Camp Write Along Day-5

Today was our last day of Camp Write Along. The students were shocked when they walked in this morning because the desks were back. They had no idea that they weren't going to use their sleeping bags on the last day. I didn't decide till after school was out to put the desks back to prepare for our testing run that took place today at 2pm. The students take the Writing portion of the LEAP on Tuesday.

Anyway, after they got over the new arrangement of desks that were now in rows and not in groups of four, we continued day 5 of Camp Write Along.

My student teacher, Mrs. Ahmad began with a shared reading of Wilford Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. This book was recommended to me by Mrs. Rodriguez a third grade teacher at my school who is also doing Camp Write Along. She read this book to her students yesterday and then had them write letters to our principal to share their camp memories. Since this was such a wonderful idea, I decided to do the same. This book was a great way to conclude Camp Write Along and have the students reflect on what they have accomplished, what they will always remember, and what they enjoyed the most.

Here is the anchor chart we used for the shared reading.

On Monday, all the fourth grade classes and Mrs. Rodriguez's third grade class are going to gather in the cafeteria to have a mini LEAP rally. We are going to sing our writing songs from Camp Write Along and share our best writing. Since there are four classes we are going to partner up and have the students pass papers every 5 minutes or so. They will read someone else's paper and go on a Scavenger Hunt looking for hooks, transitions, vocabulary, topic sentences, punctuation, capitalization, and interesting sentences (figurative language). We are really looking forward to this and are hoping this will help pump the students up for Tuesday's writing test.

I am so glad I discovered Camp Write Along while blog stalking. It has been the best way to prepare students for their upcoming LEAP writing test. Students were able to bring all of the steps in the writing process together in a fun and meaningful experience. This week long plan is definitely going in a file to forever keep, use and share in the coming years.