Opinion Writing & Day 13/14 Early!

Thank you for all the wonderfully sweet comments on the My Favorite Ice Cream Opinion writing. It was a hit with my class, and you as well! 

Here is how I finished up the writing lesson. The students transferred their reasons to a final draft. Then we went back for some final revisions.  I modeled creating a final draft for them. I made purposeful errors for them to help me correct. 

The students then went back and made their final revisions. I have to say, the whole lesson was one of the most engaging writing lessons I have ever taught. I really felt like they got it! 

 Here is the boring and basic anchor chart I made. (It needs work!) =)

 This week we started on the Will You Be My Valentine? opinion writing. I started off the lesson reading If You'll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant. The boy tells several characters what he will do if he is their Valentine. After reading the story, we talked about good character traits. These are the traits my students came up with for the boy. 

I then proceeded the lesson (over the past three days) in the same manor as the ice cream lesson.

We began with an opinion statement. The next day, they wrote their three reasons why they would make a good Valentine. 

 "because I am a fast runner. I am a smart boy. I will get you candy." This boy had a little trouble starting off, but then I think he got it! 

"I love my friends. I would take you to the woods. (His favorite place to be.) I would take your phone number." (I guess he knows something about dating! LOL) 

Today we finished up with restating our opinion and creating a final draft. (I forgot to take pictures!) Tomorrow, they will make revisions and share with the class. 

You can find this activity here. 

Moving onto other news...

Here are the links to Days 13 & 14. I hope you have enjoyed our blog hop and all the great freebies! I hope it saved you some time in your planning. We all need all the help we can get with finding extra time. =) Thanks for joining us...and stay tuned! We have some exciting give aways and teaching tools planned in the next few weeks! Make sure you become a "follower" of our blogs and Facebook! 

Head to Teacher's Toolkit for Day 13...

And My Primary Paradise for Day 14...

Thanks to Mel for the great graphics for our hop!