Creepy or Cool?

One of our major objectives in writing is for first graders to be able to write on opinion piece.  First we sorted some statements about spiders into fact or opinion.  Then, before we wrote we talked about OREO writing.  In an OREO piece, students state their Opinion, give a Reason, give some Evidence, then restate the Opinion.  The first graders had to choose their opinion: Are spiders creepy or cool?  Then, they were to use the information we had learned about spiders as their reasoning and evidence.  The first graders worked very hard.  Such hard work on an Oreo opinion piece deserves a cookie treat, yes?

The pieces turned out great.  Here are just two examples read by the authors.  One creepy opinion and one cool opinion.  What do you think?

We also made some cute spiders to go with our opinion pieces.  Interestingly, the students were given all the pieces to the spider craft and an example; however, there were NO verbal directions.  Students had to really think about how to order and glue the pieces in order to make the spider.  You should check out our writing and art work in this week's envelope.

 After the students finished their art project, they took a photo of their spider and wrote their opinion as a caption.  These techie students then uploaded their photos to their digital learning portfolio on an app called SeeSaw.  I can't wait to show you their portfolios at conferences.  

Sometimes to get the right photo angle you have to stand up!  Ha!