Cute Fall Bulletin Board Idea!

I don't know about you, but I having been listening to so much about the Common Core that I could scream I feel very well informed.  We always do a mini-unit on apples in the fall.  I found this cute craftivity on Pintrest but couldn't find the source (sorry- if you are the original poster please let me know so I can give you credit!)  The students each received a paper plate then they cut two curved lines.  They colored the cut out pieces for the leaves and glued them on the apple core.  I loved this because the project has no waste!  I knew I wanted to display their work because they turned out so cute.  Then I thought about what cute caption I could come up with and this is what I did.  What do you think?  Very tongue in cheek, but I love it!

Let me know what ideas you have for fall bulletin boards!

As promised here are some pics and descriptions of what I did in Writing Camp.  Being new to this whole blogging thing and with the start up of school, it took me longer than I would have liked, sorry!  Well here goes.  We met for five hours each day for five days.  At the end of the five days we had a showcase of the student's work.  It was a wonderful way to end so the students could show off what they had worked on all week.  It was 94 degrees and incredibly humid, but the students and the parents were so happy to be there.  We started each day with a movement activity that would be used as a writing prompt.  We would break them up into tribes then give them an activity that they could work on as a group.  Thanks to a great idea one of my colleagues had, the first day of camp they received a large cardboard box that they could decorate to be their hut.  They loved this!   Then they had a choice of writing a narrative about the experience of decorating their hut, or a creative piece as if they were really living in the hut.  We would always have time for sharing and for complimenting each other's writing.  Then we would make suggestions for future writing.

Did I mention how much they loved making their huts?

One of the other activities was to decorate a shower curtain with a "scene" to surround their hut.  I think they liked this as much if not more than decorating their huts.  I had seen the idea to use a dollar store shower curtain for large projects on Pintrest and it worked really well.  The only advice I would give you is to make sure you use Sharpies or some kind of permanent markers.  The Crayola markers did rub off if you touched it.  I was amazed at how creative they were with their shower curtains and as we all know, once those creative juices were flowing it was incredible how that changed their writing.

I only wish you could see the big smiles on their faces!

Here is one finished project.  It looked really incredibly neat in person.

After their activity, we would meet at our learning area for a Writing Workshop.  We covered many different topics and made an anchor chart for each.  We posted the anchor charts so we could refer back to them throughout the week.

I made these palm trees out of an empty carpet roll from Lowe's that they cut in half for me and gave to me for FREE!! (Insert me doing my happy dance) Then I covered the bottoms with brown lunch bags scrunched (sorry for the technical term) on  The palm fronds are made from construction paper and  umbrellas.  I made these a couple of years ago, so I don't have a tutorial and I don't remember where I got the idea.  They matched my Survivor theme perfectly though!

They really enjoyed the workshop time.

We covered many topics such as where ideas come from; author's purpose; safe sharing; beginning, middle, and end; and how to write dialog.

I decided that a great way to teach dialog is by using knock, knock jokes and letting them write a puppet show.  They had so much fun with this.  After a mini-lesson on writing dialog, they had to follow a certain format to make sure they were writing the dialog correctly.   Because there was so much repetition, it helped them assimilate and retain the correct procedure.  Then  they got to perform their puppet shows and knock, knock jokes.  This was too funny! 

They had to complete writing challenges as a tribe each day.  If they completed their challenge they received one log.  After they received three logs they got a flame.  This really helped motivate them.  One of the challenges was to come up with an overused word and create a tombstone so it could "Rest In Peace."  They had to write the overused word on the tombstone along with some acceptable substitutes.  They did a great job on this and everyone completed the challenge.  

Too cute!

Another challenge was to create an envelope book.  I love this idea!  The pictures below are pretty self-explanatory.  It was the activity following our mini-lesson on expository writing.  

Front Cover

First Envelope

I used the multi-colored 3x5 index cards and folded them in half.  They had the illustration on the outside and the information on the inside.

Another great challenge( that I didn't get any pics of) was the project they did after the mini-lesson on beginning, middle, and end. I drew two lines on  an 8 1/2x11 sheet of paper the "tall" way making three sections. Then I copied the paper to make sure each camper had four sheets.  I put them together and stapled all three sections.   Then I had the students draw three different characters on right sides (ie a cowboy, an astronaut, and a dog or an alien, a ballerina, and a firefighter--you get the idea).  They had to make sure the head was in the first section, the body and arms in the second, and the legs and feet in the third.  Then in the left side they wrote the beginning, middle, and end of a story.  They turned out great and it really solidified this difficult concept for them.  

After an entire week of hard work and fun, we had a showcase on Friday afternoon.  We invited their families to see their final products.  Despite the heat, it was a huge success!  The students were so proud of their work and the families were very impressed.  I asked both the participants and the parents to complete a survey.  Imagine my surprise when the only negative comment was that the camp should be two weeks next year!  We'll see...

One of the camp participants shares his work.