So this year on my first grade team, we have departmentalized. After 1 full marking period, and a couple weeks into the 2nd marking period. I have to say, I am loving it! I am able to concrete on one topic, the kids are able to get up and change classes every 50 minutes, and all teachers are accountable for all first graders (which our administration loves too).
So during the 1st marking period, my teammate taught writing-specifically narrative writing. This marking period, the focus is on opinion writing. We follow Lucy Caulkins writing format; however, there are a few things missing from Lucy that our students need. After looking over the students inital on-demand opinion writings, one area students needed work was turning simple sentences into compound and complex sentences. So after a few days of teaching Lucy-style, I planned an created a 2 day mini-lesson on compound sentences.
The first day we watched a short video (about 2 minutes) on combining sentences to make them compound sentences, and it also talked about conjunctions. Then we read over my anchor chart, shown in the picture above. (don't pay attention to the fact I spelled conjunction wrong lol)
I then showed them the different sentences.
As we read each sentence, I asked the students which conjunction would best fit the sentence. Then today we first met together, we did another sentence together. I showed them the recording sheet. We wrote one together. Then I paired them in groups of 4 & 5 to work on the sentences.
I felt like I actually taught something today!! I know we all have days were we feel like we get nothing accomplished due to classroom management issues. BUT today, I feel like even the troublesome students got something out of this lesson!
I didn't have time for the exit ticket activity, but I'm giving that tomorrow, and I anticipate that they will do great :) So hopefully all this compound sentence writing will translate into better sentences in their opinion writings.
You can check it out:
God Bless!!
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