Spark Student Motivation for Writing... With a Healthy Snack!

First of all, I must say, I am very excited to be back blogging. I feel like the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of copies, planning, meetings, and teaching. In between my school life, my daughter started Kindergarten, which has been exciting and hard to believe. I am also teaching all subjects except for Math this year. This is a huge adjustment, going from just Reading & Writing to adding Science and Social Studies. It's fun to try to incorporated the ELA standards throughout the subjects, and I am starting to get the hang out of it. 

I am linking up with my friend, Joanne, at Head Over Heels for Teaching.

That brings me to next week's plans. I am so excited to combine Science with ELA. We are going to have an apple taste test and record data to help decide what type of apples we like best. From there we are going to come up with questions about the type of apples we like and even research to answer our questions. The end product will be an informational narrative, focused on word choice, description, and incorporating facts into the story. We will be busy, but I am excited to see what the students think. 

When making this unit, I thought about my class and about all the different learners that would be involved. I differentiated a few of the worksheets and even wrote a sample narrative for the students to see exactly what I am expecting. I love writing, so for me this was fun. I want my students to see my love for writing and even "catch" it during this project. 

I guess I am cheating for this linky, sorry Joanne, because I actually haven't done this yet, but I am SURE my reluctant writers will be thrilled to start off their week by getting to taste test apples and write about their favorites. Just giving a student choice, is a huge motivator in the classroom so for the fact I am adding food to the equation, I am certainly hoping for excited students. 

You can find this unit by clicking on the picture above, or here. Let me know what you think and I will report back, with pictures and of course student examples!