Compare and Contrast Writing

Hey Ya'll!!! I feel like I haven't updated my blog in forever. I spent all last weekend planning for my July Wedding. We got CJ and my dad their suits, we paid off the caterer, we bought and semi decorated our wedding arch, and we sent out our invitations! I am a huge stress ball and this past weekend definitely helped relieve some of that stress! So with that said. I'm back and ready to share some of the teaching ideas we have done in the past two weeks. :)

For writing this week our skill was "Compare and Contrast Writing".  Our story was "Cowboys" and of course cowboys vs. Indians pops in my head. This is how I did it!

I read my kids a book about what it would be like to live like an Indian. It explained the clothes, food, houses, government, traditions, etc. It was an awesome book! Our other skill was "graphic organizers" so I showed the kids 4 different examples that they could pick from to write their information. Most picked a T-Chart (similarities and differences) but some chose a Ven-Diagram too.

After we read about Indians, we listened to the story Cowboys and they did another graphic organizer. This one they compared and contrasted themselves to a cowboy.

The next day, I discussed the compare and contrast writing steps: Intro, Paragraph 1 (similarities), Paragraph 2 (differences), Closure. I had the students decide if they had more similarities and differences with the Indian or with the Cowboy and that was the one they would choose.

I only had 4 cowboys and the rest were Indians.

There writing has really improved over the past few months and I am so proud of their similarities and differences. They really noticed odd things like their bed wasn't built into the wall like the Indians beds were. LOL I guess 2nd graders really think about that kind of stuff. :)

For the craft part of the writing activity, I had the students use water color paint and a coffee filter to make "tie-dye" looking bandanas or feathers. We thought they turned out awesome!