Week 3 of our Space Unit is feeling more like week 2. Whew, we had testing last week, along with a spring concert and a CSE meeting. Our schedule was a little screwy and I ended the week feeling as if I didn't get through even half of what I'd planned. Don't you hate that?! Anyways, I'm determined to get back on track this week. We've only got 27 days left together and I'm feeling the "crunch". Last week we talked all about the features of Science Fiction and we read a bunch of different Science Fiction picture books. Oh my gosh, my kids loved hearing those stories.
These are a few of the books I read aloud and I'm already searching the internet for more. Do you have a favorite science fiction picture book?
Today we began writing our own science fiction pieces. We've been talking about how all of our stories are going to have the same "plot": We will be traveling to space and meet an alien. My students need to use their imaginations to determine the rest. What planet or moon will you be traveling to? Why are you going? What kind of alien will you meet? What will happen? How will you get home? etc, etc... Once again, even some of my most reluctant writers have really been surprising me with their effort. I know, I know, it's only day one. :) So today we discussed, for the 14 billionth time, how to describe a character- inside and out. I found these ADORABLE little "monster" stickers at the dollar store... I'm calling them aliens, of course. (Don't you just LOVE the Dollar Store?!) I let each student choose one and we got started using the web above to write describing words. The pictures below are completed webs from some of my struggling writers who meet with me on Mondays.
You can find the rubric, graphic organizer, and all the other writing tools needed in my
Science Fiction Writing Unit on TpT. You can get the My Alien Web for free by clicking the picture above. :)
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