Open House and Lorax Persuasive Writing

We have been working on Persuasive Writing in our room for the past few weeks. Students are learning how to convince someone to do something important to them. We need to make sure we are polite and we use kind words when we are trying to persuade. Our reasons have to be valid and have to be as convincing as possible.

We completed a Lorax persuasive task during Earth Week. We read the story and wondered as a class why the Once-ler was so determined to cut down the trees and take so much life away. We researched many reasons why trees are important to our life and to the life of other things in nature. We learned how to research and how to find reasons that made sense to our writing topic. Students used Google Slides to compile their research and then referenced the Slides while writing their persuasive letters to the Once-ler. Have a look at our research below:

 

Last week we completed another persuasive task. This time the topic was Open House. Students chose to either persuade the students of Assumption to buy books at the Book Fair or to persuade their parents to join us at our Open House breakfast. Students had to use transition words to help them compose their persuasive letters. Their good copy was typed on Google Docs where many students got to use Google Read and Write to help them edit their work. Ask your child to explain to you how it helped them with their writing. We also shared our final draft on an iPad app called Chatterpix. Students loved experimenting with this app. We posted all of their completed Chatterpix creations on their KidBlog accounts. Please visit our KidBlog accounts to leave a comment on their writing. They loved creating them and are excited to see they are available on YouTube!

Healthy Foods Research

For our unit in Health, we have focused on healthy eating and the 4 Food Groups. Students began inquiring what the 4 Food Groups were and questioned the kinds of food that are in the main food groups. We have collaborated with our friends on a shared-slide document. Students investigated the 4 Food Groups in an in-depth way. They were challenged to first figure out with a partner what types of healthy food are in the food groups.

To research, students consulted wonder and nutrition websites to help answer their inquiry and to categorize food into their appropriate food group. After completing this task I wondered if students understood why it was important to eat healthy food in the food groups. The next task had the students determine why the food groups were important. I was amazed to see how knowledgeable students are in researching. They recognized how to ask the right questions when searching on Google. They read through websites with a friend and found some amazing facts about Fruits, Vegetables, Dairy, Grain and Protein foods. We even contacted Wonderopolis to help us determine where to categorize some food. The class is really enjoying this special project and I am so proud of how experienced they are in researching and proving with evidence. Well done friends! We will be using this important research to assist us on another project beginning Wednesday. Students will be exploring healthy food in a fun way. We will be creating a video to teach others about our healthy treat....stay tuned!!

To view our on-going work on our shared Google Slides project, please follow this link:

https://docs.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/presentation/d/17Uv7ZzsVnfCI42_GSGkZvtNGSOUSCcsbJWNe2zccIkQ/edit?usp=sharing

Dear @Wonderopolis are eggs dairy or protein?

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 28, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass Would you like to nominate your Wonders for possible future Wonders of the Day? http://t.co/rZEqXzCUbD

— Wonderopolis (@Wonderopolis) May 28, 2015

Thank you. We added our wonder to the Wonder of the Day list. Are beans protein or grains? #wewonder #3rdchat https://t.co/EAjUNcSCUG

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 29, 2015

5SC This Week: In the Jungle

This week our class participated in another 5 Sentence Challenge. Our prompt this this was 3 words: In the Jungle...Students had to write 5 sentences using only this writing prompt. https://fivesc.net/2015/03/05/prompt-6-3-2/#gf_23

As a class we began with a brainstorm session. We explored what jungles look...feel...and sound like. We used a shared Google Doc to come up with some details before beginning our writing. Have a look at what our shared brainstorm looked like:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YEyl2gi80_dRe-Yg-5eLB_HHN-VSvZ2uac2ZEP9jeFo/edit?usp=sharing  This activity helped us to write our rough drafts. It gave us the opportunity to work with a partner and come up with ideas together.

Please follow the link to our class KidBlogs to view what we all wrote about! Since this is a Global Writing Project, we have already received comments from student bloggers from all over the world! This week the students took some time to read and respond to some of the comments we've received on our Blogs. We've also commented on blogs from students around the world who wrote about the jungle. It is pretty amazing to see the reach this amazing project has. We are communicating with students in Australia, Thailand, the USA and more!

Students are encouraged to post and comment on our KidBlogs over the March Break! They are also welcome to continue commenting on other jungle blogs from around the world: https://fivesc.net/2015/03/05/prompt-6-3-2/#gf_23

HAVE A WONDERFUL MARCH BREAK!