Super Sentences

     I was unsettled about the Runaway Pumpkin activity from Friday, mostly because it seemed too hard for about 7 students.  I wanted to re-teach the art of a super sentence so as I drove my 45 mile commute, I mulled, which, actually, is a great time to think up some really powerful lessons.
     Some background is that my team of four first grade teachers recently attended training on how to GLAD-ify our teaching, meaning make language more accessible to all students (well, focused on ELL, but in first grade they are all acquiring language).  One of the strategies is sentence patterning.
     A sentence patterning chart and subsequent activities are extremely powerful.  Students are taught about the parts of speech in an informal way.  For now, they are being taught the pattern of adjective, noun, verb, and prepositional phrase, and we use the academic language peppered with the definition to make it more understandable.
     We, my first grade level team, call a sentence "super" if it follows this pattern because it gives more information to the reader.  To extend, I add a little editing portion once they've "finished" (in quotes because I'm forever being told, "I'm done") and shared out that in order to make it "perfect" check for a capital, spaces, and period.  It's so cute when they all at once turn their heads toward their papers to fix errors!
     So after weeks of supported, scaffolded, and guided sentence building based on the sentence patterning chart, I was more than a little dumbfounded.  Why was it so hard?  After mulling, I decided it came down to mechanics and not enough support.  Those seven students were bogged down by poor fine motor skills, lower ability in phonemic awareness, and general lower ability than the rest.  Differentiation, re-teaching and more practice was clearly needed.
     I am very pleased with my re-teach lesson, as they all were successful without having to have much assistance from me.  To begin I wrote three super sentences on the board and I had them "turn and talk" about which words were the adjectives, which the noun, etc.  So I underlined the parts of speech in the color coded fashion that is GLAD.  For example, "The black cat zoomed through the living room."  Once they'd decided, I chose volunteers to say which was which.  I proceeded with two more sentences.  Then I erased and drew the colored lines on the board without any words, but reminded them which was which and wrote that in the academic language.  I then had them "turn and talk" about a sentence they could make up and share.
     They came up with fabulous sentences!  So much oral work is what was missing from my Friday lesson.  To guide toward independent practice, I put a picture of a pumpkin up on the digital projector so they could go to their seats and write a sentence, but wait!  When I put the picture up...

photo credit unknown

 ...I had them put their heads together in their teams to come up with a pumpkin sentence that followed the pattern.  I then called on the numbered head (kids are assigned a number within their team) to report out a sentence.  They came up with, "The orange pumpkin is sitting on the balcony,"  "A fat pumpkin is sitting on a bus seat."  "The orange pumpkins are sitting on a mat."  I gave feedback for each one, honoring their creativity.
     Here is what they made on their own papers:

This student had a very hard time during Friday's lesson.  When I got to her, she was already halfway done! Her pumpkin sat on the window sill.

This student needed support from me, as his paper had no spaces between words.  I helped him sound out as well. His pumpkin fell off the slide at school.

This activity was easy for this student.  He could have added more, but was content to have it done and color. His pumpkin sat on the vine.

This girl had a very original idea!  That is a balcony and she wasn't sure about her spelling of  "pumpkin" so she marked it with an sp.

In the amount of time it took some to write one sentence, this student was finished with three.

     You can see that classes have an enormous array of ability levels.  Finding the right balance so all can be successful and not bored sure is a balancing act!  

Runaway Pumpkin

 
     October = Pumpkins.  Yippee!!

     Pumpkins are always a high interest topic so many (all?) teachers use them to the fullest in language acquisition, reading, writing, math, you name it.  This year, we are focusing more than ever on writing "super sentences."  The art of building a super sentence lies with the use of adjectives, fantastic verbs, and interesting prepositional phrases.
     I selected The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis because it was on my shelf, but also because the author uses language that goes just enough beyond a child's knowledge base so that it enriches vocabulary in a way that's memorable and fun, but it's not so far advanced as to cause their eyes to glaze over.  When asked to describe pumpkins, first graders will typically say "orange," "big/small," "cool."  Their vocabulary isn't exactly mesmerizing.
     By using this story as a base for vocabulary development, I can get students to say and use words like big, orange, round, fat, fine, thumpin', bumpin', and runaway to describe their pumpkins!  In addition, the pumpkin in the story zooms, bounces, rolls, and speeds down a hill, causing all kinds of destruction  (we all love witnessing destruction, right!?) to the characters' parents' chicken coop and pig sty as it rolls down the hill.
     Using an adjective before a noun doesn't come naturally to six year olds, neither does using a capital, spaces and ending punctuation, but that's another story.  Once the scaffolding was done and we'd practiced building sentences orally, it was still a challenge for many to construct a truly "super" sentence, but it was well worth the effort.
     Here are some of the results:

This student struggled and had to start over, but he reveled in the applause that came when he shared out.

This student really loves the word "zoomed!"  I will work with her more when constructing a super sentence.

This student really got the adjective aspect!

    The Lesson

    To begin, I read the story for enjoyment.  They really got into it!  Then when I read it again, I told them to listen for words that tell what pumpkins are like.  "Pumpkin" will be our noun, so these are words that tell about pumpkins, they were told.  We made a list on the board.  Then we came up with four actions that happened as the runaway pumpkin rolled down the hill.
     Once we'd done some oral work with the words (the most important part in my opinion), I gave them a graphic organizer with a pumpkin in the middle and four vines with big leaves coming off its stem.  In the middle of the pumpkin they were to write the noun (pumpkin) and on the leaves, adjectives from the board.  This is where I should have concluded until the next session, but nooooo.   Nothing went wrong, I just sensed the energy level waning.  But no worries, it all worked out.
     When it was time to transition from the graphic organizer to the sentence writing, most could do it!  I was so happy.  There were also many who struggled, but with a little help, were able to be successful.
     Their reward for hanging in there, for doing hard things and not giving up, was to make a pumpkin with scissors, paper, and glue.  They loved it!
     The next time I do this lesson (next year) I will make some changes. I'd break it up into smaller lessons, mostly, and I'd do more with the oral practice before moving into writing anything.
   

     I don't have the graphic organizer right now, so I'll scan and add it to the post next week.  You can easily make one, though, by drawing a pumpkin, vines, and leaves big enough to write a word inside.