Snowman brace map

This month we have started our snowman unit.  We have read many books, watched movies, and looked at pictures.  After gathering information, we began documenting it.  We created a brace map after reading Lucille Colandro's "There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow."

 

We used some parts from the book and others from our background knowledge.  After creating the map, we used it to compose sentences.  We also added "and" and "he" to improve our sentences.

For each sentence, we decided what we wanted to say, counted the words and spaces we would need, and chose the words one-by-one.  The words were on the bottom of the easel (sentence strips with magnet tape), ready to be used.  I called on kiddos to find the words and we read them as we added.  We used our big spaceman in between words and a marker for the periods.

The next day the easel was set out for centers.  Small groups of students worked together to create sentences.