Writing Journal Scoot Game

We have 1 week until the district writing test... only 1 week...  

I'm really not nervous.  Next week we will focus on more writing, but I really feel that my students are prepared.  Last week I decided to have fun during one of our many writing activities.  

I play with task cards on a daily basis, but my writing journals have been a different story.  Not every kid uses them every single day.  They finish their assigned work, and have an option to write or read in them.  With the district test coming up, I have had them do a lot of structured writing every day.  

*Summaries

*Reading Response

*Opinions

*Persuasive

*Narrative

You get the picture...

Throughout everything we are working on our conventions.  Something I wanted them to work on this past week was focusing on a single topic in a limited amount of time.  (I know our district test will be untimed, but I wanted to push them to do their best in a short amount of time.)  I put random journals on everyone's desk during silent reading time.  I also had them on our work table, and the empty desks around the room.  I had one on my front cart and at my own desk.  Then I told them that they could choose any desk they wished to sit at for 5 minutes to write about that single topic.  

They hopped to it and got to work.  We started this at exactly 1:35pm, and every 5 minutes on the dot I asked them to switch desks to a different journal and topic.  We finished at 2:10pm.  In the front cover of each journal I have my classroom numbers, so they circled their number when they had written in them.  They had to write at least 1 paragraph on the topic, complete with tons of details and put their name on the top of their page.  If they finished early they could read the other students' work.  

It was absolutely silent during this task - and I didn't have to remind them at all.  Let me also mention that it was a rainy day and we had been trapped together (no outside recess) ALL DAY LONG.  

Just a fun activity that I was so happy to use this past week.  Fun and motivating.  Linking up with Holly to share!  :)