Snowmen here. Snowmen there. Snowmen, snowmen everywhere! We have been making snowmen, writing about snowmen, reading books and poetry about snowmen, playing math and phonics games with a snowman twist....so fun! With all this background knowledge about snowmen, it seemed to be the perfect item to use in order to make an analogy to a very important writing standard: adding details to a narrative.
This writers workshop started with a lesson that looked more like art. We all cut out snowflakes and then put them together into three, big, stacked snowballs. I announce, "Voila, finished!" The children wanted to be polite but I was getting some funny looks. In the most respectful way, they told me we needed to add some details. Details make everything better! We worked together to add details like eyes, carrot nose, hat, mouth, scarf, buttons, until.....
Yes, a detailed snowman is so much more interesting. We were on a roll, so I made the writing analogy. I wrote a story that was one sentence without detail: "I went sledding." We compared the writing piece to the plain white snowman without detail. My writing needed details. The students knew just what I should add and started telling me the missing details: who were you with, where did you go, what was the weather like, how did you feel....DETAILS! I improved my writing piece and the students set to work on their own stories.
These 1st grader writers were detail driven. They wrote pages and pages adding several events and details to their writing. They were very proud of their hard work. At the end of writers workshop the students shared their amazing pieces and complimented each other on adding details!
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