Crafting Sentences

Each quarter, my school has a different academic goal we focus on to improve student learning.  This cycle we are focusing on improving style in our students' writing.  To begin our style unit (in first grade), I wanted to make sure that my students knew how to write a complete sentence.  They are very good at using a capital letter at the beginning and ending punctuation at the end.  The middle part of the sentence was a little fuzzy for them.  The question I asked myself was, "How do I teach writing a complete thought to first graders?"

Instead of typing everything I did, I thought I would try my hand at a screen cast showing you the Smart Board Notebook I created to go with this lesson.  This is the first time I have ever done this before.

To get the sentence graphic organizer and lesson plan I used with the lesson, click the image below.

UPDATE (4/28/2013):  I have recently put up my Notebook file on SMART Exchange after requests for the file.  Check out the file by clicking HERE or on the picture below.

I am honored that This Reading Mama wrote about how she adapted these materials for her own children.  I love her idea of using big dice as a different way to build sentences.  You need to check out her wonderful post:  Roll a Sentence.  She includes a freebie of the inserts she used for the dice and great pictures of it in action.

Stay tuned for future posts on where we go next - expanded sentences.  Now that we can write a complete sentence, I want my students to write better complete sentences.