Using Crayons in Writing

Writing... My kiddos have until the week of March 10th to practice their writing skills before the district test.  We have been writing so much lately.  They have conventions down pat - which I contribute to them using my Rainbow Edit on a weekly/daily basis.  

The kids write a rough draft and have to identify the different conventions using colors - each paragraph should be colorful, and if it's not then there is a problem.  

I stress to the kids that if someone can't read their writing easily- if they don't show pride in their work - then no one will want to give it much time of day (and the effect is that they will get a bad grade).  That by 4th grade they better be using indents, capitals, and punctuation correctly.  That they are capable of adding details for every fact and for every paragraph - details meaning adjectives and examples.  The talk seems to work every year, because they really are striving to do their best.  

    

Yesterday my class worked on making our writing less choppy.  We have been reading McBroom and the Big Wind this week (in addition to our Mentor Texts), and have a been identifying what causes the readers to be entertained.  We want to capture our readers attention, and figurative language does that.

Reading McBroom, we made a list of some of the different types of figurative language we read.  The kids had their own rainbows (from my spring template set), and wrote them in the specific areas.  Personification, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, Simile, Hyperbole....  the kids have practiced so much using my task cards, etc that they got it.  

I think they turned out just perfect!  So many examples in the text, so many examples they were brainstorming.  I really think fun activities make learning this tedious type of stuff more fun - and anything that involves crayons is still a winner in their eyes.  :0)  

Do you use crayons in writing - other than to illustrate?  

Linking up with Jivey and her Workshop Wednesday!  

Reminder - the Educents Bundle is almost over - don't wait too long to pick it up!  

Also - my store will be on sale starting tomorrow through Sunday.  Thursday and Friday there is an extra 8% off using the code TPT3.  Don't forget the code!

Have a great day!