It's my favorite Monday of the month...Monday Made It that is! Oh, I just love
Tara's crafty linky party! Her blog,
4th Grade Frolics, is where I found the inspiration for my first project.
I've been looking high and low to find creative and fun ideas to motivate my 4th graders to write this year. I'm hoping to inspire their creativity and help them to develop their inner author.
In order to motivate students to write at home I decided to make 2 creative writing take home journals. To kick off these journals I introduced our 2 new class pets!
Aren't they cute? They are
FurReal Friends and move when you push their backs. Their little tail wiggles and their head pops up and down. Adorable!
During writing, I have been passing out good behavior tickets to students who have been working hard and putting their best effort into their writing. Students simply write their name on the ticket and it goes into our weekly drawing. On Friday, I draw 2 names and these students win the opportunity to bring one of our class pets, and journal, home for the weekend.
Their task is to write about our class pet's Hip Hoppin' Adventures while they are home.
I created a journal cover, direction page, and good behavior tickets that you can snag at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for
free.
I've also been busy creating a lot of writing prompts for students to use if they finish their work early throughout the day. To start out with, I created Gingerbread on a Stick prompts as part of my
Gingerbread Writing Centers pack.
They are quick and easy to put together. Students just grab one during their free time and start writing!
I also created some
Christmas Cookie Writing Prompts. You can download them for
free! I picked up a cheap plate from Dollar Tree and Glued on this sign.
I printed, laminated, and cut out the Christmas Cookie Writing Prompts, and placed them on the plate. When students finish their work early they can grab a cookie from the plate.
How do you motivate students to write?
For more fun December ideas check out
Monday Made it!
