4 Steps to Teaching Transitional Phrases with Pumpkin Jack

Don't you just love it when you read a student's narrative and they use awesome transitional words like "First," "Then," and "Finally?"

They add a touch of class and voice to their writing, and really help you experience their unique perspective.



LOL! No, they don't.

Students who use these tired transitional phrases tend to write in a simplistic manner. Authentic transition use can take a moderate piece of writing and turn it into a very strong one.


This blog hop is pretty exciting. As you click through each post, collect the "mystery word." You can record them on this sheet. Then, enter the rafflecopter to win every book! You'll also collect a great freebie to use with a mentor text for teaching a reading or writing skill or strategy!

Teaching Authentic Transitions

To introduce authentic transitions using a text model (the best way to introduce writing strategies - notice them in a mentor text!), I chose Pumpkin Jack. It's seasonal, easy to follow, and includes a ton of different transitions for different purposes. They're each used in a natural manner that doesn't cause the story to halt every time a transition is used.

To use a mentor text as a model, this is the procedure I follow:

The Lesson

These four steps help students see the craft being used well by a mentor author.

Step 1: Notice It! Read aloud a great mentor book that demonstrates the craft you want to try with students. Pumpkin Jack does a great job of using transitional phrases naturally. As you read, mark the phrases with post-its, thinking about how they convey the passing of time.

Step 2: Name it! Name the strategy and introduce it explicitly. When you name it, make sure to discuss with students how the craft adds something purposeful to the author's writing.
In Pumpkin Jack, you can discuss the following points:

• Transitional phrases are used to show the passing of time.
• They all sound different.
• Some show a short time has passed; some show a long time has passed.
• They are written in different places in a sentence and in a paragraph.

This would also be a good time to chart the transitional phrases by purpose, like in the anchor chart below. 

 

Step 3: Teacher tries it! When you model, think aloud a step at a time about how to use the craft deliberately and purposefully in your writing. Why is that craft a good idea? What is using it going to convey to your reader? How will you use it effectively? You might also revise an older piece using that craft, rather than writing a new piece.

Step 4: Students try it! Have students try to use the craft in their writing. It might be easier to have them revise a piece of writing in a piece they've already written to use the craft.
For transitional phrases, have students read their pieces to find where time has passed. Add in a transitional phrase that moves the piece from one time to the next. Refer back to your anchor chart of the transitions from Pumpkin Jack.

For a fun activity to do to help you "Notice It, Name It, and Try It," check out my new freebie on TPT for Teaching Transitions with Pumpkin Jack! It includes lesson ideas and tools for teaching students to use transitional phrases appropriately in their narratives. There's even a story for you to model revising with transitional phrases!

Tools to try it out!

Grab it free on TPT!

Did you catch my mystery word?  If not, it is Jack. Now it's time to hop to the next stop. Remember to record all of the mystery words so you can enter the big giveaway! Download the recording form here, if you don't already have it!

Happy Teaching! 

The next stop is...

Selma Dawani: Teaching and Learning Resources

or go to the start of the hop to collect 

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Inspiring Student Writing

How many times do you actually give free choice in writing only to hear, "I don't know what to write about!" One thing that challenges our students is getting started in writing; choosing something to write about that they are actually interested in, and writing form their own unique perspective. 

Tell me if this has happened to you: you model writing a piece about a time you went to the beach with your family. You use some creative details, like descriptions of the sun, sand, and breeze. You share an encounter with a jellyfish! And then you describe the calm peacefulness you felt sitting on the sand.

And then you read your kids' writing. And almost all of them went to the beach! They described the sun, sand, and breeze, and that time they ran into a jellyfish! And then they felt so calm and peaceful.

Sound familiar?

That's the way writing often starts. Our kids, when they are still struggling to find their writing voice, use voices that...well...sound a lot like ours. If our writing is the only model of writing students have, we're really limiting their exposure to different types of writing styles. We have to give them lots of opportunities to read and look at things and search their brains for the memories and thoughts that those experiences trigger.

Inspire with Books & Authors
Some of my favorite books for inspiring student writing are by Cynthia Rylant. It's no secret - she's incredible. She makes me feel like a terrible writer. That's what good writers do, right? Something about the intricate and warm details she includes helps kids reach into their brains for their own details and memories.

This is the response I modeled for the kids in my writer's notebook after we read Scarecrow:

I wanted to stretch my students' thinking by freewriting in response to Scarecrow. This helps them think of a variety of ideas for their own future writing, making their writer's notebooks a real resource for writing.

Another book I love love love for inspiring student writing is The Ghost-Eye Tree. It includes suspense and very strong feelings. Great for getting kids to think about times they were frightened or uneasy.

This book by Jerry Seinfeld always cracked me and my kids up, and it got some of my less excited writers to write about their memories in a funny way.

I love Bat Loves the night by Nicola Davies for those kids who enjoy writing about science. Literary nonfiction titles are a great bridge for those kids!

And this book is excellent for teaching kids to zoom in on a moment.

When our kids read enough books by the same author, they get to know that author. They understand that writers make decisions and have a style. They get to say things like, "I'm going to write this like Patricia Polacco did." That's the value of an author study.

I like to put our favorite books into a "Books We Love" basket in our writing area. Kids who need inspiration can go borrow one and get inspired!

Inspire with Pictures

One of the things my kids enjoyed is starting with a picture. One year, my campus had a school-wide picture every month that we all wrote about. It was so interesting to see what direction everyone took the pictures! These are some way I used pictures:

• Settings: show students pictures about various settings that they may be writing about. Pictures of a certain season or location can help students think about where they'd like their writing to take place.
• Characters: provide pictures of different kinds of characters. Have students describe them. Do they know someone similar? What would that person say, do, or think? 
• Tone: show a picture that expresses a certain tone or feeling. Have students write in their notebook what that picture makes them think of.  

This is a writer's notebook entry I modeled in response to a picture of a baker!

Inspire with Words

A terrific strategy to use to encourage students to grow their expressive vocabularies and to "read like a writer" is "Filling the Room with Beautiful Language." I honestly don't know where I learned this, but here's what you do to fill your room with golden lines.

1. Read a beautifully written picture book aloud, slowly.

2. Students listen for their favorite line; the line that was written in such a vivid way that they want to remember it.

3. They write the line down; I sometimes had them record it on a sentence strip and illustrate it. These later went on a bulletin board full of "beautiful lines," or "golden lines."

4. To share your favorite lines, popcorn it out. One student stands up and reads his/her line. Then he sits down and another student stands up and reads his/her line. Continue until everyone has shared their lines. It fills your room with beautiful language. After you start hunting for this kind of language in the books you read, students will be inspired to try to "write like that," and they will grow their own language in the most expressive ways!

Visit this page to read another fun way we inspired our students' creative writing with interesting words.

For some fun inspirational writing tools, check out the Writing Inspiration Station on TPT. It's full of descriptive sentence starters, personal narrative starters and prompts, and fun pictures to write about. 

These creative story starter dice have a separate story starter on each side. There are creative story starter dice for holidays and seasons!

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Potter Fans: Harry Potter Book Club Activities

Harry Potter Fan Club!   Is that not the best reason to go to work? Every Wednesday, from 3:00 to 4:00, an adorable group of students arrives at my room to read Harry Potter. They are the cutest, because they are staying after school, by choice, to read!    I started out by inviting any interested Potter Fans:  

After we started reading, one of the early activities we did was making bookmarks to mark our books!

  After Harry got his wand at Ollivander's, we logged on to http://www.pottermore.com to see what wand we  would receive!

When we read about Harry and Ron on the Hogwarts Express, we made these chocolate frog boxes using this template I found at The Leaky Cauldron.

I had students choose their most interesting character and we started these character maps, using evidence from the text that shows us what the character is like!

 

 

We started a couple handy charts based on the kids' observations after reading a few chapters.

We hunted for characteristics of each Hogwarts house.

 After they noticed the connections between Harry and Voldemort, we started a Venn diagram.

We used an online quiz to figure out which house each student is in (BTW, I'm totally down with Hufflepuff).

 And then we worked on creating our house crests!

We took pictures and put it all together for a nice little display outside my classroom door! The Potter Fans are in!

We made some fun golden snitches using these materials: styrofoam balls, spray glue (which I managed to spray pretty much all over my table, and papers stuck there for weeks), glitter, sparkly pipe cleaners, and sparkly gold foam fun felt.

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A Rainforest Museum for Earth Day!

I've been teaching for twelve years. Unfortunately, I really didn't start documenting and photographing my teaching  until about four years ago. That means there are about eight undocumented years of teaching. And that really stinks, because during that time I remember doing some very awesome stuff with my kids. 

There was the year we collected funds for the World Wildlife Fund, made informative presentations about endangered species, and invited classes from around the school to learn about why we should protect the environment.

A jaguar in its rainforest habitat.

There was the year we made books based on "When I Was Young in the Mountains." Each student wrote a memoir and created a bare book to read to their little first grade buddies.

I don't have one single picture of these events. So please, take pictures of your teaching. You'll wish you had them.

Today, I came across a set of pictures about six years ago that I didn't know I had. They were from our fourth grade museum.

For several years in a row, the fourth grade hosted "Fourth Grade Science Museums" at the end of the school year. We chose a science topic that we had to teach at that time and each section took a different part of it. For example, one year, we divided up the Earth and Space standards among six sections and I got the objects in the sky part. Another year, we divided up the Changes to Earth standards, and I took fast changes - volcanoes and earthquakes.

A lemur, lollygagging in a rainforest tree.

This was the year of the biomes. Each teacher took one biome, and I had the rainforest. We. Had. A. Blast. I took black butcher paper and covered the entire back wall of our room. Each student received colored chalk to create a mural of the rainforest. It was beautiful! Of course, I don't have pictures of that.

Each student chose an animal to research. We used Zoobooks from the classroom, library books, and a multitude of resources online. I provided a list of some great places to get rainforest research below.

The golden lion tamarind, resting against a tree.

After gathering their information, students created a short presentation about their animal. At home, they built a model of the animal including important details about their habitats. 

They each created a book about their animal. I provided each student with a small bare book and we discussed how to create a nonfiction book - we planned out the pages: life cycle, food chain, a description of the animal's habitat and more. Then we added glossaries in the back. I love having students create books! Bare books are the best investment!

The last piece was a powerpoint presentation - each student added one slide about their animals to a class presentation. We projected it and left it on a loop. Classes from across the grade and a few from around the school were invited to come and visit our presentation. We set up a schedule to visit each others' classes. The students were so proud to share their learning! And I truly believe it helped increase their environmental consciousness. 

Students teaching each other about their animals.

Teaching about the rainforest? Check out these resources:

Books

Rain, Rain, Rainforest

The Great Kapok Tree

Magic Tree House Rainforest Guide

I love these Magic Tree House guides - 

full of great information and very readable!

Websites

National Geographic for Kids: Animals

Scholastic Research Starters: Rainforest

What is a Rainforest?

Research in the Rainforest

Enchanted Learning: All About Rainforests

Animal Fact Guide

And here's a handy product to use with The Greak Kapok Tree. It integrates the story, reading about rainforest animals, and ideas for extensions! Grab it on TPT!

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What We Love Link-Up with Primary Powers

 

 

Is there anything better in the world than a link-up? When I'm drooling and I can't think of any of the 100,000 different things I've done in the classroom to write about, I'm like, "Oh, good. They'll just tell me what to do." and then I do that. This is a Classroom Loves link-up hosted about Primary Powers- we're writing about what I, they, we love.  

So, when I was writing this post, I was like, "Oh! I know what I love! I love wine!" and then I realized that wasn't really appropriate. So then I thought, "Oooh, summers off!" But that's not really what this is about. Coffee in the lounge? When they bring me chocolate on Valentine's Day? 

Apparently, I am a very simple person with simple pleasures.

Anyway, I finally settled on something appropriate-ish, I think. I LOVE office supplies! Post-its, pens (preferably felt-tip), a special notebook to write in and white tape for mistakes. For Christmas, my sister-in-law gave me a big box full of supplies she bought at an Office Depot going out of business sale. Be still, my heart.

These are my favorite things and they make me happy, when I'm not allowed to drink wine...which is really just when I'm at work.

My students have always loved sorts. Whether they're in reading, math, science, or whatever, they love picking up little cards and figuring out where they go. 

 This sort required students to sort characteristics, examples, and questions into different genres.

They get such a sense of accomplishment from figuring out which categories everything goes in and having everything "in the right place". They love to talk to their partners and disagree and make decisions. Because of this, even though sorts require a little preparation, it's something I like to integrate whenever possible.

This one was easy. We. Love. Harry. Potter. My Harry Potter Book Club meets once a week, after school on Wednesdays for an hour. 

 Making bookmarks with another thing they love: glitter paint.

We read, take online quizzes to get sorted into houses, make charts and graphic organizers and crafts. We laugh at Dudley, are very impressed by McGonnegal, and are very nervous for Ron. The kids who come to the club are so much fun and I love to plan special activities for them!

 

Chocolate frog boxes!

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