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!

Open House Persuasive Letters

Our current writing unit focuses on Persuasive Writing. We completed persuasive letters to the Once-ler in The Lorax last week. This time we brainstormed and worked to persuade our PARENTS why it is important that they come to our Open House taking place this Thursday May 7th from 4:30-7:00.

Amelie on Educareations:


Freyja on Chatterpix:


 Brandon on Chatterpix:


 Hyabeal on Educreations:
 
Calvin on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘cw open hose’ on audioBoom

Elizabeth on Chatterpix:

 Zachary on Chatterpix:

 Jeremy on Chatterpix:

 Styve on Educreations:

 Winnie on Educreations:

Naisha on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘NN's open house letter to mom’ on audioBoom

Tomi on Educreations:

Alessia on AudioBoom:

listen to ‘AO openhouse letter’ on audioBoom

Persuading In grade 3

Our current writing focus has turned to persuasive writing. When we persuade someone we are trying to convince them to do something. During Earth Week we worked on a shared-task with partners focusing on the benefit of keeping and taking care of our trees. We read The Lorax by Dr. Seus and then wrote a persuasive letter to convince the Once-ler why trees are so important.

Students researched on wonder websites like The Kid Should See This and Wonderopolis. We also tweeted directly to Wonderopolis and they replied back to us! Some students used their reply to help us come with persuasive reasons why trees are so important.

The students collaborated on a shared document to gather ideas and share what they learned. We find this to be very helpful for our learning and to gather information for our persuasive letters. The students completed their letters and we have posted them in the hallway. If you would like to read their letters, please join us at our Open House taking place next Thursday May 7th form 4:30-7:00!! More information and more persuasive letters will be coming your way soon...stay tuned!

@MrsCiampaClass We're thrilled that you are spending part of your #EarthDay2015 WONDERing with us! Way to go! :-) @thekidshouldsee

— Wonderopolis (@Wonderopolis) April 22, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass You may want to check out Wonder #937: WHY DO WE NEED TREES? http://t.co/uqTFodk5M0 :-)

— Wonderopolis (@Wonderopolis) April 22, 2015

Party Planners

The party planning committee has been working hard over the past few weeks to plan a Christmas party for our class!

It started with a persuasive letter to convince me to have the party. During our Literacy Centers time, a committee was formed. The girls worked together to plan the party. They came up with a list, they created invitations and decided what we could do at our party!

We said thank you to Mme. Paradis for letting us have a PJ Day!

The girls made sure to invite everyone in our class and handed out their invitations today. They worked so hard the past few weeks! Thank you girls for organizing this party for us. The class will really love it!

Last year some students tried to persuade our principal to have a Pyjama Day. They received great news today when they learned that we are allowed to wear PJ's to our party this Friday!

Some students used apps like Pic Collage and Tellagami to thank Mme. Paradis for letting us wear PJ's!

Friday will be a great day. Our party will be in the afternoon. Students can wear their PJ's to school. Students are also invited to bring snacks to our party. We can't wait. Thanks again to the girls who worked hard to plan this party for us! 

Literacy Center Writing

This week students have added many new ideas and learning goals to our Literacy Centers. We are having fun and exploring new ways to incorporate writing into our centers.

The boys are enjoying creating HOW TO books at the writing center. We created a new I CAN list with a goal of writing stories to explain something. Some other friends have started creating their own story books using a Narrative writing checklist. Some great writers are emerging in our room. A wonderful idea came from DL to add our completed books to our class library. Excellent idea! Some students are creating rough copies before creating a good copy into a book. We look forward to reading all books really soon.

Also at the Writing Center this week, students continue to write persuasive letters to people in our school. Some students are even getting replies from other teachers. It is really neat to see the fun persuasive ideas our students are coming up with! They are learning how to write good reasons, and how to be even more convincing as the replies come in. I have a few students working very hard to try to convince me to have a class party. I am hoping they can convince with really good reasons or facts!

Have a read at some of the persuasive letters I received this week so far. Students used AudioBoo to record their letter before delivering it to me in an envelope. I wonder if they can be persuasive enough!

listen to ‘HH & ab & md persuasiveing Mrs.ciampa’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘RC. EC. Persuasive Writing’ on Audioboo

More persuasive writing success. WN convinced the grade 1's to have a dance party today!!! pic.twitter.com/ur4Ad9IyMH
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 23, 2014

Open House Persuasive Success!

Our class experts waiting for their parents to arrive at our Open House!

A huge thank you to all of the families and students who were able to join us during our school's multicultural open house on Thursday May 8th! Particularly, to the families who came to our grade 2 classroom to visit our room. Students were so excited to show you all of the fun learning happening in our room. They were even more excited to learn that their open house persuasive writing letters worked!! Our letters were written to persuade you to join us and so many of our classmates arrived at school during the Open House elated that they were able to persuade you. The students came up with the persuasive reasons to get you to our classroom during our Open House. A huge thank you for your support and your presence on Thursday!


Throughout the classroom visit, our mandate was to have the student voice in our room be the guide. Students led parents around our classroom to show some of the great projects and assignments we have worked on over the past few months. Students used their persuasive reasons to show their families all of the exciting learning in our room.

It was lovely to see the pride by the students and the parent engagement as well. Our class is blooming with tech experts who showed their parents how to scan QR Codes, how to Tweet, how to record on the AudioBoo app, how to log into the Chromebooks and so much more! Students are leading much of the learning that takes place during our Literacy Centers, and our Open House evening highlighted some of the student-led inquiries within our room. For instance, the Teacher Center expert got to show her mom what we can do at the Teacher Center. The QR Code expert showed his mom how to scan a QR Code and how to add her thinking to our Padlet using the QR Code link. We also had some class tweeters and guest tweeters add to the fun too.

A future tech expert and tweeter taking videos in our classroom!

Thanks to our persuasive letters, we learned that our class won the challenge against Mrs. Swan's Class. Our class was the more persuasive class!! As a result,  Mrs. Swan's Class bought us a brand new book from the Book Fair. We have added the book to our class library. A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Swan and the grade 3's for the challenge, but most of all for the awesome new book for our classroom library.


Class and Guest Tweeters of the Open House:

HH says:We are going to have much fun to be with parents in open house also with my lovely teacher.
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 8, 2014

i think m c is nice and lovely
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 8, 2014

We created a PADLET to have parents and students write what they liked about visiting our classroom. Have a look at what some families posted about us. And if you'd like to add another idea...please feel free!

Created with Padlet

Persuasive Open House Letters!

Taking turns in our circle to read our letters.

Tomorrow is the day! All week long we have been preparing to persuade our families to come to our Open House on Thursday May 8th from 4:30-7:00! Tomorrow is the day and we hope that we have done enough to convince you. We have been challenged by Mrs. Swan's grade 3 class...so we want to be the class winners. We hope to see you in our room 202 tomorrow evening!

Our persuasive Open House letters are complete and we have sent them home to you today. Your child is very excited to read them to you! Students have also recorded their persuasive reading on the AudioBoo app. The more we use this app in our room, the more we can see that many MORE students in our room are becoming AudioBoo app experts. Very exciting! A Tech Expert means students are able to use the app on their own AND teach others how to use it too. We look forward to showing you how much we know tomorrow.

Persuasive talking circle with the Grade 3's

Students also got to read their persuasive letters to Mme. Paradis and Mrs. Swan's grade 3 class today too! We held a Talking Circle to share our letters with both classes. All of the students had really convincing arguments and reasons. Mme. was very impressed with how well we all wrote.

You can listen to all of our AudioBoo persuasive recordings below.

listen to ‘NN open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘AW open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘dl open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘ec’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘RC Open House’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘HH & AB &WN Persuasive writeing’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘PE open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘co opin house.’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘open house ao’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘AB open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘FF open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘KI open house’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘open house by HH’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘open house by WN’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘MD open house’ on Audioboo

Can We Persuade You?

NN wrote about this at the Teacher Center today. A great writing idea!! pic.twitter.com/YQJ8zR2HT1

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 1, 2014

Student generated ideas to persuade families to come to Open House!

We continue to work on persuasive writing in our classroom. Students are learning how to persuade someone to do, think or believe something. We are brainstorming how we can do that in writing.
Last week, NN came up with a great writing idea during our Literacy Centers. When we consolidated, she told us that she was going to try to convince her mom to come to our Open House to see our classroom on Thursday May 8th after school. We all thought this was a perfect writing opportunity!

We are using the persuasive writing form to share how we might convince our families to visit our classroom during our Open House evening. We began with a brainstorm and wondered...what are the reasons why we want our families to come. Please have a read at our reasons above!
We are currently writing our rough draft. Students are coming up with creative reasons and are being very convincing so far.
After finishing the first part of our writing, students decided to record their convincing letters on AudioBoo so far. I have included some of our AudioBoo persuasive writing recordings. We will continue to write about why we think our families should attend our Open House this week. We will be writing our good copies.

Stay tuned for the final product!!

AB Open House persuasive letter. http://t.co/D8szbNATNf

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 2, 2014

HH:Open house persuasive letter http://t.co/MMgNkbhFY1

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 2, 2014

r.c. Persuades her mom to come to open house http://t.co/ejL6GDJdL0

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 2, 2014

NN is trying to persuade mom to come to our Open House! http://t.co/glOa7nDfey

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 2, 2014

Persuasive Writing

Our new writing focus is now persuasive writing. Students read a story today called Click Clack Moo. We talked about who was trying to do the convincing. We also talked about whether we felt the characters were being polite or not! Persuading is like begging but in a polite way. We need to convince someone with facts and reasons.

At the Teacher Center, NN ended the centers with a potential persuasive writing topic....check it out:

listen to ‘we retell click,clack moo. dl cw’ on Audioboo