Snow Day Fun!

     I am looking out my window on this Sunday morning and thinking about the impending snow, sleet, and complications the weather is going to cause for the morning commute and for my 3rd graders (who most likely will have another snow day). 

     Last week my students had Monday and Tuesday off from school due to the snow. During our Wednesday morning meeting we got caught up and students shared all their stories about what they did during their snow days. After we shared and all got reconnected, I had students go back to their desks and write all about the adventures they had on their snow days! 

      My students wrote about getting pummeled with snow by their brothers, and they used amazing sound words like BAM! and KABOOM! They added text properties to their writing by making words like "Frozen" look like icicles. They added details and used "show not tell" by writing about their faces having big goofy grins as they slurped down the warm hot chocolate as fast as they could. 

     There were stories of forts and snowball fights, stories of sisters locking each other out of the house and laughing uncontrollably, stories of moms and dads helping children build snowmen, and taking them sledding and snowboarding, and so much more.    

     While my students were so engaged in their writing, I reminded them of the elements of writing a paragraph. We discussed who would be the audience of their writing and what they wanted their readers to think and feel while reading their piece of writing. We talked about the different styles of writing and mentor texts that helped us to see how adding details helps excite the reader and gives them so much more to visualize while reading. 

     My students were excited about writing and took their own form of compositional risk by trying something new with their piece. In the end, our snow days were not a complete loss, and in fact they were the impetus for some truly creative writing!