Make Your Own Fairy Tale Book

Hi guys! I wanted to share a fun way for your child to publish their own fairy tale story. The boys have recently been working on writing their own fairy tales. I thought it would be fun to make their own books. If your interested how we did this keep reading.

The boys started off by aging their paper using a tea bag and some warm water. 

We used water color paper but I am sure card stock works just fine. 

Once the paper dried I burnt the ends to give it a worn out look. You can just

have your child rip the ends if you don't want to burn it. 

With my help they found clipart to match the characters in their story. Here is my 

first grader coloring his princess who loves to read. 

We made the O in once upon a time really fancy. He drew a tree inside and decorated it with vines. 

My 3rd grader drew poison apples inside his O.

I drew light lines to guide them so their writing was more neat. 

Once they finished writing their story inside the book. I used some string to bind the book. 

They added their pictures and numbered the pages. 

That's it! It was really fun and the final copy turned out really nice. You can make this book for any story not just fairy tales.

Click on the image to check out the entire fairy tale unit. 

Linked Up With:
Practical Mondays
Montessori Mondays 
Preschool Kindergarten Community 

Fairy Tale Writing Unit

Hi guys! Today I wanted to share with you all the fun we had with our fairy tale writing unit. First let me start off by saying these units are incredible. They contain book suggestions, grammar, hands on fun, anchor charts, and step by step instructions. My boys have loved each and everyone of the writing units we've done so far, and this one was no different. Amy and Hope have put so much thought and creativity into each unit I seriously recommend you check out both their blogs and TPT stores.

We read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as our mentor text. We talked about story elements (character, setting, problem, solution, and events). We also talked about what a fairy tale is and the things it contains ( magic, talking animals, pattern of 7 and 3). Once they understood all that we started brainstorming ideas for their own stories. We created an anchor chart to gather all our initial ideas and they transferred it over to their worksheet.

The next day we took all our ideas we brainstormed and wrote the beginning, middle, and end of their stories.

They worked on an exercise to help them learn transition words in a story. 

They also created this fun mirror craft. They loved this challenge they had to break the evil queens

spell and put all the sentences and transition words back in order. If you make anything into a challenge

my boys are all in. 

taking their ideas and writing complete sentences and using transition words. We 

also worked on writing a good hook to capture the readers attention. 

This was my favorite activity. Getting rid of the choppy and boring sentences using conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions. They pull out a conjunction/subordinating conjunction and try to rewrite one of their boring sentences. 

We also replaced "said" with more of a vivid verb. 

Publishing:

Even though the file does come with a really nice craft and writing paper template to publish the final work. I thought it would be nice if they made their own story books. We used water color paper and stained it using tea bags. 

I burned the ends of the paper to make it look old (the boys didn't help with this part). They picked out their characters (we just searched for clipart online).

Coloring his story characters. 

Finished Books

Extra (not part of the unit):

I also had the boys read and listen to a lot of different fairy tales. After reading one they worked on these fairy tale pennants. 

We hung them up in our school room. They look so adorable!

Jane Goodall Biography Brochure

Hi guys! Happy Friday :). I hope you guys had a fun and productive week. One of my goals this year was to focus a lot on writing. Informational, biographies, narrative, etc. I am happy to say that we are accomplishing this goal. Today I wanted to share with you my sons Jane Goodall biography brochure report and art project. All resources are mentioned at the end of the post.

He really enjoyed learning all about her and her passion for animals. 

He gathered most of his information from this book and The Watcher which is more

detailed than Me...Jane. 

We also used QR codes for safe online research. 

Art Project:

I requested that I draw the chimp for him and I was okay with that. I made the outline and he added the details.Painted it and added texture. 

He cut out a tree trunk from brown construction paper and added detail using

black chalk pastels. He also used green and yellow paper to add leaves. 

 The art project was fun and easy. I think he could have drawn his own chimp if he wanted to.

The instructions were really clear and easy to follow. 

Resources:
Biography Brochure
Art Lesson
QR Codes

Linked Up With
Practical Monday

Animal Research Project

Hi guys! I hope you guys had a nice week. The boys have been hard at work doing an animal research project. My 3rd grader researched polar bears while my 1st grader researched lions. Along with the written report they both chose to make posters to go along with their projects.

Here are the resources both boys used to collect information on their animals. 

Along with the books they boys also used QR codes to find information online. 

Once they gathered all their information they wrote their rough draft. I also asked them to 

pick three words to define for their reader. 

Writing out his good copy. 

working on his poster display

with my assistance they chose an image and wrote a small fact under the picture. 

My 3rd grader always types up his final report. He included his source page and glossary too. 

Resource:
Write On Unit 5 

Cloudy With a Chance of... Writing Activity

Hi guys! We recently did a fun writing activity that goes with the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. This is one of the boys favorite books. The writing lesson was really quick and fun. Using the story as inspiration the boys wrote their own story.

After reading the story we talked about elements of a story (characters, setting, problem, solution)

The boys used a graphic organizer to plan out their story (printable found at the end of post)

Cloudy with a Chance of Juice

Cloudy with a Chance of Donuts

Both their stories were really good. Once they finished the made a little craft to go with it. 

This is was a really fun and creative activity. You can download the writing templates below.

Click on the image to download.