So when I asked my students, what does the word opinion mean? One of them shoots their hand up and yells, my momma cooks with them. Upon further discussion, they thought I meant onion....oh sweet children :)
So we first looked at this chart. We thought about our feelings about different things, and how sometimes they change.
Then we read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, we talked about how the main character did not want green eggs and ham throughout most of the story, but at the end he changed his min (and his opinion).
We then did a four corners activity. I have 4 large post-its (the big blue ones). I made a t-chart on each one with two different choices. One said Pete the Cat books OR There was an old lady books, one said winter or summer, one said hot dog or chicken nuggets, and one said art or pe. I split the class into 4 groups and at each 'station' gave them a post-it, which they wrote their name, and decided which side to place their post-it note. After a few minutes, I had them rotate until we were finished.
After we were done rotating around, we looked at each chart. I asked the students which the majority of our class liked more--they looked and were able to tell me the side that had more, and were able to say because it has more post-its than the other side (when I asked how do you know?!). Then I had students from each side raise their hand and share WHY they liked winter more than summer or vice versa. We did this for each chart.
The next day, we searched the black friday sale ads for toys we wanted on our Christmas list (we did this in early December). We wrote down a toy that we wanted on a post-it note and then we came back together on the carpet and discussed which toys we would choose and why. When we were finished, we had the students write The toy I would want is ______ because ________.
The next day, my special ed teacher and myself (we co-teach this group of students), brought in toys from our homes. We told students we had to play with toys to help Santa figure out which toys he should give other boys and girls around the world that were the same age as them (6 and 7). We had them set up as stations and had the students rotate around the different stations to play with the different toys. Afterwards we debriefed and talked about what toys were our favorite and why, as well as which toys we wouldn't recommend for Santa to get other boys and girls and reasons why. When we were done, we had the students write My favorite toy was ________ because __________.
And then I had to be out for a meeting. Don't you hate that!! When you feel like you are on a teaching roll, and something happens and you have to be absent!
It's all good, because I created this set of prompts for my class for my substitute to use, as well as for me to use for 'quick writes'! You can find a freebie of this
HERE! Or the FULL verision can be found -
Opinion Writing FULL of CHOICES!
After the holiday break, we will be continuing to work on opinion writing, so stay tuned for more engaging activities to do with your kiddos!!
Wishing you all a Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
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