Today I had an opportunity to go with the teachable moment. We are hard at work on our Haunted House for Sale writing project. Today we talked about the topic sentence and how important it is. I told the kids that if their topic sentence wasn't interesting and exciting, a potential buyer probably would not take the time to read the rest of their ad. We brainstormed some great topic sentence ideas such as "Are you in the market for a new spooky haunt?" or "Enter my hideous haunted house if you dare!". Then I set the kids free to write their own topic sentence based on their haunted house. In the middle of their writing I had a fantastic idea!
I grabbed my "witch" and "zombie" fingers that we have been using as pointers in reading groups and put them on all of my fingers. Then I told the kids that once they finished their topic sentence they needed to bring their paper and sit on the carpet. I took the role of "monster/zombie/witch/ghostly ghoul" and each student had to come up one at a time and read their topic sentence to me. I, the scary creature, then would tell the writer if I was interested in their house our not. If I was interested that meant their topic sentence was great and had lots of details. If I wasn't interested they had to go back and rewrite it or add details until I was interested. They LOVED it. We were all giggling. I made sure to use my best scary voice and say things like "Come here my pretty!" or "Silence Urchins!". We had so much fun and their Topic Sentences were awesome! They really are starting to become dashingly delightful descriptive writers!
In more teachery related news, I have a freebie for you. I made a fun Halloween Family Project for the kiddos to take home next week. I figured with all of the candy they are collecting it would be great to incorporate some graphing and math! I added a few Halloween writing pages I found on TPT but you could also just add some fun Halloween stationery with a simple prompt such as "What did you dress up as on Halloween?". Hope you enjoy! Click here to download your copy. I'm making mine completely optional but it could also be great homework for next week!
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