Writer's celebration

Leprechaun shakes and Lucky trail mix

This week was a busy week in second grade! We finished up our Persuasive Writing Unit and celebrated in style with a St. Patrick's Day theme. As always, we had snacks, sharing and fun activities.  My awesome student teacher came up with the Lucky Trail Mix idea. (I think she found it on Pinterest.)  Basically, it was pretzels, M&M's, popcorn, drizzled with melted almond bark. Delish!
The Leprechaun Shake was my idea.  It was a spin off of what I call "baby shower punch."  You know, the kind of punch they serve at baby showers: Ginger ale, pineapple juice and sherbet ice cream?  I mixed one large container of pineapple juice and one two-liter of ginger all in a gallon jug.  I bought a small container of lime sherbet and scooped about a 1/2 cup of ice cream into the bottom of a cup and filled up with the pineapple juice/ginger ale mix.  Then we topped it with whipped cream.  Yummo! The kids loved it and it was cheap and easy.  You know me, cheap and easy.  Wait a minute, that came out wrong.



Our message on the Smartboard for our Writer's Celebration.

I made a message to display on the Smartboard with clip art and fun colors.  To start the celebration, we talked about how writer's use 'juicy' words to describe things.  We made a list on the Smartboard of different words that could describe someone's writing.  Then we handed back their published persuasive letters with a paper that said "Your writing is...." for their friends to leave them compliments on with post it notes.  Each student left their persuasive letter and compliment paper on their desk and then they started reading each other's writing.  They were armed with a few post it notes so that after they read their classmate's writing they could leave a compliment on the "Your writing is...." paper.  I made sure to tell them to write their name on the post it, so their friends would know who wrote the compliment. 
The kids love this activity and look forward to our Writer's Celebrations every month or so.  I try to change up what we do for each celebration, but this seems to be their favorite.  They love reading their friends' writing and getting compliments.

After they were done reading others' writing, they went back to their own desk and got to read the compliments.  They oh'd and ah'd over their own work and compliments and then we had our snack.



Students read their classmate's published pieces and leaves feedback on a post-it, stuck to
a paper that reads "Your writing is...."

I think it's always a good idea to celebrate such hard work.  They spend so much time working on their writing and I think it's important to celebrate their writing!  And let's just be really honest, who it's looking for a reason to have some snacks and a shake in the middle of the school day!

 

 

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