Fun with the Grade 2s

Yesterday I taught writing to the Grade 2 class that my youngest son is in. I did the same for the same teacher when my middle son was in her class two years ago. Typical occasional teacher, I had way too many ideas to fit into a one hour slot. But we managed to slim it down and do some good stuff. At least I think we did.

The part I enjoyed the most was interacting with the class about ways to make a short boring story more interesting.

The story was:

Tom went to the park. He played. He went home.

We talked about all sorts of ideas ranging from what he saw on his way there and on the way home, what he could smell, hear, taste. How he felt (hot, cold etc.). More interesting words for "went." We didn't actually rewrite the story together, there were too many opinions! But it was fun interacting with them and hearing all their ideas.

I also read them one of my favourite children's story that is chockers full of interesting words (which was my lesson theme). Lynley Dodd's Hairy Maclary's Rumpus at the Vet.

I couldn't find it on Youtube, so I decided to be bold and record my own (very amateur) video just for you.

After talking about interesting words, interacting with them about how to make sentences more interesting, I gave them some writing prompts and let them fly with their own ideas. I'd had lots to writing prompt ideas (too many, actually), but the most popular turned out to be pictures, and this one particularly:

I found this here.

I personally think this one is also fun, but I guess I have a mum's perspective that these 6, 7 and 8 year olds don't have:

This image comes from http://www.edgalaxy.com/literacy/tag/images

I talked to one girl who wanted to write about this photo, but when I asked her how she thought the baby ended up in this position, she said, "I have no idea." Which really makes it a very difficult photo to write about!

I'm now thinking about teaching about writing to missionaries next month (25 and 26th). Somehow I don't think I'll be reading Hairy Maclary or showing photos of babies taped to the wall?