Stepping a Little Deeper into Writing

This week we read a book about Ruby Bridges, an African American girl who was chosen to attend a white school in the 1950s. We talked a lot about how brave she was. To help the kids connect to the text and this time period of history,we all thought of some times that we were brave. Each child drew a picture of a time that they were brave and wrote a sentence or two about it. This was a HUGE step for some kids! Almost everyone is excited to draw, but as soon as we talk about putting words with our pictures the excitement goes down and the stress level goes up!

We've spent a lot of time learning blends and other special sounds in words (sh, ch, th) the past few weeks, and I'm super proud to say that they did a fabulous job incorporating them into their writing today! It was like a total "aha!" moment for some of them when they realized they could spell words that used to be a mystery to them. Very freeing! (Lightbulbs were coming on all over the room!)

Here are some great samples of our work (with translation underneath - spelling is a work in progress!) We started with just the word "brave" on the board (since everyone would need that one to write about their picture!) I kid you not, I did NOT spell words for these kids! I believe I spelled the word "of" for one child and gave a few hints to a couple others, but they totally did these on their own! Check out their impressive work!

I had to be brave at Monster Jam.

I was brave to go under a car.

I was brave at show and tell.

I was brave when I got a snake.

I was brave when I was on the stage.

I was being brave when I was on the stage.

I am brave in class.

I was brave on the roller coaster.

I had to be brave when I did the national anthem.

Look out first grade! Here we come!