Super Sentence Writing!

 My younger authors started the session off with a very important lesson in grammar, and how we can use the various parts of speech to make our writing more interesting to read.  Through adjectives, adverbs, clauses, and phrases, we can paint the perfect picture in our readers' minds of exactly what we want them to see.  And that is what good writers do!

We started off with learning that a sentence just needs 5 things to be a sentence:

1. A capital at the beginning

2. A mark of punctuation at the end

3. A noun

4. A verb

5. A complete thought

Once we learned that, we looked at this boring sentence:

The sun shines.

It's a sentence, but it's boring!  It lacks detail.  So we added two adjectives, an adverb, a "where" phrase, and a "when" clause or phrase.   Look at the improvements across the grades!

by Autumn (1st grade)

by Brandon (1st grade)

by Iris (2nd grade)

by Vedant (3rd grade)

by Sara (4th grade)

Super Sentence Writing

    Another session of workshops is off to a great start!  As we were enjoying some beautiful late summer sunshine, we started off our workshop with a lesson in the importance of grammatical tools in sentence writing.  Our job as writers is to paint the perfect picture in our readers' minds of exactly what we want them to see.  We started off with the sentence: "The sun shines."   This is grammatically a correct sentence, but it doesn't come with any descriptors or details.  So step by step we added:

-2 adjectives

-1 adverb

-a phrase or clause that tells "when"

-a phrase or clause that tells "where"  

    My advanced writers played around with placements of phrases and clauses, to find the best order of their imagery.

    Enjoy these samples from across the grades!

                                     

By Joon (2nd grade)

                                            

by Kate (3rd grade)

by Daisy (4th grade)

by Armin (5th grade)

Fabulous Sentence Writing

No matter what age I teach, we start every workshop off with a lesson in detailed sentence writing.  All students, grades K-5, were given this base sentence:

The sun shines.

From there, we added:

~adjectives

~where phrases or clauses

~when phrases or clauses

The older students added:

~adverbs

~And they also learned how to start a sentence with "Because."

I always enjoy posting all grade levels for this particular assignment.  You can see how the students improve year to year!  Enjoy these samples:

 The light, bright sun shines in the sky next to a cloud in the morning.

~Tyler, Kindergarten

The hot, yellow sun shines next to a rainbow in the summer.
~Nikolas, 1st grade

 The bright, yellow sun shines next to the rainbow in the summer.

~Daniella, Grade 2

While the brown baby fawn is going to sleep, the sparkly and hot sun shines brightly over her.  ~Jessica, Grade 3

 Because the glowing bright sun shines flamingly, the ocean glistens at sunset.  ~Morgan, 4th grade

On top of the magnificent snow-capped mountains, the gold and yellow star-shaped sun shines sleepily when the sky starts turning orange. ~Kaitlyn, 5th grade

Starting Off With Super Sentences!

"Budding Authors and Artists" (grades 2-3) and "Awesome Authors and Artists" (grades 4-6) recently had lessons in how to write super sentences that create a vivid picture in the mind of the reader.  We started off with a  base sentence (otherwise known as a "boring sentence," containing just the bare minimum noun + verb) and added:
~ 2 adjectives
~ 1 adverb
~ a phrase telling "where"
~ a phrase telling "when"
~ Awesome Authors and Artists also learned how to start a sentence with "Because."  (YES, you can, if it's done right!!)

Once we added all of our details, we experimented with placement.  Many students found their sentences improved by moving their "When" or "Where" to the beginning of the sentence, for example.

Our boring, base sentence was: "The sun shines."  Check out how these students improved them, and made outstanding art projects too!

 The bright shiny sun shines fantastically on the beautiful garden while my mom waters the plants.

Anjalia, 2nd grade

 The yellow, orange, and hot sun shines brightly at noon at the sandy wavy beach.

Taryn, 3rd grade

 "Yesterday, on a terribly hot day, the bright, cheerful sun shone colorfully on a big puffy tree."

Abby, 3rd Grade

 "Because the firey, beautiful sun shines in the light blue sky of the misty morning, the village gets ready for the upcoming day."

Leila, 5th grade

"While dolphins swim happily in the crystal clear ocean, the scorching golden sun shines brightly."

Sofia, 5th grade 

Now that we have mastered sentence writing, we are ready for paragraphs!