My VOICES board and Author's Purpose PIE

So last week a wonderful person emailed me asking if I could please show my VOICES board a little more up close.  My students and I brainstormed the different strategies the first week of school, but we have added quite a bit over the past 2 weeks.  So, I'm sorry that I'm running behind with posting these - I seem to be running around behind a bunch these days.  I took pictures today since we were making our Author's Purpose PIEs.  The headings came from Kristin at Ladybugs Teacher Files.  

 At this moment in time V means Voice:

Author's Purpose (PIE) and 1st person/3rd person

 O means Organization:

The kids brainstormed Beginning (Topic Sentence), Middle (Details), and End (Conclusion).  They also brainstormed putting it into paragraph form.  On the bottom is the Pinterest little pencil with all the different things that writers write.  

 I is for Ideas.  They brainstormed Letters, Lists, Stories (Fiction and Nonfiction), and Journal Writes.  The second week of school we created Heart Maps (mine is below) of things that were close to our hearts that we could write about in our journals.

 After they created their heart map, I had them glue their Rainbow Edit and the Pinterest Pencil on the back, then they slipped it into a plastic sheet protector.  This is their binder divider for their writing section. 

 C is for Conventions.  I printed off Grandma - if nothing else it makes the kids laugh, and by laughing they remember the importance of a comma.

 I also went over the 5 things they have to remember during the year.  These are the things that are on their Rainbow Edit, and that I mark them down if they forget on the final draft.  They are Indents, Capitals, Punctuation, Spaces, and Spelling.  

 E is for Excellent Word Choice - which of course means Details in their writing - both adjectives and examples.  I want them to work on building their vocabulary as well.  So far this year we are just trying to remember the basic vocabulary, but hopefully we will soon be able to start working on Word of the Day.

 S means Sentence Fluency.  I want them to remember Transition words, and look at their Sentence Starters.  I tell them that they need to change it up or else I get bored reading the same thing over and over.  It seems to work.  

So today they made their Author's Purpose PIEs.  It was something I found on Pinterest last year.  Basically they take 2 paper plates and color one the color of their favorite type of pie.  Lemon would be yellow, Strawberry is red, Berry is purple, Key Lime is green, etc.  Then they take the other paper plate and color the crust.  

 After they color the crust, I had them fold the crust in half and cut directly in the middle up to the rim of the plate.  Since they didn't know what a rim was I told them that it meant the bumps.  They then opened it back up, folded it on the new cut, and cut the other direction in half as well.  So they were left with 4 quarters that fold up - but the entire plate was still attached together on the rim.  I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of all the directions and drawings that were on the board. (I promise they were gorgeous!)  

 The next part was labeling the crust.  One section is Author's Purpose, one is P (Persuade), one is I (Inform), and the last is E (Entertain).  I did a staple on the Author's Purpose section, and then the kids glued examples of the P,I, and E under the correct little flap.  They were so proud of themselves - I was so glad that I had a parent helper to keep my sanity.     

So here is almost what my writing board looks like at this moment in time.  The late finishers finally put them up at the end of the day after I took the picture so now it's all even (like I like it to be).

Hope you had a good day!