Common Core Winter Writing

Yipee! I just finished updating my “There’s Snow Place Like Home” packet to align with the Common Core Standards for writing. I’m super excited to introduce these new changes to my students. Students will be writing narratives, informative/explanatory texts, and opinion pieces. Here’s a look at what you’ll find inside: Informative/Explanatory Writing CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure. I made these helpful posters that explain what it means to write to inform and how to write to inform. I plan on displaying these in our writing area. I also added these GREAT writing prompts! Sometimes I’ll pick a specific task card for them to write about and other times I’ll allow them to pick (depending on the difficulty of the writing activity). There are 10 task cards for this standard. The task cards include topics on: How-To writing and conducting research. In addition to the task cards, I’ve also added some helpful organizers for students to use to get their ideas down on paper. Here’s an example of one of the “How-To” writing pages.   Students can pull the task card and begin to write! Easy-peasy!

Writing Narratives: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure. These are the posters I made to introduce writing narratives. I know these will come in handy!

Here are some of the narrative writing task cards:

And, finally, I’ve included activities for writing opinion pieces! Writing Opinion Pieces: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

One of my favorite activities that my students complete is they write their opinion about their home. The topic is “There’s Snow Place Like Home” and then students give reasons why they love their home. It’s precious! This is a SWEET craft project to complete in conjunction with the opinion writing piece on their home. It makes an amazing hall display. Students can hang their polished writing piece below the house they create!

Here are some of the organizers:

I’ve also included this ADORABLE penguin craft in this packet, as well. Your students could make this after writing an explanatory text all about penguins (conducting research) and you could have them leave off the hat and scarf to make it more realistic looking. Or, it could be completed after writing their opinion on whether a penguin would make a good pet or not (that task card is included, too). Either way, the penguin is SUPER CUTE and your students will love making it! All templates are included. After students use the organizers to get their thoughts down and you’ve conferenced with them, you can have them transfer their finished product to this pretty, fancy paper! I’ve included paper with and without primary lines.