It’s an annual tradition: first graders at Grapevine Elementary write and publish books a minimum of two times a year and all come together as a grade level to share their stories.
The recent snow days created the perfect theme for a narrative story, which was the genre of the second “publish and share” book event of the school year held January 31. Earlier in the school year, first graders wrote non-fiction books about animal facts.
“Reading and writing are a big piece of what our first graders are learning, so at least twice a year classes come together because teachers want to be able to provide students an authentic audience and encourage them to write,” said Principal Nancy Hale.
Students practice incorporating the elements of storytelling: a beginning, middle and end, as well as characters and settings. Through the exercise, they also work on punctuation, proper capitalization and spelling.
“The activity all ties back to English language arts that they have been learning all school year and they also get credit for adjectives,” teacher Amy Van Hook shared.
“Exaggeration, like drinking 1,000 cups of hot chocolate to make the story more fun, was also acceptable,” first grade teacher Samantha Gray added with a smile as the classes were gathering in the learning commons.
First grader Violet Rasmussen said she was so excited when her teacher Rachel Sexton announced the activity at the beginning of the school year, thinking, “Oh, that will be fun. I think I’m going to like it.”
Her snow day story featured books that she read during those two days and now, after publishing two of her own books, her initial perception about the assignment was even more fun than she originally thought.
“I like that you can write about whatever you want in the book since you’re the one who made it. You can also design the pictures that you have in mind,” adding that she is looking forward to writing another book in the future.