So, summer learning has kicked off with a bang! I am absolutely in love with my new group of kiddos. They are simply AWESOME! I am so excited to spend the next year with them 🙂 (Last year I wrote about the URSA program that we have at our school. I am the 7th grade URSA teacher, so these kids will be with me for the 2016-2017 school year.)
The first few days, we did a lot of ice breakers/getting-to-know-you/team building stuff. I use some activities from this:
And this:
The kids had a blast!
It was great to watch them work and start the important process of becoming a “family.”
I also introduced them to the joys (and hand-cramping!) of Quick Writing. Very few complaints this year, so I’m taking that as a GREAT sign:
And now, I want to share with you the first of my Writing with Mentor Texts series! I am so, so excited to share these posts with you! I LOVE using mentor texts when I teach writing. I cannot think of a better way to inspire middle schoolers.
Since I will be teaching these kids all school year, I needed to put together lessons that are not part of my September-May curriculum. I knew that I wanted to use children’s literature and picture books as my mentor texts for the summer (what’s more fun than a picture book!?!) so I scoured the Internet and talked to lots of different colleagues about their favorite stories.
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing the lessons that I will doing this summer with you for FREE! So, check back often throughout July and August to gather up your FREEBIES!
- The Important Book by Margaret WiseBrown
- If I Ran the School by Bruce Lansky
- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
- The Writing of Roald Dahl
- The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski
- The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
- How to Get a Girlfriend by the Kindergarten Students of Zagreb, Croatia
- Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher
- I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff and David Catrow
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