Letters to the Future

In the book I am reading to my son as a bedtime story, an eight year old boy uses a machine, called a chronofax, to send letters to his adult self. His 28 year old self not only receives the letters, but changes the way he is living his life, to try to live up to the expectations of the little boy he once was.

After reading that, I realized what a great writing prompt that would be, so I had the children write letters to the adults they will be in 20 years. The first 5 of these letters that were turned it, I posted on my own blog and the author of the book read them and posted the link to them on his facebook and twitter feeds.

"This is awesome. Lisa Rooney is an elementary school teacher, and she was inspired by the concept of the Chronofax from the song Letters Between a Little Boy and Himself as an Adult, and the novel The Wrath of Fate. She assigned her class to write letters to themselves as adults. Go see the (very funny) results!"

- Robert Brown, author of The Wrath of Fate


So, here are those original five letters, along with a couple more that have been handed in since then (I realize that there are still mistakes, but I wanted this to be a fun writing exercise).

Total Immersion History

 The younger elementary students aren't just learning about the Corps of Discovery, they ARE the Corp of Discovery. President Thomas Jefferson asks his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead an expedition to the West, to make maps, study plants and animal, make friends with the natives, and possibly find a water route to the Pacific ocean.
 While the corps spent the winter at Fort Mandan, they were joined by a French trader,Toussaint Charbonneau,and his young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea. They would work as guides and interpreters for the explorers. Sacagawea's baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, better known as "Pomp" was born while they were still at Fort Mandan.
 Sacagawea   Toussaint Charbonneau
 Sacagawea and baby Pomp played an important roll in the rest of the trip. The native people they met were less suspicious of a group traveling with a woman and child, because they knew that nobody would take a woman and child to war.
 Sacagawea knew which plants were edible and was able to cook for the men.
 Once they crossed the mountains, they made dug-out canoes and continued their journey westward.
 They finally reached the Pacific Ocean!
 They spent the winter at Fort Clatsop.
 The men became very fond of Pomp and Clark often referred to him a "my dancing boy". The journey back to St. Louis: This will be our last week studying Lewis and Clark. We will be finishing up this book tomorrow: One of the reading groups is also reading the book Tall Tails, which is told from the perspective of Seaman, Lewis' dog. We will also be watching the movie of The Time Warp Trio: Lewis and Clark

Action Poem

The newest poems the children have been working on use adverbs that end in "ly" and verbs ending in "ing" to describe an activity. The poems are based on the pattern set by this sample poem, "Rebound",byNancy Mack.
A wide variety of academic levels are represented in these poems, since I had all of my language arts groups work on them. The younger children, as young as 6 years old, dictated their poems to me and I wrote the sentences on the board for them to copy, while the older children (our oldest three are eleven years old), did most of the work without assistance.

I'm Talking...

The children have just finished their latest, and most difficult, poem. The lesson was about using synonyms and placing commas between adjective. The sample poem was titled "I'm Talking Big", read here by two of our students:



Each student had made a little book out of their own "I'm Talking" poem.



They each started with a very simple word and then found many ways of saying that same thing.

Here are a few examples:


I’m talking happy!
I’m talking excited!
I’m talking glad!
I’m talking joyful, smiley!
I’m talking cheerful, yeah, laughing!
I’m talking happy!

By W



I’m talking silly!
I’m talking funny!
I’m talking ridiculous!
I’m talking hilarious, hysterical!
I’m talking comical, awkward, goofy!
I’m talking foolish, crazy, idiotic, absurd!
I’m talking wild, wiggly, cuckoo, mindless, nonsensical!
I’m talking silly!

By J.A.



I’m talking annoying!
I’m talking bothering!
I’m talking pestering!
I’m talking troublesome, disturbing!
I’m talking distracting, irritating, aggravating!
I’m talking provoking, vexing, unfocused, menacing!
I’m talking harassing, distressing, obnoxious, pesky, irksome!
I’m talking annoying!


By T.A.

Teaching Grammar Through Poetry

A couple weeks ago (during our last three day weekend), Terry discovered this book. The more she read it, the more excited she became about this fun, interactive way to teach grammar concepts.



The children begin learning each new concept by reading a poem, along with a friend doing sound effects at the end of each line.
They then work on their own poem, based on the sample.

The first lesson was about active verbs and was presented as a poem about the cures for a boring school day. The children had fun posing next to their "word bubble" shaped poetry forms, so it looks like they're speaking.









It's hard to read the poems in the pictures, but some of the suggestions were, "dance to rap music", "play pranks on teachers", "watch movies", "run into walls", and "eat ice cream".

On week two, they learned how to choose the correct article, a, an, or the. The sample poem listed the items found in a very messy desk. The children then personalized a picture of a school locker and wrote a list-style poem about the things they found in their very messy locker. The sample poem we read rhymed. I did not require the children to write rhyming poems, but a few of them did, and I'm very proud of all the work they put into these.

This is our new "locker room" on the wall near the coat racks:



As you can see, they are all unique. The lists inside are equally unique.







All of the children, even the youngest, did a good job on this project. The book is really intended for children third grade and up, but for the younger children, it was great reading and write practice. They told me what they wanted to write, I wrote it on the board, and they copied it.