This is a picture of 1st grade students working independently during our 10 minute "Quiet Creative Writing" time. After lunch/recess my students were always excited with lots of energy and needed a way to calm down and transition into the afternoon routine. To encourage the learning environment I was looking for during this active period of the day, I combined a variety of strategies: I played classical music Cd's. dimmed the lights, and attached lined post-it-notes to random calendar pictures on each student's desk. These calendar pictures included: animals, sports, cars, landscapes, cartoons, abstract art, etc.
Students had been trained to enter the quiet classroom and get right to writing at their desks. Students were at different levels in their writing so this activity could be modified in many ways with: words to describe the picture, sentences about the picture, or a creative story. After 10 minutes the timer would ring and students would raise their hands to share what they had written. Three children shared their work and invited questions or comments. These discussions turned out to be some of the best and most insightful into supporting my students needs as 6/7 year old writers!!!! At the end our class helper would collect the pictures, which I could then hang on our "writing wire", or as a writing informal assessment.
Hi Emily,
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to needing that quiet time in first grade. I taught first grade my first year of teaching before being moved to third grade. I loved watching students grow in their reading and writing skills over the year.
I think this is a great activity and a great way to get students to write every day.
Did you ever have students who couldn't come up with anything to write because they couldn't relate to the pictures? What kinds of comments/suggestions/questions did the students have about each other's writing?
Oh and by the way, good luck with your preschool!!
ReplyDeleteI like your activity and how it gets the students to settle down when they come back to class. How did you decide on pasing out calendar pictures? Have you tried letting students choose their own topic? It might be fun letting them try this and if they need a prompt you could have a place in the room where they go pick from a pile of prompts (such as calendar pictures) that they want to write about. It would allow more choice for the students...but would also take them longer to settle in.
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