Smiles and Sunshine: Perfecting Paragraphs~Day 1

Friday, March 14, 2014

Perfecting Paragraphs~Day 1

Welcome! I'm starting a series on how we are working on perfecting our paragraphs in writing. I hope you enjoy it!

Fonts by Kimberly Geswin, Frame by Lovin' Lit, Clipart by Melonheadz Illustrating

One thing that we have recently started refining in 4th grade is our paragraphs.

I introduced the topic by asking the students what a paragraph was.

Blank stares.

Crickets.

Ummmm, okay. We may have more work to do that I thought!

I asked if they had talked about this in 3rd grade.

Blank stares.

Crickets.

Okay! A lot of work.

And then one student piped up. (and some of the kids looked at him like he was crazy!) and as he started talking, more kids started remember (and they totally had this in 3rd grade-I asked one of the teachers-little sneaks!)

My one piped up student gave an excellent answer on what a paragraph was (at least to my mind!).

It's a group of sentences that focus on one idea or topic.

After we had a starting point, we talked a little more about what a paragraph needed. I got a lot more particpation on this one!

Then, I pulled out my chart that I had made last year.

It gave a good overview-but I wanted to add a little more to it.

Some cutting of the extra paper of the morning message, some tape and voila!

A closer look at the changes:

Then, I pulled up a picture on the SMART Board and asked them to write a paragraph about it. I didn't give them any directions on what kind of paragraph-because I wanted to see what they were capable of.

As some of them were finishing up, I asked them to write another paragraph-the opposite of the first one they wrote (i.e., if they wrote a description of the picture, write a story; if they wrote a story about the picture, write a description.)

Some of them came out fairly well!