For the second year in a row, my students LOVED making these silly pumpkins. I got the idea last year from Doodle Bugs Teaching.
This year, I decided to add a writing component. First grade was working on adjectives for two weeks, and it was very easy to describe these silly pumpkins!
The lesson was very specific. The first sentence introduced the pumpkin by giving him/her a name. The second sentence described the color and size or shape of the pumpkin. The third sentence was all about the number of teeth the pumpkin has. The fourth sentence described the pumpkin using one word only. And the last sentence told how the pumpkin made you feel.
We are working very hard on writing complete sentences, so we only wrote one sentence at a time, making sure to start with a capital letter and end with punctuation. Each sentence had to make sense too, and only include one thought. This is really tough on young writers!
These kinds of directed writing lessons really help the children write proper sentences and not just one, long, run on! In between writing each sentence, we brainstormed words we can use in our sentences.
This is the writing template we used.
Feel free to grab it for yourself by clicking the image below.
I do these kinds of directed writing lessons often because they really help the children learn how to write an organized paragraph. I find that the children begin to write this way on their own after a few modeled lessons.
If you are looking for ways to do these types of modeled writing lessons in your classroom, you should check out my Writing through the Fall pack.
After a few of these, your students will be able to write an organized paragraph. Even on their own!
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