To solidify the concept of a good lead, the students will be read the first line from a few stories. After hearing the lead, they will be asked what they are left thinking about, what do they know and what do they want to know more about.
Some sample leads from stories: