Coop Writing Class Ideas?

[Upennmama]

In the fall im scheduled to teach a once a week writing class to kids around 7-10 years old. I have no idea what their experience is. I am not sure how to begin- I won’t really be able to assign work at home, and it’s considered enrichment. I want it to be fun and engaging. I thought of studying poetry and trying to write our own poems. Any ideas? Experiences? Books to recommend? 

[Ellie]

That seems like it would be tricky because there's such a wide age range.

[Sherry in OH]

A Crow Doesn't Need a Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry from Nature, by Lorraine Ferra.  

[PeterPan]

You could do Writing Tales 1 as group work. I did WT2 with a group years ago and it was well-received. The games were terrific.

[mom31257]

I teach introductory elementary writing classes at my co-op. Our co-op wants homework from writing classes, but you could simply do in-class work. Will you have enough helpers to break the kids into groups? 

I usually begin with teaching sentences and how to make them more interesting. I cover a lot of IEW's dress-ups: strong verbs, quality adjectives, adverbs, who/which clauses, prepositional phrases, because clauses. I plan a lot of table/group activities that have them creating sentences and sharing with the group, such as roll a sentence. They are given two dice with a list of what each roll represents (noun and verb). Then they have to use that combination to write the sentences. I plan games like charades when I'm teaching adjectives or prepositions. Then we'll incorporate those into sentences possibly with pulling nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions from a bag. This is a really fun adjective game. https://www.gulfportschools.org/cms/lib/MS01910520/Centricity/Domain/1431/Adjective Mystery Bags.pdf

I like to teach a method called four square writing. https://www.hasdk12.org/cms/lib3/PA01001366/Centricity/Domain/5/Four Square Writing Technique.pdf. This leads into paragraphs. I teach topic sentences by taking a complete paragraph, putting all the sentences on individual strips, and placing them into a bag. The kids have to pull the sentences out and decide which is the topic sentence. I give them worksheets where they have a paragraph given that is missing a topic sentence, and then they have to write one. 

I use the four square to summarize stories with them, too. We discuss the basic story elements of setting, character, conflict, and resolution.  https://thisreadingmama.com/use-graphic-organizer-prewriting-strategy/. Then I have them use that to summarize stories they read. I move on to using it to plan out and write a story. 

 

[freesia]

I used this website::

https://rockinresources.com/2018/01/series-step-step-writing-mini-lessons.html

[aaplank]

I helped out in a fun co op writing class a few years ago and there was a wide range of ages and abilities.  The teacher had them make their own "Wreck It Journals", which was a big hit!  Pinterest has plenty of ideas.

She also had them do many writing notebook activities that were so much fun and allowed the kids to write freely and be motivated to write more.  Here are some ideas:

http://cafe1123.blogspot.com/p/writing-in-cafe-1123.html

I also did an activity where I enlarged the thumbprints of each student to fit an 8 1/12 x 11 paper and had them write their autobiographies along the lines of their prints.

http://art-paper-scissors.blogspot.com/2011/03/micrographic-thumbprints.html

I've also used picture books.  We read the book in class and then did a writing activity based on the author's style or something else within the book.  Here are some ideas:

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/kriscia-cabral/picture-books-inspire-student-writing/

Finally, this blog has great ideas.  She even has free 9 week Creative Writing co op class lesson plans.  https://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/inspire-writing-in-your-homeschool/   

https://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/creative-writing/

Best of luck to you!

[Upennmama]

These are so helpful! Thank you all!