Hi Victoria-
I love your camp math and dream pool ideas. I actually teach 2nd grade and our students have to write informational essays this year. Do you have any resources or ideas to teach them about attention grabbers/hooks?
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Barb, you are simply too awesome desiring to teach second graders about writing hooks/grabbers. I remember being in my internship and teaching second graders about writing great details- they wrote stories about visiting the rainforest.
Perhaps for your students (it depends on how advanced they are, also), I would start by showing pictures of different items and have them write a basic statement. An example is showing a picture of a sea turtle or giraffe and seeing who writes the most descriptive sentence. I would also, of course, read the first sentences of a number of great books- a few that come to my mind are The Lorax and Sam the Sea Cow. Perhaps they can write down a few favorite first sentences from books they are reading as well. Just tell your students that writing "Hi, my name is..." or "I am going to tell you about..." simply isn't natural. Mine had to learn that in fourth grade this year, but they caught on to lead writing fast enough and we are going to keep working on it this coming week in writing class.
I will of course try to think of more. Teaching students about improving their writing skills is always awesome. -Victoria
Hi Victoria-
I love your camp math and dream pool ideas. I actually teach 2nd grade and our students have to write informational essays this year. Do you have any resources or ideas to teach them about attention grabbers/hooks?
...
Barb, you are simply too awesome desiring to teach second graders about writing hooks/grabbers. I remember being in my internship and teaching second graders about writing great details- they wrote stories about visiting the rainforest.
Perhaps for your students (it depends on how advanced they are, also), I would start by showing pictures of different items and have them write a basic statement. An example is showing a picture of a sea turtle or giraffe and seeing who writes the most descriptive sentence. I would also, of course, read the first sentences of a number of great books- a few that come to my mind are The Lorax and Sam the Sea Cow. Perhaps they can write down a few favorite first sentences from books they are reading as well. Just tell your students that writing "Hi, my name is..." or "I am going to tell you about..." simply isn't natural. Mine had to learn that in fourth grade this year, but they caught on to lead writing fast enough and we are going to keep working on it this coming week in writing class.
I will of course try to think of more. Teaching students about improving their writing skills is always awesome. -Victoria